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Help!!! Literary analysis: use of characters first or last name when writing


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I lead a literature / writing co-op class. I commented on a student's paper recently that she should not flip back and forth between the names "Atticus" and "Finch" in her character analysis essay. She complied very willingly, but expressed confusion, as other teachers had actually instructed her to do so.

 

I have been searching the internet and dozens of my writing handbooks, but I can not find a reference!

 

I was fairly certain that somewhere along the line I had been explicitly taught to pick a name (either first or last) and stick with it.

 

Ideas? Have I just lost my mind?

 

Cross-posted on high school board.

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I don't have any factual reference but........I always use the name that the character is best-known and only use that one name during the essay. For example, Hester in Scarlet Letter, Franklin in his famous autobiography, etc.

 

Myra

 

This is what I do too. I don't think I have ever seen it as a printed rule. It's more like writing common sense to me.

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I had one student whose mother had taught her to vary the references to the characters so as to avoid repetition by using substitutes such as "our heroine", "the protagonist", and several other creative choices that were even more jarring. Gahh!

That was a sticky wicket!

 

For characters, I teach students to pick one name and use it consistently, most often the name used by the author.

 

For historical figures, we use the full name for the first reference and the surname thereafter; never, ever the first name.

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I don't have any factual reference but........I always use the name that the character is best-known and only use that one name during the essay. For example, Hester in Scarlet Letter, Franklin in his famous autobiography, etc.

Myra

 

Same. With the first mention it would be the full name, and thereafter the name (first name, last name, or "nick-name") that made most sense, mostly likely following the author's lead. Atticus Finch would be Atticus, where "Boo" and "Scout" would me called thusly.

 

Willy Wonka would be "Wonka" where Charlie Bucket would be Charlie. There might be times during an essay when I might want to reprise a full name for effect or for clarity, but I would not jump between using first name, last name, and/or nicknames in an effort to "mix it up."

 

Bill

 

 

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