SCASI

= Writing Unseen Commentaries = Think of any human activity which involves an audience or spectators – say a soccer match. If we wanted to analyse the match (break it down into its parts) we could do so in different ways, depending on whether we were writing a newspaper report about it, trying to decide whether it had been worth watching, working out why one side rather than the other had won, using it as an illustration of what a ‘good’ game of soccer is, and so on. Here’s one way of breaking such an activity down so that we can think about it in an organised way. o Where and when did it take place? (//Was the pitch in good shape? What was the weather like? Did the venue favour one side?//) We could call that the **//Setting//** for the event. o Who took part? (//The players, and the referee…and the spectators too if their behaviour had an impact on what was happening on the pitch//.) They are the people – **//Characters//** – involved. o What happened? (//The story of the game, with as much detail as needed//.) That’s the **//Action//**//.// o How did it all happen? (//An overview of the way the game was played by each team//.) We might call that the **//Styl//**//e// of what went on. o What conclusions can we draw from all of the above? (//Can we now explain why the winners won? What did we learn from the match about what makes a winning side, or a good game?//) These are the **//Ideas//** we take away with us at the end. Sorry if you aren’t at all interested in soccer. Try substituting a rock concert, a political meeting, a school assembly, an English lesson, a bank robbery, a family argument… Then try a novel or a play. That will take us closer to where we’re going – a short discussion about how we can analyse literature. We can then set about exploring ways of doing so effectively, particularly when the literature is chopped up into the small bits called ‘Passages for Commentary’. = Novels and Plays – and Poems As Well = It’s easy to see that novels and plays can be analysed under the same headings. They tell stories after all, and stories involve action which has to happen somewhere and usually includes people…and stories make us think. What about **//Style//**, however? You maybe felt that category that didn’t work too well for soccer etc. Well it works rather better for literature, since most stories are told in words; and language has a whole range of identifiable styles. (There //are// other kinds of style, though – playing style, teaching style, criminal style – and when you’re studying plays you’ll come across the phrase ‘dramatic style’, which refers to what makes a particular play distinctive as a piece of theatre.) But poetry? Do all five headings work there? Narrative poetry presents no problem, since it tells stories (with characters, action and so on). How about ‘ordinary’ poems like most of those you’ve studied so far in school? The answer will vary from poem to poem. The framework we’ve outlined above can be very useful when you come to write about a poem or a prose extract, or a short passage from a play. (It can also be very helpful when you’re studying a whole work, particularly when you’re preparing it for an exam…and it’s an excellent way of organising your notes.) So see (without looking back) if you can remember the five headings. Think about the football match…or the family argument. Here’s a start: Se… Ch… There you are – you’ve already got a valuable tool at your disposal. Now you need to practise using it. = To Get Us Started – a General Example = Let’s begin by taking one passage and examining briefly how each of its five aspects (**//Setting, Character, Action//**…can you add the other two?) is reflected in its detail. First Step: read the passage. It's part of an adventure story. If you don’t feel you’ve understood all the important parts, read it again (it’s quite normal to have to do that).
 * Things People Do In Front Of Other People **

__ PASSAGE A __

// 5 //

// 10 //

// 15 //

// 20 //

// 25 //

// 30 //

// 35 //

// 40 // || ‘Foreigners are not very popular here,’ Mr Butler told me at breakfast. ‘So I don’t think you ought to go out alone.’ My heart sank. I hated to be dependent on other people. They would never want to do what I wanted to do. I began to feel imprisoned. I took up the moth-eaten balls and the old tennis racket which were lying in the hall, and went into the garden. I hit the balls fiercely against the stable doors until I was too hot and unhappy to go on. I sat brooding on the steps. I might have been in Sydenham for all I could see – a European villa and a line of poplars; yet outside lay a Chinese city which I was longing to explore. After lunch I decided that I could stand it no longer. Mr Butler and Mr Roote were still deep in their morning’s discussion, so I let myself quickly out of the back gate and walked along the sandy lane which led into the country. Mr Butler could not mind my walking in the country, I thought. Everything was still and silent, in an early-afternoon torpor. The only sound came from the stunted bushes which squeaked and grated linguistically as the wind passed through them. Pillars and scarves of dust and sand rose up from the ground, eddying and swirling themselves into flat sheets which hovered in the air. Harsh spears of grass stuck up through the sand. The soles of my shoes began to burn and I looked round vainly for some shady place. I enjoyed the dreamlike stillness and wanted to stay out for as long as possible. I thought that if I walked on I might find a place. The road led towards the hills. Across the sandy plain the city walls stood up like cliffs. Turrets and bastions were ruined cottages, crumbling into the sea. I walked on, fixing my eyes on a black speck some way in front of me. I wondered if it could be a cat crouching in the middle of the road; or perhaps it was a dark boulder. As I drew nearer, a haze of flies suddenly lifted, and I saw that the object was not black but pink. The loathsome flies hovered angrily above it, buzzing like dynamos. I bent my head down to see what it was. I stared at it stupidly until my numbed senses suddenly awoke again. Then I jumped back, my throat quite dry and my stomach churning. The thing was a human head. The nose and eyes had been eaten away and the black hair was caked and grey with dust. Odd white teeth stood up like ninepins in its dark, gaping mouth. Its cheeks and shrivelled lips were plastered black with dried blood, and I saw long coarse hairs growing out of its ears. Because it was so terrible, my eyes had to return to it whenever I looked away. I stared into its raw eye-sockets until waves of sickness spread over me. Then I ran. The whole plain and the bare hills had suddenly become tinged with horror. I found myself between high banks. I would soon be coming to a village. There were signs of cultivation. When the first cur barked, I turned and ran back the way I had come. I did not know what to do. I would have to pass the head again. I tried to avoid it by making for the city walls across the pathless sand. My feet sank in, and my shoes became full and heavy. My only idea was to get back to the house. Tall rank grass grew in the shadow of the wall. It was dry and sharp as knives. I pushed through it, looking up at the towering cliff for a gate or steps to climb. Nothing else seemed to be alive except the insects. I could only hear their buzzing and the slap of them when they hit the wall. There was no gate. I began to feel desperate. I ran towards a bastion, wondering if I could climb up to it in any way. I knew that I could not.

Denton Welch, //Maiden Voyage// (1943) || Second Step: Make brief notes in response to the following questions. After each set of questions you can look at the boxed section to see how you’re doing. Don’t be concerned if you seem at times to have got it all wrong. **// 1. Setting //**
 * // a) //** // 4-5 // What does the condition of the tennis balls and the tennis racquet tell us about the place the boy is staying in?
 * // b) //**// 8  // Poplar trees are tall and thin and are usually planted in straight lines. How does that make them an appropriate choice (by the writer) as part of the scenery? (Sydenham is a London suburb.)
 * // c) //**// 38 // What is there about the grass as described in these lines which adds to the boy’s fear? Can you see a connection with // line 17 //?
 * // d) //**// 39-40 // What effect on the atmosphere of the passage does this second mention of insects have?


 * **// a) //** Young people used to stay here, but haven't for some time: the house is no longer set up for a young (and adventurous) visitor.
 * // b) //** They represent the regimentation and European orderliness that the boy wants to escape from.
 * // c) //** The grass is // ‘tall’ //(maybe difficult to see over, and someone could be hiding in it) and // ‘rank’ //(which can mean both wild and evil-smelling); it is growing in the // ‘shadow’ // of the wall (and therefore darker than the sunlit countryside around); and the fact that it is // ‘sharp as knives’ // makes it seem dangerous. It resists him, so that he has to push through it. The connection with //line 17// is in the phrase // ‘harsh spears of grass’ //in that line.
 * // d) //** It reminds us of the severed head, around which flies were also buzzing; it might suggest that the flies have pursued him here; and the fact that the insects are banging into the wall as if they want to get through it emphasises the fact that he too is trapped outside the city. ||

**//2. Character//** **// a) //**// 3-4 // ‘//I hated to be dependent on other people. They would never want to do what I wanted to do.’// Which of these two sentences reveals more about the boy’s character?
 * // b) //**// 6- //// 8 // Which two words in this paragraph might lead us to describe the boy as spoilt?
 * // c) //**// 9-11 // In the last sentence of this paragraph the boy tries to persuade himself that he is not doing anything wrong. Which word earlier in the paragraph shows that he does in fact know that he should not be going off by himself?


 * **// a) //** The second. The first one tells us how he likes to be thought of (as independent); the second one reveals that he really just prefers to get his own way.
 * // b) //**// ‘fiercely’ // and // ‘brooding’ .// You could also argue that the phrase // ‘for all I could see’ //is sarcastic.
 * // c) //**// ‘quickly’  // ||

**//3. Action//** **// a) //** What elements of conflict – things likely to force a development in the situation – are present in the opening four paragraphs // (lines 1-13) //?
 * // b) //**// 2 //// 0-24 // How does the writer build up suspense for the reader?


 * **// a) //** The boy is in an alien environment // ‘here’ //, in China; but the // ‘European villa’ // itself is unwelcoming; Mr Butler’s attitude is restrictive; the boy is rebellious by nature; and in any case he badly wants to explore the area. Something’s got to give!
 * // b) //** It takes the boy some time to reach the // ‘black speck’ //in the road. As he walks he speculates as to what it might be. The // ‘haze’ //of flies suggests that it may be something decaying. The flies rise and are now described as // ‘loathsome’ //, and that word taken together with the pinkness of the object just revealed suggest that something horrible is lying there. Then in lines // 2 // // 3 // and // 2 // // 4 // the writer describes the boy’s physical reaction, but he makes us wait until the next paragraph before telling us what it is that the boy has seen. The timing of all of that is carefully controlled. ||

**//4. Style//** **// a) //**// 1 //// 2-15 // What details in the writer’s description of the landscape suggest that it has a life of its own, and that it is rather threatening?
 * // b) //**// 3 //// 2 // The phrase ‘//tinged with horror’// suggests that in the boy’s eyes even the ……. of the scenery has changed.
 * // c) //**// 3 //// 0-32 // What is there about these sentences which emphasises the boy’s panic?


 * **// a) //** The landscape is in a state of // ‘torpor’ //(as if it feels sleepy); the bushes emit sounds like harsh human speech (they // ‘squeaked and grated linguistically’ //); the dust and sand behave as if they can control their movements (// ‘eddying and swirling **themselves** into flat sheets’ //); and the grass is like // ‘spears’ // which // ‘stuck up through the sand’ //(also as if they were doing it of their own volition, as an act of aggression).
 * // b) //** Colour
 * // c) //** They’re short, indicating the speed at which things are happening. ||

Which of the following ideas underlie this piece of narrative? · Adolescent rebelliousness · Rationalisation (finding ‘reasons’ to support questionable behaviour) · The gap between cultures · The unexpectedness of things
 * // 5. Ideas //**


 * All of them. We should possibly call them themes rather than ideas. ||

If some of the details we’ve picked out under each of the headings have struck you as obvious – good! When you’re writing a commentary you must be prepared to mention the straightforward things (straightforwardly) as well as the more subtle ones. Don’t try to be //clever// until you’ve been //sound//.