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I can analyse how Conan Doyle presents character and atmosphere on the night of Julia’s death in ‘The Speckled Band’.

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Licence

This content is © Oak National Academy Limited (2023), licensed on Open Government Licence version 3.0 except where otherwise stated. See Oak's terms & conditions (Collection 2).

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Key learning points

The night Julia Stoner dies, there is an awful storm.
Conan Doyle uses pathetic fallacy to create a sinister atmosphere, foreshadowing the threatening force behind her death.
Conan Doyle also emphasises the fear of both the Stoner sisters.
Quote explosions can help you to gather ideas for analytical writing.
Analytical writing should include single word analysis and conjunctions to justify analysis.

Common misconception

Planning can often be seen as a waste of time.

You must take time to make notes and gather ideas so the analysis you write is strong.

Keywords

Pathetic fallacy - Pathetic fallacy is giving human emotions to inanimate things, usually the environment.
Annotate - Annotate means to label and add notes.
Foreshadowing - Foreshadowing means a warning of a future event.
Hubbub - Hubbub means chaotic noise.

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Hello everyone and welcome to your lesson on analysing character and atmosphere.

I'm Miss Sutherland and I'll be teaching you today.

Our learning outcome for today is to be able to analyse atmosphere and character and we'll be analysing atmosphere and character in \"The Adventure of the Speckled Band.\" In particular, we'll be analysing the atmosphere and character upon the night that Julia Stoner dies.

We have four keywords for today's lesson and they are: pathetic fallacy; pathetic fallacy is giving human emotions to inanimate things usually in the environment.

Annotate; annotate means to label and add notes.

Foreshadowing; foreshadowing means a warning of a future event, and hubbub; hubbub means chaotic noise.

I'll give you a moment to pause the video and note down any words that you wish to.

Great, let's get started.

We have two learning cycles today.

In the first learning cycle, we'll be revisiting the extract in which we learn of Julia Stoner's death and we hear of Helen's reaction and we learn a little bit about the night that she died.

In the second learning cycle today, we'll be putting all of the ideas that we've got from the extract into an analytical paragraph.

So let's begin, let's gather some ideas about the atmosphere and the characters and how they're presented on the night of Julia Stoner's death, as I said, we are going to read the extract again, and this extract is from the night on which Julia Stoner died.

\"It was a wild night.

The wind was howling outside, and the rain was beating and splashing against the windows.

Suddenly, amid all the hubbub of the gale, there burst forth the wild scream of a terrified woman.

I knew that it was my sister's voice.

I sprang from my bed, wrapped a shawl around me and rushed into the corridor.

As I ran down the passage, my sister's door was unlocked, and revolved slowly upon its hinges.

I stared at it horror-stricken, not knowing what was about to issue from it.\" I want you to now think about which words and phrases stand out to you from that paragraph.

Pause the video and have a think.

Great, let's take a look.

You may have said that this quote stands out to you.

\"I sprang from my bed, wrapped a shawl around me, and rushed into the corridor.\" That quote definitely stands out to me because it describes Helen's fearful reaction to hearing Julia's scream.

Let's delve deeper into why this is quite a powerful quote.

I'm going to annotate it to show you exactly what stands out to me.

I'm going to annotate it to show you how Conan Doyle presents Helen Stoner's fear.

First of all, I'm looking at the word sprang, sprang is an animated verb, suggesting she jumped out of bed very quickly as if she was startled.

She didn't just get out of bed, she sprang from her bed.

Also rushed, the verb rushed also suggests she was alert to the impending danger.

And it's not only the verbs that stand out to me from this quote, it's the use of a triplet, and I know it's a triplet because she sprang, she wrapped and she rushed, and that creates a fast pace, which further suggests Helen's panic.

True or false, when analysing a quote, you must only pick out the interesting language devices.

Pause the video and have a think.

Well done if you said false.

When analysing a quote, you don't only have to pick out interesting language devices.

Now why is that? Pause the video and have a think.

Well done, if you said you can analyse sentence structure, words and phrases, not only language devices.

So let me give you an example of that.

If you pick out a language device, you might pick out simile, metaphor, personification, but that is not the only thing you can analyse.

You could analyse sentence structure, why certain words have been used in that order, why there is a simple sentence, not a complex sentence, but you could also analyse words.

You could also analyse the use of a verb, or the use of an adjective.

Therefore, we can pick up much more than just language devices.

Now I've now given you some more quotes from that extract, and I want you to answer the question, how does Conan Doyle present atmosphere and character? So what do you need to do to help you answer that question is create a quote explosion for each of the quotes.

And the quote explosion is what I showed you earlier when I annotated Helen's fear on that previous previous quote.

Here are some tips for your quote explosions.

First of all, highlight the interesting words, phrases, and structures in your quote.

Now, secondly, annotate with any language devices, also annotate any interesting words, any interesting phrases, any interesting structures.

And thirdly, annotate what these words, phrases, and devices and structures suggest about the character or atmosphere.

So let me read you through those quotes so you can begin to get an idea of what you might annotate.

\"Suddenly amid all the hubbub of the gale, there burst forth the wild scream of a terrified woman.\" And \"The wind was howling outside, and the rain was beating and splashing against the windows.\" Remember, you are looking for any interesting words, phrases, and language devices that show something about the atmosphere and character.

Now, pause the video and create your quote explosions.

Great job everyone.

Let's go through what you may have said.

So we take this quote \"Suddenly, amid all the hubbub of the gale, there burst forth the wild scream of a terrified woman.\" Now I've decided to highlight burst and wild, and I'm going to now annotate those.

The verb burst suggests how panicked Julia was and how suddenly her screams appeared.

Burst suggests that her screams were so loud and striking that they overpowered the dreadful storm.

And wild, the adjective wild suggests that Julia Stoner was in pure agony as if she was prey because wild reminds us of being animalistic.

Your annotations will not look exactly the same.

That's okay, great job on that task everyone.

Let's take a look at this quote.

\"The wind was howling outside, and the rain was beating and splashing against the windows.\" Again, I've highlighted my interesting words and I've said I'm interested in the word howling and I'm interested in the word beating.

Let's take a look at what I think about those words.

The verb howling shows the anger of the wind, making it appear animalistic and threatening.

It could also link to Julia howling in pain.

So that I'm saying there we see pathetic fallacy, we see the weather reflecting the mood, both the wind is howling and Julia is howling in pain.

Both the weather and the character reflects some sort of agonising state.

And let's move on to beating.

The verb beating gives a violent undertone to the rain.

Again, giving the weather a harsh character.

Again, which is pathetic fallacy, giving emotions to the weather.

And this also foreshadows the danger to come, just as the rain is appearing as a dangerous presence, it might then suggest there's another dangerous presence lurking, and we are going to find out about it later.

Also, I'm also going to look at the words and, because there's a list there, \"Howling outside, and the rain was beating and splashing,\" the repetition of the word and in a list makes a syndetic list.

And I think the repetition of and gives us an impression of the weather as unrelenting.

In other words, not giving up, not giving in, showing no mercy.

Great job on that task.

Let's move to our second learning cycle where we will write about character and atmosphere and put all those good ideas to good use.

Let's take a look at what Izzy thinks about the character and atmosphere in the extract.

Izzy says, \"Conan Doyle not only creates a strong sense of pathetic fallacy in the extract, but makes Helen's fear vividly clear.\" Do you agree or disagree with Izzy? Pause the video and have a think.

Interesting responses everyone.

Let's see what Andeep has said to Izzy.

Andeep says that he agrees in the extract there is a strong sense of pathetic fallacy and a strong sense of Helen's fear.

But he also says, \"I can see a strong sense of Julia's fear being conveyed.\" Maybe you agreed with Andeep as well.

Now let's look at Jacob's contribution.

Jacob says, \"I agree that there is pathetic fallacy as the wind is howling like it is angry.\" So you may also agree with Jacob and you may have also found evidence for your claim like Jacob has.

Let's develop Jacob's ideas in response to Izzy into a paragraph.

'Cause I think what he said was really excellent.

So Izzy says, \"Conan Doyle not only creates a strong sense of pathetic fallacy in the extract, but makes Helen's fear vividly clear.\" And Jacob says, \"I agree, there is pathetic fallacy as the events are sinister and the weather howling reflects this.\" Let's develop his idea into a paragraph.

So firstly, our paragraph will need to include whether we agree or disagree with Izzy, analysis of interesting words or phrases from a quote.

We're gonna zoom into single words from our quote, and we're going to use a conjunction to justify our analysis.

Let's take a look, an example paragraph of turning Jacob's ideas into a full response.

\"I agree with Izzy that pathetic fallacy is present in the extract.

This is obvious when the wind is described as howling.

The verb howling has connotations of anger and likes the wind to a threatening presence because predators are often described as howling.

Alternatively, the verb howling could refer to a reaction to intense pain and reflect Julia's agony.\" Notice there how we've taken Jacob's simple verbal response and turned it in to a really detailed written paragraph.

In an analytical paragraph, you should include; pause the video and answer this question.

Well done if you said in an analytical paragraph, you should include single word analysis.

Now that means taking one word from your quote and writing about what it suggests.

We do not need a headline in analytical paragraph.

Headlines are for newspaper articles, and we do not need at least five quotes in an analytical paragraph.

In fact, one or two quotes that you can say a lot about are much better than five different quotes.

The purpose of conjunctions in analytical paragraphs is to, pause the video and complete the sentence.

Well done if you said, the purpose of conjunctions in analytical paragraphs is to justify analysis.

What we're trying to do when we use a conjunction like because in our analytical paragraph is to make sure we fully explained how we've come to a certain conclusion.

Now it's over to you.

Write your response to Izzy's statement.

Make sure you include whether you agree or disagree with Izzy's statement, analysis of interesting words or phrases from the quote.

Zoom in on a single word and use a conjunction to justify your analysis.

Let's just recap what exactly Izzy has said.

\"Conan Doyle not only creates a strong sense of pathetic fallacy in the extract, but makes Helen's fear vividly clear.\" So what you need to comment on is the use of pathetic fallacy.

And remember, prophetic fallacy is one of our key words for today.

What it is is giving emotions to inanimate objects such as the weather.

So you need to write, do you agree that Conan Doyle has given emotions to the weather? And do you agree that he's made Helen's fear very clear to the reader? Now pause the video and write your response to Izzy.

Great job everyone, let's now self-assess.

I want you to reread your work and highlight where you've included the following.

Have you remembered to include whether you agree or disagree with Izzy's statement? Analysis of interesting words or phrases from the quote? Have you zoomed in on a single word from your quote, and have you used a conjunction to justify your analysis? Pause the video and self-assess your writing.

Great job, everyone.

I'm really impressed with all your effort today and your writing.

Let's go through what we've learned today.

The night Julia Stoner dies, there is an awful storm.

Conan Doyle uses pathetic fallacy to create a sinister atmosphere foreshadowing the threatening force behind her death.

Conan Doyle also emphasises the fear of both the Stoner sisters.

Quote explosions can help you to gather ideas for analytical writing.

And analytical writing should include single word analysis and conjunctions to justify analysis.

I've really enjoyed learning with you today, and I hope to see you next time.

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