8th grade Literary analysis - need suggestions

[lewelma]

I'm a science/math type, but do love literary analysis. We had a lot of fun with this assignment. I know a lot of you will not have read Viala, so might not be able to advise, but I would love some help on where I go from here. Is it just more of the same, but working more independently? Or do I try to encourage him to write about different aspects of literature? Or comparison of different works? I'm just not clear on what is an easier assignment and what is harder.

 

Please note, that although my son did write this, we worked together for 2 full hours to edit, so not completely his own work.

 

Thanks for all help.

 

ETA: I am also very open to specific suggestions on this essay!

 

Ruth in NZ

 

 

Symbolism in Vaila

 

A major theme of Gothic literature is how the past can influence and haunt the present. Vaila by Shiel is about the last days of the House of Harfager which are strongly influenced by a terrible deed done centuries ago by its first member, Sweyn. After falling in love with the wife of his older brother, Harold, he imprisons him, cuts off his ears, and puts out one of his eyes. When Harold escapes, he is pushed off a cliff by Sweyn to fall to his death after which Sweyn then goes on to marry Harold's wife. Five-hundred years later, the house that the story is centered on is located on Vaila, a lonely island centered in the middle of a constant storm, and appears to have been built by a shade of Harold as a plan for revenge. The house symbolizes the torture, imprisonment, and death of Harold forcing the inhabitants to re-enact the last days of Harold, thus linking the present to the past.

 

The torturing of Harold, where he looses his ears and one of his eyes, is symbolized in the unusual location of the house. The “roar of the sea†as well as the “oppressive booming in the ears†of the constant storm surrounding Vaila is a constant reminder of Sweyn's terrible deed as well as torture. For just as Harold had no ears and lived in complete silence, the members of the House of Harfager are cursed to incredible hearing and to live in constant cacophony. “That by way of the ears do they drink the cup of furie of the earless Harold.†In addition since balance is caused by the inner ear, “never...[is] the sensation of giddiness holy absent.†One without ears would have the never ending feeling of dizziness. Finally, as the narrator first enters the house he observes “darkness now was around meâ€; the darkness in the house completes this comparison for one with only one eye everything is slightly dimmer.

 

Imprisonment in a dungeon is also symbolised by the house's environment and architectural design. Firstly, it is dark. Next, when Harfager leads the nameless narrator to the lowest level of the house, the narrator notes that “from the wide scampering that ensued on our entrance, the place was, it was clear, the abode of hordes of water-rats.†Harfager then says that he believes that they had “for some purpose, been placed there by the original architect.†Indicating that the rats were purposely set there to give the house the feel of a dungeon. Finally the house itself is chained, “from many points near the top of the brazen wall huge iron chains...reached out in symmetrical rays to points on the ground hidden by the flood.†Combined with the fact that the house is at no place fastened to the ground but instead sits a top a large brazen floor, this gives the impression that the house is chained to the ground to prevent it from escaping, meaning that the house in this case symbolises Harold in chains.

 

At the climax of the story, Harold's escape and death is reflected by the breaking of the house's chains and its plunge into the ocean. “I was instantly conscious of the harsh snap of something near me. There was a minute's breathless pause – and then – quick, quick – ever quicker – came the throb, the snap, and the pop, in vastly wide circular succession, of the anchoring chains of the mansion†and then finally “the ponderous palace moved.†The house starts spinning emulating the feeling the ear-less Harold had when he finally broke free of his chains. The mansion then slides into the sea ending the house of Harfager the same way the life of Harold ended, by falling into the sea.

 

The torture, imprisonment, and death of Harold is further expanded on through the deaths of the last three members of the house of Harfager. The first death is that of Swertha, Harfager's Aunt, who is strangled by Aith, a servant. The narrator's first impression of Aith is “a skeleton of a tall man...the glitter of a tiny eye, however,...quickly reassured me. Of ears, he showed no sign.†Just by the fact that Aith has only one eye and no ears makes us think that he might be some shade of Harold. In this case the torture has been reversed; Harold's ghost tortures and kills his brother's descendant. The next death is that of Harfager's mother who is already in a coffin, basically dead. Her unconscious body is protected by three strings each triggering a bell. Across the length of the story, the bells ring one by one indicating the rats have eaten through them and are closer to eating her. In the end the last bell rings, and we can only assume that she was eaten alive by rats. Thus, one of Sweyn's descendent's dies imprisoned. The final death is that of Harfager. He stays in the house to the very end and falls with the house into the sea, emulating the death of Harold. Thus, the last of the house of Harfager dies the way Harold did.

 

In this Gothic short story, the mansion and its surrounding environment re-enacts the past. The descendent's of Sweyn are tortured by the noise of the roaring of the storm, imprisoned by the longing remain at Vaila, and killed when the house falls into the sea. This sequence of events emulates and re-enacts the death of Harold. In addition, the house itself symbolises Harold as he is chained to the ground and symbolises how he falls into the ocean when the chains snap. In Vaila Sheil merges the story of the past with the story of the present in a clever and breathtaking manner.

[Cosmos]

Sounds like a creepy story! :) I enjoyed the essay. I think he's doing great work, and whatever direction you take will be productive for him. Bear in mind, my ds is at roughly the same stage, so I'm not sure how helpful my advice is. But since there aren't any other replies yet, here are my suggestions:

 

1) Do more at this level with increasing independence, I think. (I struggle with what this should look like at my house because I know my ds learns the most from a lot of support in the revision stage. And he isn't really experienced enough yet with literary analysis to generate his own theses from scratch. We discuss a LOT first. He has plenty of his own ideas and opinions about literature, so it's not like I'm telling him what to think. But he needs help seeing how those ideas fit within the framework of literary analysis.)

 

2) Have him do analysis papers on a variety of aspects. I recently looked back at several literature papers I wrote in high school and realized that all I ever wrote about was theme. I suppose it was what I found easiest or most comfortable, but probably I should have been required to write other types of analysis. I have picked up a few literary criticism texts and they have been helpful for me in seeing the full range of topics that fall under literary analysis.

 

3) I know you didn't ask for feedback on this paper specifically, but I did notice a few spots where he dropped his quote into the paper without any surrounding explanation. The fourth sentence in the torture paragraph is one example. I was always taught that every quote must be explained, not just "plopped in". He did a good job with many of the quotes, like this one:

 

The narrator's first impression of Aith is “a skeleton of a tall man...the glitter of a tiny eye, however,...quickly reassured me. Of ears, he showed no sign.†Just by the fact that Aith has only one eye and no ears makes us think that he might be some shade of Harold.

 

So that's just something to work on paying attention to as he goes forward.

 

4) You could have him try an explication. I don't remember doing these when I was in school, but they are covered in the literary criticism books I have. Basically, an analysis is when you take one aspect of the text and follow it through. In this essay, for example, the literary concept analyzed is symbolism, specifically the symbol of the house. In an explication, on the other hand, you take a very short text or a part of a text and look at all aspects revealed in that passage: plot, theme, characterization, figurative language, poetic devices, etc.

[lewelma]

Sounds like a creepy story! :)

My fault! I asked him what short story he would like to write about. And leave it to a 13 year old boy to come up with this one!

 

Thank you so much for the wonderful suggestions; I especially like number 4!  We will definitely try that.

 

Like yours, my son also needs a lot of support, mostly in organizing his thinking.  So we just jot down short notes as we discuss all aspects of the work, and then I ask him what he wants to write about.  This time it was symbolism. We then go over all the different ideas we have already discussed and try to come up with a thesis.  We really struggled as to whether re-enactment was actually symbolism or not.  It got pretty muddled as we tried to separate the two and so he decided to just lump it all together. This is only his third attempt at any literary analysis at all, so I was pretty pleased.

 

Very good point about the dropping in the quotes.  I'll work on that.  And thanks for the example when he got it right.  I will bring both of these up with him to show him the difference.

 

Do you have any suggestions for the intro and conclusion?  I was really struggling to help him with these.

 

Thanks heaps!

 

Ruth in NZ

[Cosmos]

Do you have any suggestions for the intro and conclusion?  I was really struggling to help him with these.

 

 

I find it hard to know how to write an introduction for a literary paper. When writing about the real world, you want to bring your audience into your topic by giving some context or narrowing from a wider subject. But in a literary essay, your topic isn't in the real world. It's a free-standing text, so how do you construct the same kind of links that a historical subject might provide? You could put it in context of the author's work, or his life, or (as in this essay) the genre of the text. But that's a little steep for a middle schooler who doesn't yet have a broad experience in literary criticism.

 

I find it interesting that in the textbooks I mentioned before, they give sample explication and analysis essays and none of the essays have really any introduction at all. The explications are titled "An Explication of XYZ Poem" and begin something like, "The first noteworthy feature of XYZ poem is . . ." The analysis papers have a tiny bit more introduction, but not much. This is the first line of a student paper entitled "The Hearer of the Tell-Tale Heart" --

 

Although there are many things we do not know about the narrator of Edgar Allan Poe's story "The Tell-Tale Heart" — is he a son? a servant? a companion? — there is one thing we are sure of from the start. He is mad.

 

(This is from a text called Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry and Drama by X. J. Kennedy p. 1367.) The student essay goes on to explore the characterization of the narrator, the point of view, and the narrator's reliability.

 

So, perhaps it's the convention in literary criticism to just skip an introduction and get straight to the point. Maybe that's what college professors are looking for these days? The essays do have conclusions that are somewhat more well-developed, though. Usually a summary of the points made in the paper and making explicitly clear the link between form and meaning that is being claimed. In the same textbook, an analysis of Robert Frost's poem "Design" ends with this:

 

From these unexpected departures from the pattern of the Italian sonnet announced in the opening lines, I get the impression that Frost's poem is somewhat like the larger universe. It looks perfectly orderly, until you notice the small details in it.

 

(This is not the full conclusion, just the the final two sentences. From Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry and Drama p. 1393)

[Chrysalis Academy]

So I think this is a fantastic literary analysis by an 8th grade, especially a "mathy" guy!  Because I think it is very well done, and I know you are working with him on all the basics, I'm kind of digging deep here for my critiques: these aren't things I'd point out to a learning or sensitive writer, I don't think, but they are polish points that as an editor I would share with an author, KWIM?

 

 

Symbolism in Vaila

A major theme of Gothic literature is how the past can influence and haunt the present. Vaila by Shiel is about the last days of the House of Harfager which are strongly influenced by a terrible deed done centuries ago by its first member, Sweyn. After falling in love with the wife of his older brother, Harold, he imprisons him, cuts off his ears, and puts out one of his eyes. When Harold escapes, he is pushed off a cliff by Sweyn to fall to his death after which Sweyn then goes on to marry Harold's wife. Five-hundred years later, the house that the story is centered on is located on Vaila, a lonely island centered in the middle of a constant storm, and appears to have been built by a shade of Harold as a plan for revenge. The house symbolizes the torture, imprisonment, and death of Harold forcing the inhabitants to re-enact the last days of Harold, thus linking the present to the past.  There is some repetition in this paragraph:  Centered twice in one sentence, Harold's name repeated twice in the last sentence, maybe one should be replaced with a pronoun

The torturing of Harold (of-phrase), where he looses his ears and one of his eyes, is symbolized in the unusual location of the house. (passive)The “roar of the sea†as well as the “oppressive booming in the ears†of the constant storm surrounding Vaila is a constant reminder of Sweyn's terrible deed as well as torture. For just as Harold had no ears and lived in complete silence, the members of the House of Harfager are cursed to incredible hearing and to live in constant cacophony. “That by way of the ears do they drink the cup of furie of the earless Harold.†In addition since balance is caused by the inner ear,(passive) “never...[is] the sensation of giddiness holy absent.†One without ears would have the never ending feeling of dizziness. Finally, as the narrator first enters the house he observes “darkness now was around meâ€; the darkness in the house completes this comparison for one with only one eye everything is slightly dimmer.

Imprisonment in a dungeon is also symbolised by the house's environment and architectural design. (passive) Firstly, it is dark. Next, when Harfager leads the nameless narrator to the lowest level of the house, the narrator notes that “from the wide scampering that ensued on our entrance, the place was, it was clear, the abode of hordes of water-rats.†Harfager then says that he believes that they had “for some purpose, been placed there by the original architect.†Indicating that the rats were purposely set there to give the house the feel of a dungeon. Finally the house itself is chained, “from many points near the top of the brazen wall huge iron chains...reached out in symmetrical rays to points on the ground hidden by the flood.†Combined with the fact that the house is at no place fastened to the ground but instead sits a top a large brazen floor, this gives the impression that the house is chained to the ground to prevent it from escaping, meaning that the house in this case symbolises Harold in chains.

He's using the passive voice quite a bit, as well as using of-phrases for possession.  I think this is fine once in a while, but it can be slightly awkward when repeated.  Changing it up on some of these would make it flow a bit more smootly.

At the climax of the story, Harold's escape and death is reflected by the breaking of the house's chains and its plunge into the ocean.(this is a good use of passive voice - you want the emphasis on Harold's escape and death, right? Notice how use of the passive changes the emphasis of the sentence.  He should use that when he means to emphasize the object) “I was instantly conscious of the harsh snap of something near me. There was a minute's breathless pause – and then – quick, quick – ever quicker – came the throb, the snap, and the pop, in vastly wide circular succession, of the anchoring chains of the mansion†and then finally “the ponderous palace moved.†The house starts spinning emulating the feeling the ear-less Harold had when he finally broke free of his chains. The mansion then slides into the sea ending the house of Harfager the same way the life of Harold ended, by falling into the sea.

The torture, imprisonment, and death of Harold is further expanded on through the deaths of the last three members of the house of Harfager. The first death is that of Swertha, Harfager's Aunt, who is strangled by Aith, a servant. The narrator's first impression of Aith is “a skeleton of a tall man...the glitter of a tiny eye, however,...quickly reassured me. Of ears, he showed no sign.†Just by the fact that Aith has only one eye and no ears makes us think that he might be some shade of Harold. In this case the torture has been reversed; Harold's ghost tortures and kills his brother's descendant. The next death is that of Harfager's mother who is already in a coffin, basically dead. Her unconscious body is protected by three strings each triggering a bell. Across the length of the story, the bells ring one by one indicating the rats have eaten through them and are closer to eating her. In the end the last bell rings, and we can only assume that she was eaten alive by rats. Thus, one of Sweyn's descendent's dies imprisoned. The final death is that of Harfager. He stays in the house to the very end and falls with the house into the sea, emulating the death of Harold. Thus, the last of the house of Harfager dies the way Harold did.

In this Gothic short story, the mansion and its surrounding environment re-enacts the past. The descendent's (not possissive - no apostrophe - Sweyn's descedents would be better) of Sweyn are tortured by the noise of the roaring of the storm, imprisoned by the longing remain at Vaila, and killed when the house falls into the sea. This sequence of events emulates and re-enacts the death of Harold. In addition, the house itself symbolises Harold as he is chained to the ground and symbolises how he falls into the ocean when the chains snap. (this sentence reads a little awkwardly)  In Vaila Sheil merges the story of the past with the story of the present in a clever and breathtaking manner.

 

 

Like I said, I think it's great.  My comments relate to voice and style.  He is writing in a very formal style, it almost sounds old-fashioned, and the passive constructions and the possessive constructions make it sound a little stilted.  I think it would move and flow better if it were in a bit more active voice, and with slightly more "modern" sounding constructions.  Do you think he is writing in the "voice" of the author of the book a little bit? Sometimes I do that, too.  I don't know his normal writing voice well enough to tell if this is something he does often in his writing (in that case, I think I'd work on voice and limiting use of the passive) or if it's an artifact of the story he is writing about.

 

I hope that's helpful - I know it's picky! But it seems like his writing is ready for that level of critique, because the content is just excellent, and I love his word choice.

[lewelma]

Cosmos,

 

I'm so glad to hear that that intros are not a big thing in lit analysis.  I was quite stumped as to how to advise on this essay, but I will get him to expand his conclusion next time.  He wrapped it all up too quickly IMHO, but he was pretty much done with edits by that point and I did not want to push it. 

 

I really appreciate you taking the time to type in some examples for me. I will go see if I can find some in all those books I bought in January!

 

Thank you for taking the time to help me!

 

Ruth in NZ

[lewelma]

Thanks heaps for looking at this Rose.  I was very pleased with his work given that we dropped writing for 7 months last year.  Seems like he got some literary maturity while writing all those math proofs. :001_smile:

 

And thanks for the very specific suggestions.  I went over them with ds yesterday, and he just went :confused:  about the 'of' phrases.  Seems like he prefers the way they sound, so you must be right that they are in a lot of the old books he reads.  Will work on it.  The one you pointed out, however, I actually made him change the phrase into that.  Before he had "Harold's torture"  and it just kept giving me the giggles, like he owned his torture like he owned a house.  :001_huh:  Harold's hat, Harold's car, Harold's torture.  Just not quite right, but I'm not sure what would be better.  Plus, don't you love how 13 year old boys pick the most disgusting books for their mother's to read!

 

I am so glad that you picked up on the passive tense.  We actually spent a good 30 minutes talking about passive tense during the edits.  I'm not sure that he was even aware of what it was as he dropped his grammar program in 6th grade, and I think he has forgotten a lot about it :( .  We went over the main two reasons to use it (that I am aware of): for emphasis and for avoiding the subject (Nixon's 'mistakes were made' comes to mind).  He was having a lot of trouble with the intro sentences, a lot of trouble.  In WWS3 SWB begins talking about how you don't need a topic sentence so in your face, or repetitive, and I think he took the wrong message away. (Plus, we left on week 12 so I'm sure that SWB taught more later on).  He kind of tried to tie the paragraphs together without straightforward topic sentences, and it was really confusing.  So I made him go and put some in.  I really wish now that I had kept his original 2 drafts.  He put the topic sentences in for me, but the way they were written made you scratch your head as to where you were in the paper, and I realised that they did put the torture, imprisonment, and death at the back end of the sentences, so you really had to wait to be told which part of the thesis the paragraphs were about.  something like:

 

Harold's torture, where he looses his ears and one of his eyes, is symbolized in the unusual location of the house.  (still the same and awkward; but torture in the front)

The house's environment and architectural design reflects his imprisonment in a dungeon.

At the climax of the story, the breaking of the house's chains and its plunge into the ocean reflects Harold's escape and death.

 

So I actually told him to make the 2nd and 3rd topic sentences passive to bring the thesis topic pieces to the front.  But as you say, the sentences still sound awkward. I would *love* some suggestions on these if you have the time.

 

Also, DS did not like the idea of making the structure of the essay very clear; he felt it was too obviously structured and wanted to hide it a bit.  I told him that this kind of essay is more like a textbook than National Geographic.  That, yes you want flow; but also you want to keep the thesis clearly in the reader's mind by giving clues to the outline.  What do you think?  Is this true for student literary analysis? I'm thinking that this approach is why the essay sounds very formal - certainly not what you would see in a newspaper.  However, I'm not sure that this boy will ever be very chatty in his writing.

 

Well, that has gotten very long.  Would love some more advice if you have time!  Thanks so much for what you have already given!

 

Ruth in NZ

 

[Cosmos]

Also, DS did not like the idea of making the structure of the essay very clear; he felt it was too obviously structured and wanted to hide it a bit.

 

I know what he means. It feels like giving away your punchline, right? One thing you can do is make the topic sentences a little more general. This has two benefits: 1) you can make their connections to each other more apparent with parallel structure and repeated phrases and 2) you aren't giving everything away right at the start. The rest of the paragraph will unfold and expand the general statement.

 

Here's one way you could do that with his topics. I just did these off the top of my head. I'm sure your ds would come up with better sentences! But the idea is to show the structure of the essay (the parts of Harold's life) without giving away the whole shebang. I bolded the connecting words and phrases that should help to link the ideas.

 

Harold's torture, where he looses his ears and one of his eyes, is symbolized in the unusual location of the house.  (still the same and awkward; but torture in the front)

 

The house's environment and architectural design reflects his imprisonment in a dungeon.

 

At the climax of the story, the breaking of the house's chains and its plunge into the ocean reflects Harold's escape and death.

 

From the beginning of the story, the house itself echoes episodes of Harold's life, beginning with the torture he endured at the hands of Whoeveritwas.

 

Later we also see in this house reflections of Harold's time of imprisonment as the narrator explores the dark and oppressive structure.

 

Harold experienced a violent and terrifying death, and again the house seems to reenact this final episode of Harold's life.

 

I wouldn't claim that mine are any better than his (and I might not have the details right, as I haven't read the story). But just an idea if he likes to keep a little bit hidden from the reader.

[lewelma]

oh, Cosmos, these are wonderful. He will love them!