Writer's methods — The Merchant of Venice — OCR GCSE English Literature J352
OCR GCSE English Literature · J352
Writer's methods
Writer's methods
What you need to know
How Shakespeare's form, structure and language create meaning: comedy and its tragic figure, the contrast of Venice and Belmont, verse and prose,
the caskets and rings as tests, disguise, the trial as drama, imagery of money, flesh and animals, and the speeches on mercy and on being a Jew.
Comedy and its tragic figure: the double plot of Venice and Belmont, the marriages and music of the ending, and Shylock's absence from it.
Blank verse, prose and rhyme: the rhyming scrolls in the caskets, Launcelot's comic prose, and Shylock's prose in Act 3 Scene 1 against his verse at the trial.
Imagery of money, flesh, animals and light, the caskets and rings as symbols and tests, dramatic irony in the disguises, and the set speeches on mercy and on being a Jew.
OCR's question on this play is one essay, from a choice of two, for 40 marks: an extract-based question on the printed extract and the play elsewhere, or a discursive question on a view of the play, using at least two moments. Response (AO1) and language, form and structure (AO2) carry the most weight and equal weight, context (AO3) counts as the play shows it, and 4 marks are for vocabulary, sentence structures, spelling and punctuation (AO4). An extract-based answer that never leaves the extract, or a discursive answer built on one moment, cannot go above Level 3. Each worked paragraph and exam tip is labelled with the question it is for.
