Aspects of tragedy: sample question commentary

This resource explains how a question taken from the sample assessment material addresses the assessment objectives, with some suggestions of how the task might be approached. This explanation is not intended to be an exhaustive list of every point that could be made but the explanation will provide a workable way into the question and the intention is to offer some support for teachers preparing students for the exam.

Paper 1A, Section A

King Lear

This type of question from Section A of Paper 1: Aspects of tragedy invites students to write about the significance of an extract from Othello or King Lear. One hour is recommended for this question. This is a Closed Book paper and so students will need to know their texts well and be able to refer to them in the examination.

Sample Question

Read the extract below and then answer the question.

Explore the significance of this extract in relation to the tragedy of the play as a whole.

Remember to include in your answer relevant analysis of Shakespeare's dramatic methods.

How the question meets the Assessment Objectives

In this question, as throughout the paper, the assessment objectives are all assessed. The key words and phrases in the question are: explore, significance, tragedy of the play as a whole, analysis and dramatic methods, and these are clearly connected to the assessment objectives. The key word here is 'significance' as it is an invitation to students to target AO2, 3, 4 and AO5, to show what is signified in terms of contexts and interpretations and how those meanings are shaped. AO2 is also set up in the reminder to students to include relevant analysis of Shakespeare's dramatic methods to show how the methods open up meanings about tragedy. AO3 will be addressed through the ways the students show their understanding of both the dramatic and tragic contexts of King Lear, and in the way they will elicit from the extract contextual ideas about when the text was written and how it has been and is received. AO4 will be hit as students will be connecting with the concepts of the tragic genre (and therefore other texts) through the 'aspects' which they are exploring. AO5 will be addressed when students grapple with meanings that arise about tragedy in the extract and in relation to the whole play.  AO1 will be tested though the ways the students organise their writing and express their ideas as they are exploring significance and analysing dramatic methods.

Possible content

It may be helpful for students to begin by briefly establishing an overview of the passage and identifying where it occurs within the play. For example: 'At this stage of the play, Lear has journeyed to Regan and Cornwall's castle, after his acrimonious argument with Goneril. Regan has received news of this from Oswald, and has decided not to be at home when Lear arrives. Kent has been stocked by Regan and Cornwall partly as a snub to Lear. The fool has tried to warn Lear that Regan will be as like Goneril 'as a crab's like an apple'.

The possible content of the mark scheme provides some ideas that students might write about. However, there are clearly many others and if students are reading their texts through the lens of tragedy they will be able to identify many ideas themselves.

Students might explore the following aspects of tragedy:

• Lear's tragic stature
• his loss of control and restraint
• the representations of goodness on stage
• Lear's pride and outrage
• Lear's realisation that Regan and Cornwall have disrespected him in stocking his messenger
• the gloomy castle setting
• the visual sight of Kent in the stocks to show Lear's entrapment
• Lear's anger – his fatal flaw perhaps
• the Fool's cryptic commentary on Lear's decline
• the description of the behaviour of Regan, Cornwall and Goneril which places them as tragic villains
• the references to cruelty and unkindness
• the mention of Lear's future madness
• the Fool's jokes and song which heighten the tragic atmosphere.

Any of these ideas can be linked with other parts of the play, for example Lear's anger here might be connected with his anger in the banishing and disinheriting of Cordelia or of his grotesque curse of Goneril; the Fool's warning shots (a sign of his love for Lear) might be linked with his later attempts to save Lear from madness and his decision to tarry with him on the heath despite the violence of the storm

Significance

Students might develop any of the points mentioned above and suggest what meanings arise from the ideas they select. Comment might be on

• the tragic decline of Lear
• Lear's uncontrollable anger and how this can be interpreted
• the loyalty of Kent and the Fool and views about this
• the 17th-century contextual significance of the Fool to the court
• Lear's inadequacy
• how Lear elicits audience sympathy – or otherwise
• the significance of the location to the tragedy
• the significance of being a host in the 17th-century in relation to the tragedy
• the significance of the family relationships to the tragedy
• 'unkindness' – and the implications of this concept in the 17th-century and to the tragedy
• the treatment of old people from both a 17th-century and a 21st-century perspective
• notions of punishment in the 17th-century and how the stocking of Kent could be viewed now
• Kent as a tragic figure in his own right, his representing honesty (having more man than wit about him), his endorsing the play's pessimism etc

Dramatic methods

Any comment on dramatic method needs to be connected to the task about tragedy.

Students might explore the following dramatic methods:

• setting of the dark location outside the castle
• visual effect of Kent in the stocks and Lear and the Fool's reaction perhaps signifying Lear's entrapment
• irony of first words from Lear, given that the audience know how deliberate Regan's departure has been
• Kent's elevated salutation 'Hail to thee noble master' shows his respect and loyalty to Lear
• the Fool's comic insult reflecting the foolishness of Kent's earlier behaviour when he got himself stocked
• the use of stichomythia showing Kent's determination to tell the truth in comparison to Lear's denial
• the use of emotive language in Kent's long speech reflects his outrage at the treatment of Lear by Regan and Cornwall ('reeking post', Stew'd in his haste', 'poisoned', 'coward cries')
• the matter-of-factness of Kent's listing of the events that led to his being stocked reflects his plainness to which his honour is bound
• the Fool's cryptic lines which foreshadow later events
• the Fool's jokes and songs which heighten the tragic atmosphere, etc.

Students will also have to understand how to use their knowledge to relate to other parts of the play given that this is a Closed Book exam. Although it should be possible to refer to specific parts of the wider tragedy of King Lear and to quote, some comments might be more generalised.

This resource is part of the Aspects of tragedy resource package.