How do I analyse an unseen piece of drama or prose?

Although the poem may seem the less daunting choice for the unseen commentary, an analysis of the extract of drama or prose can be equally rewarding. My advice is to treat every text as you would a piece of poetry in terms of linguistic analysis, while making sure you are alert to the specificities of that genre. First, read the text at least once. Then start annotating it, highlighting any significant rhetorical structures and writing short comments about their effect on your paper – use of metaphor, imagery, etc. Pay particular attention to syntax, punctuation, narrative voice or characterization through dialogue, and tone. Are there elements of irony in the text? What is narrator’s significance? Is the syntax paratactic or hypotactic and what effect does this have? How do you think the text or dialogue would continue? If this is an extract from a play, is there any ambiguity – are there any lines which could be interpreted differently by different actors? After you have asked yourself questions like these, start structuring your essay. If you don’t know where to start after all that brainstorming, ask yourself this single question: What do you think is the heart of this text? Build on this idea to structure an argument about what the text is saying and how it is saying it.