Essay Examples: A Grade Essays (Part Two)

This is definitely the better of my recent A grade essays, being a near-perfect A* grade. Apparently. Anyway, I'm not going to publish it all here as it is stupidly long; I'll pick out some good paragraphs for you :)

How do the playwrights portray characters in hostile worlds through literary and linguistic techniques?

INTRO:

In both Shaffer's 'Equus' and Shakespeare's 'Othello', the protagonists are demonstrated to live in worlds which are hostile to them as individuals. Through contemporary references, dramatic devices and linguistic techniques, both playwrights illustrate this for their audiences, and show this to be the cause of the protagonists; respective crimes: Alan's blinding of the horses and Otehllo's murder of Desdemona, as peripateias in both tragedies.

CONTEXT PARAGRAPHS:

From the beginning, both playwrights present socities which are clearly hostile to outsiders. 'Equus', set in 1970s Britain, presents a conservative society under a Conservative government, which is facing the strain of Cold War, anti-outsider politics. In the second scene, Hesther describes two psychiatrists who can be seen as metaphors for society as a whole and for its treatment of Alan. She uses the phrase "immovably English", with "English" used in this case as a synonym for conservatism and unkind values. The adjective "immovably" premodifies this and allows it to seem harsher than it might have done, adding to the audience's understanding of the way society is likely to treat Alan before he, himself is mentioned by name or seen on stage at all. This is therefore a dramatic device used to set the scene, and is perhaps more poignant to modern audiences than contemporary ones as we are now evidently unfamiliar with the political or societal constraints of the tiem in which it was written.

The same can be said of 'Othello', in which the title character is immediately presented as an outsider because of the way his fellows perceive his race. Although most historians accept that the Elizabethans did not have a concept of 'race', and could therefore not be termed 'racist' for their treatment of Othello, the fact that Shakespeare chooses to refer to him cataphorically throughout, seldom ever allowing a character to refer to him by his name, demonstrates the way in which they all perceive him to be different. This is added to by the fact that he is constantly referred to as "the Moor", as though suggesting his race is an acceptable way of setting him apart. To modern audiences, with our concepts of political correctness, this will seem even harsher; although it can't be doubted that this presentatio of Othello has always seemed to place him in a hostile, foreign environment.

EXAMPLE OF GOOD 'EQUUS' PARAGRAPH:

The control exerted by the fictional character of Equus within Alan himself also plays a large part in Alan's understanding of the world, and consequently in his fear of every day circumstances which contribute to this. Through the use of capitalisation in this section, Shaffer turns "Merciful" and "Kind" into proper nouns, in a way similar to that utilised by the catholic church to illustrate their God as omniscient and forgiving. This turns the character of Equus from an abstract concept illustrated to the audience through Dysart's sue of scientific and psychiatric jargon into a real being in which we can believe, given the references back to the world in which we live. The effect of this is not only to portray hostility in Alan's world but also to allow the audience to draw parallels with the constraints and hostilities they see in their own, allowing them to buy into Alan's fear and comprehend it more readily.

EXAMPLE OF GOOD 'OTHELLO' PARAGRAPH:

Iago's deception - and the audience's understanding of it - builds throughout the play, with the hostile world which finally leads Othello to murder his beloved wife being created by his supposed friend more and more rapidly towards the end of the play. The hostility in the character of Iago is shown through what critics describe as his "complete and unexplainable evil", and through the juxtapositions in what he says about Othello in soliloquy and face-to-face. These ideas juxtapose entirely, and are often oxymoronic, showing the extent of the deception being woven and suggesting to the audience the extent of the traditional tragic fall Othello will face, when it comes. For example, in soliloquy in the first Act of the play, Iago uses the declarative "I hate the Moor", utilising the hyperbolic stative verb "hate", which creates an oxymoron when compared with the stative noun "love" which is utilised in a fyrther declarative by Iago later in the same Act, still in reference to Othello. The way that this deception creates a hostile world is then exacerbated by the way in which Shakespeare weaves the semantic field of jealousy through the whole play, specifically in Iago's lexis, through utterances such as "green eyed", showing the audience how the control exhibited by a character such as Iago then leads Othello to begin to believe in this manipulation, and eventually to make it real.

CONCLUSION:

Ultimately, the hostilities of the worlds around them cannot be wholly responsible for the crimes of Alan or Othello: however in both cases this was a significant factor, perhaps best explained by Dysart in Act Two of 'Equus' - "he is a modern citizen for whom society does not exist".

MARKS:

AO1 - 9 (/10)
AO2 - 10 (/10)
AO3 - 37 (/40)

56/60 = 9?% = A*

Essay Plan: Courage

How do the playwrights use the theme of "courage" to portray individuals in society?

In Shakespeare's 'Othello' and Shaffer's 'Equus', the playwrights use the theme of courage to portray two very different characters: Dysart, who is seen as an individual in his unwillingness to follow social expectations and treat Alan, something which he later over-comes, thus illustrating his courage; and Othello, whose courage is used to describe him from the start so that his tragic fall more rapidly isolates him.

OTHELLO
- SF courage, Act 2 ("the man commands like a full soldier", "the warlike Moor Othello", context that actually lost Cyprus wars)
- Honourability - "Not I: I must be found", Act One (unexpected of a lascivious Moor)
- Compares his death to former acts of courage, making him seem somewhat redeemed in death (imperatives "Set you down this"; metaphor "the circumcised dog"; context of wars & victory = courage)

DYSART
- Hedges "Maybe" and "possibly" show unease at what has to do (link changing nature of psychiatry and American anti-psychiatry movement) - makes eventual choice more courageous
- Elogy at end (soliloquy reminiscent of Shakespearean epilogue) - shows will do what has to do, despite not wanting to
- Perenthesis - "alright! I'll take it away" - shows pressure & pain at what he has to do

The opposite is then true of their counterparts, arguably the antagonists whom the playwrights present as individuals through their cowardice: Alan, who feels the need to seek revenge against a repressive God, and Iago, who critics argue is a character of pure evil, and this can be seen as cowardly through his easy manipulation and deception of Othello, who is presented as both courageous and vulnerable because of his race.

IAGO
- "I hate the Moor, and it is thought" - audience won't believe, making assertions to provide rationale for the plan only makes him seem more cowardly
- Exploitation of Othello; "O, beware, my Lord, of jealousy"
- Use of soliloquy = inability to admit plans = keeping things hidden = cowardly
- Lies and dramatic irony exacerbate this

ALAN
- Use of jingles = backing away (link // 70s materialism)
- Refusal to speak
- Simple sentences show fear; exclamatories towards the end (link Catholic God)

Remember: much of this exam is pretty contrived, and the theme of courage is especially so. Define your terms and back your points up: in English, you're ability to argue and use terminology is key. You could be completely wrong, but if you assert your argument well you could still be right...

Does that even make sense?

- HistGrrl x

Essay Technique: Constructing an Argument

One of the ways in which it is possible to get a high mark for AO3 without using too much contrived context is to construct a clear argument which you should lay out in the introduction and then follow through the rest of the essay; this is especially useful as it means that you can get the awkward little "made them an individual in society" line in early - and again in the conclusion - and then go on to write an actual decent essay, only alluding to this bizarre and awkward point throughout.

The arguments I have constructed for the themes stipulated as potentials by the exam board are below, and I shall post a full essay plan, including an introduction, next in order to illustrate this further.

Sample Arguments

Mental instability
The mental difficulties of both protagonists isolate them further and are used to illustrate the means which lead to their crimes

INDIVIDUAL IN SOCIETY HIGHLIGHTED BY: Isolation

Parents and children
Restrictive societies and restrictive parents lead characters to rebel

INDIVIDUAL IN SOCIETY HIGHLIGHTED BY: Rebellion against the norm

Sexual Ethics
Individualism presented through defiance of social conventions in this matter

INDIVIDUAL IN SOCIETY HIGHLIGHTED BY: Obvious ;)

Self Awareness
Pivotal to plots of both plays, especially in the cases of 'antagonists', Dysart and Iago

INDIVIDUAL IN SOCIETY HIGHLIGHTED BY: unique degrees of self awareness presented

Deception
Leads to the ends of both plays, catalysing the resolutions. The role of dramatic irony differentiates each play.

INDIVIDUAL IN SOCIETY HIGHLIGHTED BY: the true selves characters are hiding

Courage
Dysart and Othello presented as courageous; Iago and Alan aren't

INDIVIDUAL IN SOCIETY HIGHLIGHTED BY: difficult decisions characters make, and the ways they subvert the stereotypical views of these descriptions

Religion
Protagonists crimes presented as religiously motivated and justified; religious presentation through their own eyes and those of others

INDIVIDUAL IN SOCIETY HIGHLIGHTED BY: ways in which their perceptions of religion are twisted

Family
The protagonists' families shape them; Desdemona's family helps shape Othello and Dysart's family shapes his uneasiness

INDIVIDUAL IN SOCIETY HIGHLIGHTED BY: attitudes of families and the ways in which they isolate the characters of Othello, Desdemona, Alan and Dysart

Jealousy
Deliberately cultivated to isolate in 'Othello'; occurs accidentally to the same ends in 'Equus'

INDIVIDUAL IN SOCIETY HIGHLIGHTED BY: Isolation

Hoping that helps. I'm so tired today that I really can't take much more revision! :(

- HistGrrl xx