How do I incorporate context into my essay smoothly?
- context doesn't have to be scrappy! - if you are really interested in what you are writing about, your essay will definitely be more exciting for an examiner to read and this will be reflected in your marks - when you are writing a point on language / content, think to yourself 'how can this be related to the context of the time? is this like anything else I've read? is this present in anything in today's society? how would a reader/ audience react to this? does this deviate from tradition?' -read around the text! this can be a really interesting way to liven up even the most boring of texts if you relate to the time that it was written/ author etc more than just spouting out stuff that doesn't really interest you. articles from the time, authors from the time, biographies, current affairs from the time etc are all great ways to do this. for example: think about the context of the Jazz Age and prohibition on The Great Gatsby, think about how Daisy could be seen to be like Zelda. Is 'Grapes of Wrath' the 'communist propaganda' that it was deemed? Does the Duchess of Malfi play up to the typical female character tropes from the time?
