Prose Notes

Structure

Intro - summarises extract and incorps one thing from each supporting extract

P1, 2 and 3 - can be organised around techniques or themes, or even supporting extracts

  • Get as much out of the supporting extracts as possible

  • Bring in own contextual knowledge

Process - 20 mins

  • Read through extract x2 before annotating

  • Then read and highlight supporting extracts

  • Annotate for as many techniques as possible - foreground techniques

  • Organise ideas into 3x paras

Techniques:

Voice and viewpoint:

  • First person narrative

  • Second person narrative - ambiguity, self-address, universalised we, relationship with reader

  • Omniscient third person narrative - all knowing, all seeing narration across time place and character

  • Over the shoulder narrative - 3rd person narration which identifies with characters and their thought process

  • Intrusive/reflexive narrative - narration which comments on its own processes (meta-narration)

  • Unreliable narrators - self-contradictory, slippery and elliptical

  • Multiple narrators

  • Embedded narrators - other narrators within main narration

  • Direct speech

  • Indirect/reported speech - quoted, can distance readers from characters

  • Free direct speech - comment from narrator omitted, words untagged quickening pase and foregrounding dialogue

  • Within dialogue - length, dialect, standard or non standard English indicating culture age class, tone - dashes italics exclaimatives tagging, politeness features of a lack - commands, colloquialism, taboo words, interruptions, disjointed, abrupt, controlled, calm speech, interrogatives, delcaratives, exclaimatives suggest personality and power

  • Free indirect discourse - He wondered how she was. Did he dare to ask? - 3rd person narrator takes on tone of first person voice - intimacy and sympathy

  • Stream of consciousness - fragmented, incoherant, inside character’s heads

  • Framed narrative - story within a story

  • Epistolary form - letters, diaries

Language:

See poetry

Structure:

  • Beginnings and endings

  • Echoes and repetition

  • Analepsis, prolepsis, foreshadowing

  • External description

  • Introspection

  • Voices

  • Gaps and silences

  • Linear vs non linear account

  • Cohesion

  • Use of motifs

  • Chapter headings

  • Contrasts/juxtapositions

  • Tenses

Characterisation:

  • Names - significance and connections

  • Physical appearance

  • Imagery associated with them

  • Contrasts between characters

  • Speech

  • Actions

  • Thoughts

  • Perceptions by others/of others

Settings:

  • Year, social conditions, geography, weather, timing

  • Integral to understanding of character, mood, conflict, symbolism, writer’s themes and concerns

  • Characters may reflect or be juxtaposed against the settings in which they appear

  • May occupy setting comfortably or be uncomfortable

  • Reinforce mood and atmosphere of text

  • Symbolise themes and concerns of text

  • Description, imagery, contrast, concrete detail used to construct settings

Contexts: