Hamlet Passage Analysis Essay Reminders

Reminders:

0. On Monday during class you will turn in (1) your final draft (for MLA format consult the Compass), (2) an AP style prompt (including context sentences that you write, the prompt from the blog), the passage, notes you consulted, an MLA works cited; click here to see the example I showed you in class with everything except the citation), (3) first draft (with evidence of self/peer assessment: consult Kincaid essay self/peer assess handout if necessary), (4) plan (with organization & minitheses), and (5) thesis (with clear insights into strategies and theme).

1. Special considerations:

Title
Don't forget a title that indicates your focus & (if possible) your attitude toward that focus. For my 5.1 analysis I've created the tentative title "From 'Infinite Jest' to 'Noble Dust': The Absurdity and Tragedy of Death in Hamlet's Gravedigger Scene"

Theme
Make sure you have stated your theme in a way that shows that it goes beyond the play. (Instead of "The passage shows Hamlet struggles with the corruption of women in his life." Write "the passage explores the dangers of idealizing women and expecting impossible purity." The first is an internal conflict for Hamlet that is expressed in outward conflicts with Ophelia and Gertrude. The second sentence is a statement about theme. Then discussion of the internal/external conflict would support the discussion of the theme.) Make sure you've also said something about the theme, so not just "the scene shows responses to wrongdoing" but "the scene conveys the difficulty of retaining self-worth and compassion in a world filled with wrongdoing". Notice the second phrase offers a bold insight whereas the first is more superficial.

Literary/Rhetorical Strategies
More strategies named on the blog w/ examples from Hamlet: Consider using terms from the strategies posting on the website. I know you're curious about litotes & metonymy & synecdoche, etc.

Quoting
I will pay particular attention to your use of quotations in this paper. Here are some things to keep in mind.

Quoting conventions:
a. The period (or other terminal punctuation) should be placed after the parenthetical citation. For example look at the part I've underlined at the end of the following sentence:

In his initial speech Claudius uses paradoxical language to express the difficulty of his situation and to attempt to trick his Danish subjects into feeling sympathy for his situation: "with mirth in funeral and with dirge in marriage" (1.2.12).

b. If you put a quotation at the end of a sentence that does not have a parenthetical citation, the period should go inside the final quotation mark, liike this:

In act one scene two line twelve, Claudius uses paradoxical language to express the difficulty of his situation and to attempt to trick his Danish subjects into feeling sympathy for his situation: "with mirth in funeral and with dirge in marriage."c. Quotations that are longer than three lines should be indented. The indent is used instead of quotation marks, like this:

Claudius uses a series of paradoxes in an attempt to to express the difficulty of his situation and to trick his Danish subjects into feeling sympathy for his situation:
     ...We with wisest sorrow think on him
     Together with remembrance of ourselves.
     Therefore our sometime sister, now our queen,
     The imperial jointress to this warlike state,
     Have we, as 'twere with a defeated joy,
     With an auspicious, and a dropping eye,
     With mirth in funeral, and with dirge in marriage,
     In equal scale weighing delight and dole,
    Taken to wife. (1.2.6-13)

d. Use a ellipsis (...) to indicate that parts of sentence have been left out. When quoting a word or phrase you don't need to use an ellipsis because it will already be clear to the reader that parts of the sentence have been left out. (Look at the beginning previous quotation for an example.)

e. Use brackets to insert a word or change that clarifies the sentence or allows it to fit the grammatical context.
Hamlet express his view of the world succinctly, using a strong exclamation and vivid metaphor: "Fie on't! ah, fie! [the world is] an unweeded garden/That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature/Posses it merely" (1.2.138-140).

f. Use a slash (/) to indicate where the breaks are between lines of poetry. See above for an example.

g. Use a colon to introduce a quotation that follows a complete thought leading up to the quotation. (See all of the above for examples.)

h. You can also weave quotations into your own sentences in this way:
Claudius expresses his "defeated joy" (1.2.9) with an oxymoron and several vivid paradoxes.
i. Notice that I've avoided introducing quotations with phrases like "One quotation is..." or "For example,..." or "One thing Hamlet says is...," etc. These phrases are not "wrong" but they are clumsier and less elegant than the options given above.
Work hard to make your quotations work elegantly and clearly in your essay.

j. Introduce and provide context for your quotations.

k. Explain your quotations in a way that links them back to the point your trying to make. Do not expect the quotations to do this on their own. Sometimes it will take several sentences to explain a quotation and to develop how it develops your thesis.

2. Plagiarism:

We talked about this a couple of weeks ago, but it bears repeating here and now.

Do not use any sources beyond the notes that have been approved (Folgers book notes, eNotes). Use of other notes, especially notes that offer interpretation of the significance of strategies, is egregious plagiarism (blatant cheating). Your tasks is to use the text and the notes I've selected to help you understand the difficulties presented by the text to create your own interpretation of how the strategies contribute to the development of a central theme. Remember that we are practicing for the AP exam's passage analysis essay; when you take that exam you will be alone with the passage and whatever notes (if any) the College Board supplies.

If you think your work might be tainted by ideas you've taken from other people you might need to start over with a new passage or you might be able to strip away the offending parts. Remember plagiarism will result in a zero on the assignment and no chance to re-do it for credit. (That's the school's policy and has been the policy for a long time.)

3. Before you pass your final draft in...

One foot reading! Read your paper aloud!

Use standard English language conventions & the conventions of passage analysis essay writing.
Double check your essay for homophone errors and errors in sentence structure. (No run-ons. No sentence fragments.)
Avoid first person in passage analysis writing.
Write about literature in the present tense.
Be precise with your word choices.
Use varied sentence structures.
Include transitions between your body paragraphs.

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I'm looking forward to reading your papers!