Howard’s End Passage analysis
For your close reading assignment, you are being asked to produce an 875 to 1000-word close reading of a passage of your choosing from any of the texts we have read up until this point in the course. For this assignment, please include a transcript of the passage (approximately 3 sentences to a paragraph, use your own discretion but aim for brevity) that you will be close reading along with your assignment (this does not count towards the 1000-word limit. The close reading should demonstrate attentiveness to the language, style and content of the passage, though you will not be required to discuss all the possible methods of close reading your passage. Your assignment should focus on a single possible interpretation of your passage (an “A” quality essay will be more than a series of possible readings) and you should ground your argument within the text that you have selected. For the assignment, you will be graded on your ability to produce a close-reading of a given passage and to account for the complexity of the language, as opposed to simply explicating the literal meaning of the passage and its place within the text (I.e., you should not simply explicate a challenging passage, but you should offer some additional interpretive analysis). Your argument need not extend beyond the passage that you have chosen, and the most effective close readings will be as narrow as possible in their examination of a given passage.
An “A” quality essay will demonstrate an original interpretation of the selected passage, with careful attention paid to the specificity of the text, grounded in the language of the passage. It will highlight something meaningful about the text, be it an analysis of a metaphor, a commentary on style and form or an observation of word choice and tone, as a few possible examples. A “B” quality essay will develop an original interpretation of the passage but may be lacking in specific attention to the language of the passage or will fail to provide a fully developed interpretative argument. A “C” quality essay will fail to produce an original interpretation of the text (replicating, without elaboration or specificity, a reading produced in class) or simply ‘translate’ or explicate the language of the passage. A “D” quality essay will fail to meet the expectation of the assignment.
The passage I have selected is: He was not as courteous as the average rich man, nor as intelligent, nor as healthy, nor as lovable. His mind and his body had been alike underfed, because he was poor, and because he was modern they were always craving better food. Had he lived some centuries ago, in the brightly coloured civilisations of the past, he would have had a definite status, his rank and his income would have corresponded. But in his day the angel of Democracy had arisen, enshadowing the classes with leathern wings, and proclaiming, “All men are equal—all men, that is to say, who possess umbrellas,” and so he was obliged to assert gentility, lest he slip into the abyss where nothing counts, and the statements of Democracy are inaudible.
no further reading of the book is required.
