The commentary is a mini-essay of less than 500 words (generally, no more than 1 to 1½ typed pages, double-spaced) that focuses on a single moment or
aspect of a story/text, or in some cases, on two separate texts that you believe readers should connect. Include a Works Cited page with an MLA bibliograpic
reference to the version of the work you are using.
Your job is to indicate what we discover or realize when we make that connection. Your goal is to show what this particular moment adds to the unfolding
understanding we have as we read the story. A commentary treats the story/text as an evolving interaction with the reader, not as a completed object, and
therefore is written as if your reader only knows the story up to that point. At the same time, you, as the writer of the commentary, work from your knowledge
of the whole text.
Short as it is, the commentary has four distinct parts: fact, introduction, analysis, and conclusion.
(1) The fact is simply the quoted segment of the story.
(2) The introduction is the context-setting opening sentence(s) with which you begin.
(3) The analysis is your examination of that segment’s pattern(s) so as to point out the significant features.
(4) The conclusion is your articulation of what is revealed to the reader by this moment. Analysis is how you get from the fact to the conclusion.
The commentary, to put it another way, focuses on what is being dramatized in the moment: in writing a commentary, your goal is to make explicit what is
implicit in the story, what the author has left for us to discover rather than say explicitly. You are answering the question “What does this moment add to our
experience and, hence, our understanding?” And in answering this question you will need to examine your chosen moment for what it does as well as what it
means or is. Often you can best get at what the moment means through showing what it does: what it means emerges from our (reconstructing) experience
of that moment.
You need to assume two things about the reader you address in your commentary: first, that your reader has read and is familiar with the story; second, that
she looks forward to having you say something enlightening about your chosen moment. Given the first assumption, it is obvious that your reader does not
want summary, beyond whatever context-setting remark you need to start your commentary. Given the second assumption, it is obvious that your reader
believes in your ability to perceive some of the subtler cues offered by the text, and to elucidate some of the quieter meanings.
Following are some temptations and some pitfalls you want to avoid:
(1) The temptation to interpret the whole story. Not only is this impossible in less than 300 words, but you will inevitably ignore the moment you are
supposedly analyzing. Look for what the moment reveals to the readers as it occurs: what does it enable or impel us to understand that we had not
understood before? You may want to avoid the “big” moments in a story, the crises and climaxes: they are simply too rich to be handled clearly and cleanly in
the short space of a commentary. (The moments just before such a climax, however, are sometimes very rewarding for commentary.)
(2) The temptation to use your moment as a springboard for discussing the theme or themes of the story in very abstract terms. Again, if you yield to this
temptation, you will almost inevitably lose focus on the chosen moment, and produce broad generalizations that cannot be fully stated, let alone supported,
in the space available to you.
(3) The temptation to launch into a character study in which you try to summarize what we know about a figure in the story. Commentaries can be very
effective in showing an aspect of a character, a single facet or the relation between two facets—but they are not suited for the sort of lengthy analysis of a
character some of you may have been taught to perform. Be careful not to choose a moment where one of the characters says explicitly everything you want
to say, or when the narrator reveals everything there is to be said about the moment.
The sooner you start drafting each commentary, the more time you will have for revising it to create a sharp, clearly focused final product. Try to draft
commentary as soon as you finish each story we read. After we discuss a text in class, you should revise your commentary. Typically, you find you will need
to cut first sentences and get to the focal point quicker; thus, spending more time on analysis. If you have a draft you can, of course, come see me for
feedback on it.
Commentaries must be typed and carefully edited. At the very beginning of the commentary itself, quote the passage that you are focusing on – this is your
FACT, and provide the page number from the text we are using. A passage that seems too long—one that goes beyond half a page—is too long for
commentary: either you are falling prey to temptations 1-3 above or you have not yet arrived at a sharp focus.
A note about citations: Be sure to use quotation marks around your FACT, and indicate where in the work (page number for printed texts, location for Kindle,
or minutes for film) your quote is located.
A “Works Cited” at the end of your commentary is required. Commentaries will usually only have one cited work and that is the text we are reading in class.
Due to the number of different editions that are available and that you might be using, use MLA to list your text at the end of the commentary.