Coursework: Developing an analytical argument
Develop a clear argument by connecting precise evidence, the writer’s choices and relevant context, then make each paragraph advance the reading.
Build a claim that can withstand pressure
The extracts below are worked examples, not additional compulsory texts. Transfer the process to the modern play and heritage work you are actually studying. Macbeth and Pride and Prejudice are heritage choices; Macbeth also makes dramatic techniques easy to see. Practising a dramatic technique here does not make Macbeth eligible for the Modern Drama assignment.
An argument is a reasoned answer to the focus. Its paragraphs do different jobs: establish a reading, develop it, test a difficulty or explain a change. Begin with the literary problem rather than a technique you happen to remember.
Consider the focus: “How does Austen present the tension between security and personal happiness in Charlotte’s marriage?” Read the two passages. The first gives Charlotte’s reflections; the second includes her words and then Elizabeth’s reaction. Neither character’s judgement should automatically be treated as the author’s final verdict.
Source A
Pride and Prejudice — Chapter 22
By Jane Austen
Charlotte Lucas has accepted Mr Collins, shortly after Elizabeth refused him. The narrative now presents Charlotte’s reflections.
[1] Charlotte herself was tolerably composed. She had gained her point, and had time to consider of it. Her reflections were in general satisfactory. Mr. Collins, to be sure, was neither sensible nor agreeable: his society was irksome, and his attachment to her must be imaginary. But still he would be her husband. Without thinking highly either of men or of matrimony, marriage had always been her object: it was the only honourable provision for well-educated young women of small fortune, and, however uncertain of giving happiness, must be their pleasantest preservative from want. This preservative she had now obtained; and at the age of twenty-seven, without having ever been handsome, she felt all the good luck of it.
Notes
Numbers identify supplied paragraphs; chapter is the stable locator, not an invented page number. Want here means poverty or lack of necessities; provision means financial support.
Source B
Pride and Prejudice — Chapter 22
By Jane Austen
Charlotte explains her engagement to Elizabeth. The final paragraph turns to Elizabeth’s response.
[1] “I see what you are feeling,” replied Charlotte; “you must be surprised, very much surprised, so lately as Mr. Collins was wishing to marry you. But when you have had time to think it all over, I hope you will be satisfied with what I have done. I am not romantic, you know. I never was. I ask only a comfortable home; and, considering Mr. Collins’s character, connections, and situation in life, I am convinced that my chance of happiness with him is as fair as most people can boast on entering the marriage state.”
[2] Elizabeth quietly answered “undoubtedly;” and, after an awkward pause, they returned to the rest of the family. Charlotte did not stay much longer; and Elizabeth was then left to reflect on what she had heard. It was a long time before she became at all reconciled to the idea of so unsuitable a match. The strangeness of Mr. Collins’s making two offers of marriage within three days was nothing in comparison of his being now accepted. She had always felt that Charlotte’s opinion of matrimony was not exactly like her own; but she could not have supposed it possible that, when called into action, she would have sacrificed every better feeling to worldly advantage. Charlotte, the wife of Mr. Collins, was a most humiliating picture! And to the pang of a friend disgracing herself, and sunk in her esteem, was added the distressing conviction that it was impossible for that friend to be tolerably happy in the lot she had chosen.
Notes
Numbers identify supplied paragraphs; chapter is the stable locator, not an invented page number.
“Charlotte is greedy” is an assertion that closes inquiry. “Charlotte accepts a loss of companionship in exchange for security, while Elizabeth finds the compromise disturbing” is more useful: it distinguishes perspectives and can be tested against “irksome”, “preservative from want” and “sacrificed every better feeling”. The text can support sympathy for her calculation without making the marriage ideal.
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