WJEC ENGLISH LITERATURE

Principal Moderator’s Comments
Creative Writing Response: A Lynching – 20 th October 1894
AO1 This is a creative response to the selected Faulkner short story in the way that the
student has tried to go beyond the stimulus text by finding different viewpoints and different
voices with which to treat the subject. The poem is carefully structured in six parts: part I
setting the scene; part II giving the black man’s view-point; part III, the female accuser’s; part
IV the lynch mob’s leader; part V, the bystander’s, caught up in the frenzy; and part VI,
imaginatively giving the final part, the death, to the rope. On the whole, this works well and is
effective because the different parts have been given distinctive forms and voices. Individual
parts are also thoughtfully structured. For example, part I prepares the reader for the
lynching by the repetition of the negatives and the contrasting section beginning with
‘Instead’. The shocking nature of what is to come is underlined by the effective images made
of casual words in the next verse, words such as ‘twist in their hands’, ‘kept in pockets’ and
‘thrown around/like rolling dice’. Perhaps the play on eyes and moral blindness in the last
verse of this section is more clumsily handled. Mostly the writer has a good sense of line,
uses repetition effectively and some of the descriptions are especially vivid e.g. ‘under the
spotted sky of ebony’. There are places where the writing is not so controlled; the last four
lines of part III, for example, come close to doggerel – though the commentary attempts to
justify this. The ending of the poem is very thoughtful; the rope as a parting lover, the
shortening lines and then the quiet repetition of the opening line of this part. In places there
is surely a degree of sophistication in the use of structure, form and language. Band 4
17/20
Commentary
AO2 There is sound analysis and some evaluation of structure, form and language;
however, the emphasis is on structure and form and it would have been useful to have had a
little more close analysis of the effects of language. Although the claim is that the stimulus
te xt inspired the response’s subject matter, there are also a few useful references to certain
features of the stimulus text and the ways in which they have affected the style and narrative
approaches of the poem. Band 4
AO4 This student refers to one Faulkner story whereas we would expect reference to more
than one story. This approach limits discussion of the context of the stimulus text which is
barely touched on in the commentary. Nevertheless, there is some discussion of the
contextual influence of ‘Dry September’ and mention made of an influential newspaper
article. What other ideas influenced the attitudes and intentions of the poem are only briefly
touched on. And it would have been interesting to learn why someone who calls herself
‘usually a prose writer’ chose this long poem form. Generally, this commentary addresses
AO2 effectively but pays less attention to AO4.
Low Band 3
Commentary mark 15/20
Final Mark 32/40 Low Band 4
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