Commentary: What to Beware Of All examples are taken from description analysis essays submitted by students. This assignment asked students to discuss how mood was created in one of three passages.
1. Beware of substituting interpretation for analysis.
Ex. "'The shadows -- which fell so softly on the warm, weary brickwork -- were of the right measure...' Using the hyphens to separate the description of the shadow with the shadows themselves, James proclaims that the shadows are part of the house. "
Yes, and so why is that important? All this does is explain the literal meaning.
2. Beware of substituting the statement of the technique for analysis of its effect. In other words, naming is not explaining.
Ex. "He notes, 'the barn is sweet with hay and leather, wood and apples.' These words give the description of sensory language to support the mood."
All this does is state the technique of “sensory language”. What mood? How do they support? What exactly do they add?
3. Beware of asserting without explaining. In other words, you might SAY something is true, but if you give no explanation WHY it is true, it doesn't count.
Ex. The narrator also repeats the word "leaves" many times to signal the beginning and the end of the season. This makes the passage more pleasant."
Even if we grant the truth of the first sentence, why and how should that create pleasantness?
4. Beware of not attaching your commentary to specific words in the quote.
Ex. "'...one of those lonely New England farmhouses that make the landscape lonelier.' This element is a highly recognizable trait among many people."
What element? I don't see any element in the quote at all! What are you talking about?
5. Beware of getting 'side-tracked' or off-topic.
Ex. "'...The corn is shocked: it sticks out in the hard yellow rows...'He not only describes the corn with details of what it is, but does so untraditionally."
OK, but what does that have to do with creating mood?
BETTER COMMENTARY
1. When the reader comes across words like "snap and crackle" of the fire, he can associate it with other characteristics that fire has: burning, destroying, ashes, smoke and so on. Thus it creates the intended mood of destruction and agony in the reader. (Reasons this is good: it points to specific words in the quote; it deals with the connotative level of meaning; it connects to the point of the question, mood)
2. The persona notices an "old and fat and blue" fly and notes the "big, stained teeth of crunching horses." Many readers dislike thinking about these things and would get an uncomfortable feeling from these connotations. (Reasons this is good: it points to specific words in the quote; it deals with the connotative level of meaning; it connects to the point of the question, mood)