Why have quotations in a critical essay?

They help to explain/highlight /clarify the point you are making.

They are evidence that you

• have a close understanding of the text

• can relate aspects of the text to the points you make

• Quotations should not be too long

• They should highlight/reinforce/explain the point you are making

• Do not use This shows

• Do not start a sentence with a quotation

• Make a comment before quoting

Verbs to use to introduce the quotation

• portrays• conveys…• evokes• displays• Reveals• suggests• illustrates , highlights , reinforces.• The manner in which the character is portrayed…• The author reveals the character’s insecurity ,

sadness , joy etc.• The author has been successful in portraying…

You must insert the quotation correctly.

There are 2 different methods but both

methods can be used in your essay.

• METHOD 1 (see example 1on next slide) )• Make a comment about an aspect of the text

you have read and add a colon instead of a full-stop

• Take a new line, indent slightly and then open inverted commas

• Quote and then close inverted commas • Take a new line and attempt to analyse

aspects of the quotation which you find particularly effective.

Example 1 Dahl has been successful, via careful word-

choice, in portraying the love that Mary Maloney has for her husband :

– “She loved to luxuriate in the presence of this man , and to feel almost as a sunbather feels the sun that warm male glow that came out of him to her when they were alone together.”(p.28)

The word “luxuriate “makes it sound like he is for her a really special indulgence and the use of the simile helps create an almost passionate intensity to her feelings for him.

METHOD 2

At times you may prefer to add quotation in a sentence without taking a new line.

Dahl effectively conjures up the greedy hunger of the policemen by describing their voices as being “thick and sloppy because their mouths were full of meat” which is successful in highlighting the greediness of the men as they fill their stomachs.

• Look at this example:

Puff is quite a greedy young boy as he claims that he had breakfast and dinner all at once. Johnny calls him “fat guts” as he is always going on about what he has eaten. It is quite funny when Puff belches and then says “Excuse me, that’s the pickles”. Nevertheless, he is a good, loyal friend to Johnny as he helps Johnny stand up to the bullies.

Owen describes the soldiers as “bent double, like old beggars under sacks” which is a tremendously successful simile to portray how ragged and unkempt they are and the fact that they are weighed down by their heavy burden. He goes on to convey how they are unhealthy and resemble old witches when he says “coughing like hags”. This imagery really helps highlight the unappealing appearance of the men experiencing first-hand the horrors of war.

Have a look at a model paragraph on Curley’s wife from the novel “Of Mice and Men” . Notice how it subtly combines comments, textual evidence and personal response.( Also note how quotations can be very short but effective.)

There is only one woman on the ranch, mysteriously referred to throughout the novel as “Curley’s wife”. I think Steinbeck’s decision to give her no name really helps emphasise how she is considered more a possession of Curley’s, than a person in her own right. The ranchers are wary of her , referring to her as “jailbait “and “tart” so I was intrigued to see if these labels were justified.

Her physical appearance ,when we first see, her is indeed eye-catching:

“She had full rouged lips and wide – spaced eyes , heavily made up. Her finger nails were red .Her hair hung in little rolled clusters , like sausages.” Obviously, she has spent time on how she looks but I think that Steinbeck wants her to be interpreted as a lonely, young woman craving attention .

Uncle Ernest is devastated by the threats of the two police-men that he will end up in court if he dares to see the girls again. The author’s use of the phrase “the earth sliding away from under his feet” is superb at conveying how he feels as if he no longer has any steadfast foundation on which to build his life.

The forcefulness the impact of despair has on him is conveyed in the phrase “a wave of panic crashing into his mind “ . It is obvious he does not want to return to the life of loneliness which he has been so accustomed to because of its “unbearable familiar emptiness”. How sad it is that he is unable to release any tears and get rid of the pent- up emotion! However, Ernest is a man who, we know, has experienced great trauma on the battlefield during the war and left shell-shocked, he is unable to express himself as portrayed in the phrase “He wanted to cry but could not “.

The ending of the story is very poignant as we have Uncle Ernest in the depths of despair , returning to his old life in a “crowded noisy bar” where, ironically he will be alone and resigned to a life of drowning his sorrows in alcohol every evening. The author is successful in portraying how the alcohol lures him in with the effective imagery in the phrase “a beautiful heavily-baited trap of beer pots “which will ensnare him so that he will lose himself in drink and never again try to forge relationships and interact with the outside world in any meaningful way. It is a terrible tragedy for Uncle Ernest because he is not really living, just existing , earning enough to pay his bills, get drunk every night and resign himself to “oblivion” which, interestingly, as the last word of the story encapsulates his state of mind after his ordeal.

It is interesting to note how parts of his plans are very lucid and well-thought out, as suggested by the long flowing sentences. At other times there is the sense that he is planning things as he goes along , suggested by phrases like “Let me see; let me see".The brevity and the repetition increases the immediacy ,the sense that Iago is not too far ahead of his adversaries and it is this ability of his to remain calm and think logically under pressure that is admirable

Iago holds the stereotypical view that black men are almost animalistic in their love-making and he hates Othello as he suspects that “the lusty Moor” has had a physical relationship with his wife ,Emilia:

“I hate the Moor

And it is thought abroad that twixt my sheets

He’s done my office.”

A very well chosen quotation.Look at how this short quotation is fully explained,

analysed and evaluated

At the start when Juliet says “O serpent heart, hid with a flowering face”, she is comparing Romeo’s heart to that of a snake , a particularly odious , evil creature which succeeds in concealing its horror with the guise of a perfect flower. The phrase alludes to the serpent in the Garden Of Eden who with a show of goodness enticed Eve to eat the apple and consequently damn all humanity.

The mood of the letter starts to change with a transitional couple of paragraphs where Keane tells his young infant how his birth has made him reevaluate his life:

“Your coming has turned me upside down and inside out.”

He talks about how “in a world of insecurity and ambition and ego, it’s easy to be drawn in , to take chances with our lives” and “gamble with death”.Daniel’s sighing and gurgling has made him state, ” I wonder how I could ever have thought glory and prizes and praise were sweeter than life” .The reader is then bombarded by anecdotal evidence from Keane’s experiences in war-torn countries which swiftly erodes the feeling of contentment evoked in the opening paragraphs.

Keane tells us how he is “pained, perhaps haunted is a better word” by the memory of each suffering child and how it is” suddenly so vivid now”. He goes on to focus on individual cases of children who have been “ hurt and abused and killed”. We hear about Ando Mikail, only ten who died from napalm burns and how he cried out in pain and the wind blew dust in his wounds. This is a shocking image of a child crying beseechingly for help, but to no avail.

It is a shame that her husband is an alcoholic and we learn how the “cancer of alcoholism” ate away at him .There is no blame of the man that he was an irresponsible husband and father but that achohol had got a hold of him in its vice-like grip and how he lived a life remote from his family “living and dying for the bottle”.

Shakespeare is successful in portraying the dilemma that Juliet is in when she learns that Romeo has killed her cousin , Tybalt:

“O serpent heart , hid with a flowering faceDid ever dragon keep so fair a caveBeautiful tyrant , fiend angelical”

It is significant how each line contains contrasting images. This effectively conveys how Juliet thinks that Romeo appears good and virtuous but that this is just a mask which conceals the evil that lurks beneath. So many oxymorons in her speech clearly shows how upset and preoccupied she is with her beloved husband’s dual personality. The audience cannot help but feel sorry for Juliet as only hours earlier she had demonstrated her love for Romeo by going behind her parents’ backs and marrying him in secret , only to be informed by the Nurse that he has Tybalt’s blood on his hands.

Juliet compares Romeo to a dragon - a dangerous, fearsome mythological creature- which lurks underneath “so fair a cave”. The oxymorons in the line “ beautiful tyrant, fiend angelical” are also effective in showing how Romeo can make himself out to be pure and perfect. This idea is continued in “dove-feathered raven” and “wolfish-ravening lamb” as doves and lambs symbolise purity and goodness whereas ravens and wolves symbolise evil and darkness.

If you quote from a poem or a piece of Shakespearean verse, you must only take a new line when the poet takes a new line.

There is the sense that Don Pedro, when he returns from war, has finally has time for affairs of the heart :

“But now I am return’d and that war thoughtsHave left their places vacant; in their roomsCome thronging soft and delicate desires”

However, you can insert it into the body of your sentence if use is made of the forward slash to indicate that Shakespeare took a new line. When Iago says in his first soliloquy,”I hate the Moor/ And it is thought abroad that ‘twixt my sheets he has not my office” , the audience is made aware of another reason why Iago loathes Othello.