LGCSE Literature in English (0185) cheat sheet

Narrative person governs what can be known: first person is confined to the narrator's experience, omniscient third person moves between minds, and limited third person stays inside one consciousness; free indirect discourse blurs narrator and character so the reader hears thought without quotation marks.

Time is a deliberate choice: analepsis (flashback) and prolepsis (flash-forward) are used to withhold or delay information, so always ask what the present narrative gains from that delay.

Distinguish summary from scene: summary compresses long stretches into a clause, scene slows to dialogue, gesture and detail; the ratio of summary to scene controls pace and signals what the writer wants dwelt on.

Character is built through five channels - reported action, speech, thought, other characters' comments, and the narrator's judgement. In an extract, identify which channel carries the strongest evidence before writing about personality.

Setting works as backdrop, symbol, social indicator or causal force. Weather echoing mood is pathetic fallacy; an interior (house, room, landscape) matching a character's mental state is a common symbolic device.

Name structural patterns precisely: cyclical (ends where it began), framed (a story inside a story), episodic (loosely linked incidents), or linear with a single climax. Structure is evidence for theme, not decoration.

A motif is a recurring image, object or phrase whose meaning accrues with each appearance; cite at least two occurrences to demonstrate development rather than assert it.

Judge an ending by what it resolves and what it leaves open: marriage, death, return, or deliberate ambiguity - each shapes the reader's final judgement of the protagonist.

The speaker is not the poet: identify who is speaking, to whom, and in what situation before commenting on feeling. A persona lets the poet hold views the poem does not endorse.

Sonnet forms: Petrarchan = octave (abbaabba) plus sestet, with the volta usually at line 9; Shakespearean = three quatrains plus couplet (abab cdcd efef gg), with the turn often at line 13.

Metre check: count stresses per line and identify the dominant foot - iamb (unstressed-stressed), trochee (stressed-unstressed), anapaest (unstressed-unstressed-stressed), dactyl (stressed-unstressed-unstressed). Irregular lines are meaningful deviations.

Enjambment accelerates the reading and end-stopping arrests it; a caesura inside the line isolates a word or dramatises hesitation. Always translate the device into an effect on pace and emphasis.

Sound vocabulary: alliteration (initial consonants), assonance (repeated vowels), consonance (internal consonants), sibilance (s and sh), onomatopoeia. Name the pattern only as a step towards its meaning.

Imagery analysis separates tenor (the subject described) from vehicle (the image applied), then states what the comparison makes visible that a plain statement could not.

Tone is inferred from diction, punctuation, sentence type, mode of address and rhythm - never from subject matter alone. 'An angry poem' is a claim that requires quoted evidence.

Theme in poetry is carried by structure: the order of images and the turns between them. Trace the poem's movement from first line to last rather than listing devices.

Plot arc: exposition, inciting incident, rising action, climax or turning point, falling action, resolution. State where the extract sits in that arc before analysing its detail.

Distinguish soliloquy (a character alone, voicing private thought), aside (brief, audience-directed, unheard by others on stage) and monologue (extended speech with others present); the distinction determines how far the words can be trusted.

Dramatic irony exists wherever the audience's knowledge exceeds a character's; specify exactly what each party knows and what the character does with incomplete knowledge.

Stagecraft vocabulary to use as evidence: blocking, proxemics (stage distance between characters), levels, tableau, props, lighting, costume, sound, plus entrances and exits.

Reported off-stage action (battles, births, deaths) is economical and can be more disturbing than showing; ask why the playwright chose report over spectacle.

Dialogue encodes status: in much early modern drama, verse for nobles and prose for commoners; interruptions, silence and evasive non-answers reveal as much as speeches.

Stichomythia - rapid single-line exchange - signals heightened conflict or interrogation; whichever character breaks the pattern usually seizes control of the scene.

Conflict types: person against person, society, self, or fate. Most strong scenes run two at once, so name both when analysing tension.

Read twice: the first read for sense (who, where, what happens, how it ends), the second with a pen marking shifts, repetitions and striking diction.

Locate the turn - the point where attitude, subject or pace changes - and organise the response around the movement before and after it.

For unseen prose, establish narrative voice first (first or third person, omniscient or limited), then sentence length and paragraphing, then imagery.

For unseen poetry, establish form (sonnet, ballad, free verse, dramatic monologue), line length, rhyme and stanza shape before beginning word-level analysis.

Group evidence into two or three patterns (for example images of heat, of enclosure, of machinery) rather than commenting line by line in the order of the text.

Paraphrase is not analysis: quoting a phrase and offering a synonym earns nothing. State what the word implies and what effect that implication produces.

Embed short quotations - three or four words usually anchor a point about diction more effectively than a full sentence lifted from the text.

Time rule for a 45-minute unseen response: about 10 minutes reading and annotating, 5 minutes planning, 30 minutes writing.

Decode the command word: 'how' demands attention to technique, 'explore' demands range and alternative readings, 'in what ways' invites several angles, 'to what extent' requires a judgement.

Open with a thesis: one sentence that answers the question with a claim a reasonable reader could dispute. A restatement of the question or a list of devices is not a thesis.

Paragraph shape: point, short quotation, word-level analysis, development or alternative reading, then a link back to the exact wording of the question.

Analyse at word level in three moves: name the technique only as a label, explain the word's connotation, then state the effect on reader or audience.

Quote briefly and embed the quotation inside your own sentence; a 3–8 word phrase in the grammar of your argument outperforms a block quotation followed by detached comment.

Use connectives that advance the argument ('furthermore', 'by contrast', 'ultimately') so successive paragraphs develop a case rather than repeat it.

The conclusion must answer the exact question wording and weigh how far the evidence has proved the case; a new quotation or new device introduced here weakens it.

Timing: allow roughly one minute per mark minus ten minutes for planning and checking, so a 25-mark essay is about 25 minutes of writing plus planning.