D.W. Harding paragraph: Is Mr. Collins funny or a nightmare?

D.W. Harding's idea that Mr. Collins is both a comical and a frightening character is accurate. Mr. Collins' annoying attributes are hyperbolized in Pride and Prejudice to the point where he is laughed at by the reader. To see a character that is so preposterously annoying is a funny thing when that character's antics cause so much frustration on the part of other characters in the novel. The area where Mr. Collins turns into a frightening character is when he attempts to exercise power over Elizabeth as mentioned by D.W. Harding in the quote,"economic and social institutions have such power over the values of personal relationships that the comic monster is nearly able to get her" (Harding 298). The scene in which Mr. Collins proposes to Elizabeth is both funny because of the fact that Mr. Collins is oblivious to his negative effect on Elizabeth and tries to make the proposal seem generous, something that Elizabeth is offended by. The frightening aspect of the scene is the fact that Elizabeth might indeed be trapped in a miserable marriage because of the fact that she is socially inferior and therefore doesn't have an equal say in her own future. The oblivious nature of Mr. Collins is funny for the reader, but terrifying for both Elizabeth and any readers who might find themselves in similar situations.

Essay corrections + comments

1. Obviously, the most prevalent mistake that I made in the essay is using language that's too lengthy or vacabulary-heavy. Too many of the sentences were unclear and hard to understand.
2. Another issue was proofreading. If I'd reread the essay more thoroughly, I would have been able to catch a few grammer mistakes.
3. The rest of the mistakes were easily correctible MLA format errors.

What's most important to an essay?

The most important aspect to the essay is not the most complicated and it will not make any essay greater than its main argument but without clear and concise language, an essay cannot be understood. Without being understood, it doesn't matter how well developed your arguments are, nothing will get across to the reader and your essay will be worthless.

In the B2 essay there is a clarity of language that I couldn't find in many of the other essays. Sentences were concise but not overly simplistic. The structure was easy to understand and the main points of the argument were complemented by the ease of reading.

A-Z essay choice #3

B2 Characters in Collaboration: An Analysis of How Secondary Characters Aid the Development of Primary Characters in Pride and Prejudice

• The title is very clear, no doubt as to what the purpose of the essay is
• The introduction is appropriate
• The sentence structure is clear and the ideas are presented in an easily understandable format
• The body is brief but makes its claim well, using Mr. Darcy as the only person who's being analyzed
• The scope of the overarching theme of introducing characters using other characters is broad but the thesis is directed towards only Mr. Darcy and is sufficiently narrow for me
• This is an overall good essay

A-Z essay choice #2

My favorite essay in the A-Z book is by Ms. Yolanda.

• The title is very eye catching, I liked it for no reason in particular
• The sentence structure varies regularly and is also very direct and to the point, not making any long digressions and the style is easily comprehended.
• The idea that character introductions are used as a tool to satirize the past is a common theme among all the essays but this essay presents it in a different form where instead of a byproduct of introducing characters through gossip, the whole goal of introducing characters using gossip as the medium is to critique society.
• The only real flaw that I can find with this essay is the fact that it uses a large number of lengthy quotes and the analysis can seem a bit like narrative of the story sometimes but otherwise the points are made clearly and effectively.

A-Z essay choice #1

The first sufficiently good essay that I read about Pride and Prejudice is titled "Contradiction of conformity: How Austen shapes our opinions of characters"

• The essay has a clear thesis and establishes quickly what the argument is and stays on task in developing that argument.
• Although the argument may not be incredibly ambitious, it is well thought out and argued sufficiently to earn points for achieving its goal.
• There are relatively few grammar or spelling errors to distract me from the main point and the language isn't too elaborate to distract me either, the essay was very focused.
• A couple of the faults that this essay has with respect to the grading rubrics is that the scope isn't sufficiently narrow enough, the idea that foils are used to aide the reader in understanding society is a fairly typical topic to focus on. The idea that social status and yearly salaries are used to build prejudices about characters is something that's mentioned in the introduction but not built on heavily in the body and deserved more attention, especially in the first body paragraph.

conflicting characterizations: gossip vs. actions

Through social means, characters are assumed to possess either honorable or malicious qualities. This first impression of a character is often, but not always, misleading because although some characters are portrayed inaccurately through gossip, other characters are portrayed accurately by gossip as evidenced by their actions in the novel.