Assignment One
Scene Analysis

Objective

To construct a persuasive argument about the meaning of a brief scene from a selected play. Use specific details from the scene to support claims.

Procedure

1. Choose a clearly definable scene from The Bacchae or MacBeth.

2. Take notes including specific details in the scene that explain its meaning and significance. Such details may include context, word choice, comparison/contrast, imagery, punctuation, stage directions, notes, and anything else related to the scene's meaning. Focus on those details that are the most useful in explaining your interpretation of the scene.

3. Formulate a thesis statement about the meaning and importance of the chosen scene. This thesis will undoubtedly change as you write your paper, but it will give you a helpful starting point.

4. Write a draft of your argument about your chosen scene. Refer to specific words and phrases in the scene to support your main points. You may also refer to other quotations from the overall play, as long as you use them to explain the meaning of the chosen scene. Provide parenthetical page references after quotations, so your readers can track them down in the text that you are citing.

5. Have a correctly formatted draft of this paper ready to share via GoogleDocs on 25 September 2023, for peer editing. Be ready to share the document with at least one peer editor and with me (the instructor).

6. After considering feedback you receive from peer editors and reconsidering your own argument, revise your paper. You may also sign up to meet with me to discuss a draft at this point.

7. Proofread your draft to remove spelling and grammatical errors.

8. Submit the completed final draft via Canvas by the end of the day on 11 October 2023.

Close Reading

Close reading means paying careful attention to details in a written work. Since you will be looking more closely at this scene than most people, your paper can offer engaging perspectives on its meaning and challenge readers' expectations. In analyzing a scene, you may ask yourself the following questions:

What, literally, takes place in the scene (it is often a good idea to begin with the literal)? Which characters are present? Who speaks and who listens?

How does this scene fit into the larger play?

How is this scene different from every other scene in the play?

Does the author use any terms that may be unfamiliar to 21st-century readers? What do these terms mean? How have these terms changed since the playwright first wrote the scene? Are there any terms that are unfamiliar for other reasons?

Is there anything distinctive about the arrangement of ideas in the scene? Are there clear parallels or contrasts implicit in the scene? Is there anything distinctive about the playwright's representation of word-choice or use of punctuation?

Do characters use any imagery in making their point? The most common forms of imagery include metaphor, simile, personification and symbol.

What will make this paper interesting to an audience consisting of your classmates, your teacher and yourself? You will want to tell them something new—that would not otherwise have occurred to them after reading or watching this scene.

Writing Tips

I have based the following writing tips on common difficulties that students encounter when writing papers for this class.

1. Develop an arguable and interesting thesis statement that applies directly to the passage (i. e., that you could not write about any other poem).

   NOT AN ARGUABLE THESIS: Iago is the villain of William Shakespeare's play Othello.

   AN ARGUABLE THESIS: The final scene of William Shakespeare's Othello reinforces the sense that Iago's villainy is profound and irredeemable.

2. Organize your argument around this thesis statement. Think of between two and four sub-points and structure your argument around them.

   Sample Outline (for the above thesis):

   1. The final scene presents viewers with a scene of extreme violence when Othello murders Desdemona.
   2. The arrival of the forces of order is a key turning point in the play's final scene.
   3. Iago's refusal to speak and his status as a survivor combine to make his villainy profound and irredeemable. His silent departure leaves the audience with the sense that there is no possibility of reconciling Desdemona's murder and Othello's suicide.

3. MLA format means you should include a list of works cited at the end of your paper, even if it only includes one work. For example:

   Shakespeare, William. Othello, edited by Edward Pechter, W. W. Norton, 2017.

4. Some grammatical tips:

   1. Avoid using the passive voice whenever it is possible to do so. When writing in the passive voice, you remove the subject from the sentence or at least de-emphasize it. This makes writing less engaging to most readers.

      Example:

      ACTIVE VOICE: Dionysus hypnotizes Pentheus.
      (Note structure: subject/verb/object)

      PASSIVE VOICE: Pentheus is hypnotized by Dionysus.
      (Structure: object/"to be" verb/past participle)

      ACTIVE VOICE: Dionysus hypnotized Pentheus.

      PASSIVE VOICE: Pentheus was hypnotized by Dionysus.
      (Passive voice can exist in any verb tense.)

   2. Avoid contractions when writing college papers. Replace they're with they are and don't with do not (these are just a few examples of the numerous possible contractions.

   3. Present tense: use this for events in the play that you are analyzing in this paper. This is the tense we will have been using when discussing the play in class, so keeping doing so in the paper.

   4. The word it's (with an apostrophe) is a contraction of it is. The word its (without an apostrophe) is the possessive of it.