Guide to spelling, punctuation and grammar

7
SAMPLE ESSAY 2: 
LITERATURE
There is a method of writing well-structured essays that holds
good for most subjects whether it be English literature, history,
media studies, social studies or various types of general essays
(personal/creative, discursive/argumentative, descriptive). The
structure this book has recommended in the previous sections
is not the only approach you could take, but applying it to your
own writing assignments will stand you in good stead.
However, each subject area has its own demands in terms of approach
and specific subject terminology. In this section essay answers to literary
questions are analysed.
ESSAYS ON LITERATURE IN EXAMINATIONS
To answer literature questions in examinations, you should follow the
same structure as outlined previously. It is just as important to have a
clear opening, a structured development and a considered conclusion.
The main difference between literature essays and other types of essay
answers is your need to make close references to the specific literary
text(s) you are responding to in order to back up the analysis you are
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making in the essay. In addition to close references, there is also the
matter of the use of quotations from the text.
W
HAT ARE CLOSE REFERENCES TO THE TEXT
?
Close references are similar to the kind of details you might use in a
general topic essay: they back up the specific points you are attempting to
make by referring closely to the text, whether it be a novel, a poem, a play
or factual writing of some kind. Close references are your evidence for
your analysis or argument, the detail you present to flesh out your analysis. 
Consider once more the question on Hamlet that we looked at earlier in
this book:
Why does Hamlet delay carrying out his revenge for the murder of
his father?
Here is a paragraph from a possible answer:
Immediately after his first encounter with his
father’s ghost on the battlements of Elsinore Castle,
Hamlet appears convinced that the ghost is ‘honest’:
‘Touching this vision here,
It is an honest ghost , that let me tell you.’
Hamlet emphasises to Horatio and Marcellus that he
believes what the ghost has told him and he seems
intent on flying to his revenge. Yet by the time the
Players arrive at the castle and he listens to one of
them enact a speech from a play, he is already
beginning to doubt his own will to act:
‘What would he do 
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OW TO WRITE ESSAYS

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Had he the motive and cue for passion
That I have?’
He chastises himself that he has as yet done nothing
about carrying out his revenge, comparing his
motives for action (his father’s murder) with the
pretend emotions of an actor impersonating
someone in a mere play. At the end of the soliloquy
‘O what a rogue and peasant slave am I’, Hamlet
questions the veracity of the ghost mentioning that
the ‘spirit’ might be the devil who has assumed the
appearance of his dead father to send him (Hamlet)
to his damnation. This directly contradicts his
earlier assertion that the ghost was ‘honest’. Already,
this early in the play, it appears that Hamlet is
looking for excuses not to act.
This paragraph uses a mixture of close references to the play text and
direct quotation to back up the point that is being made: that after his
initial encounter with the ghost, Hamlet quickly has doubts and looks for
reasons not to act.
The close references consist of the details about his reaction to his first
encounter with the ghost, his response to his meeting with the Players
and their performance of a speech full of strong emotion, and the ‘O
what a rogue and peasant slave am I’ soliloquy. These close references
are essential to provide evidence for the reasons for Hamlet’s delay. You
use close references almost like a lawyer arguing a case in a courtroom:
you make the point but you do not leave it there, but back it up with
concrete evidence, that is, ‘evidence’ from the set text.