English 10: Writing Literary Commentary – An Example
By Mr. Hoke, on November 24th, 2011
This video provides an example response to a basic, open prompt, similar to “unseen” commentary. The full model paragraph is below the video.
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This soliloquy characterizes Lady Macbeth as evil. In this speech, Lady Macbeth notes that her husband is “not without ambition” for the crown, but lacks the “illness should attend it.” Ambition carries dark connotations and demands an ill nature lacked by Macbeth. Speaking alone on stage, yet to Macbeth in apostrophe, Lady Macbeth finds the courage to explore her thane’s shortcomings and to plot her manipulative approach to overleap them. Macbeth, she thinks, “is too full o’th’milk of human kindness” to directly wade through the blood of kings to the throne. Lady Macbeth’s honest internal dialogue reveals through this metaphor that she does not share Macbeth’s weakness. Rather, she will “chastise with the valour of [her] tongue all that impedes [Macbeth] from” the crown. Lady Macbeth is not shy about plotting her role in regicide, secure in solitude. Lady Macbeth’s evil, ambitious nature becomes clear through this soliloquy; she is driven to power through any means at her disposal, no matter how cruel those means may be.
English 10: Writing Literary Commentary – An Example
This video provides an example response to a basic, open prompt, similar to “unseen” commentary. The full model paragraph is below the video.
a
This soliloquy characterizes Lady Macbeth as evil. In this speech, Lady Macbeth notes that her husband is “not without ambition” for the crown, but lacks the “illness should attend it.” Ambition carries dark connotations and demands an ill nature lacked by Macbeth. Speaking alone on stage, yet to Macbeth in apostrophe, Lady Macbeth finds the courage to explore her thane’s shortcomings and to plot her manipulative approach to overleap them. Macbeth, she thinks, “is too full o’th’milk of human kindness” to directly wade through the blood of kings to the throne. Lady Macbeth’s honest internal dialogue reveals through this metaphor that she does not share Macbeth’s weakness. Rather, she will “chastise with the valour of [her] tongue all that impedes [Macbeth] from” the crown. Lady Macbeth is not shy about plotting her role in regicide, secure in solitude. Lady Macbeth’s evil, ambitious nature becomes clear through this soliloquy; she is driven to power through any means at her disposal, no matter how cruel those means may be.