As you continue to write and revise your essays for submission on Thursday, remember your focus is on literary analysis, not reader-responses. In your essay, you will not address how the reader might respond to different elements of the text, but rather how specific elements within the text progress the meaning of the story.
Below are two examples of statements addressing the same scene from Dracula. The first is a reader-response based statement, while the second has been revised to use the same observations to make an analytical statement:
1) Stoker uses the atmosphere of the shadowy evening and shifting darkness, which denies Mina an accurate view of her surroundings and Lucy's attacker, in order to build suspense for the reader about Lucy's situation.
2) Stoker uses the evening, shrouded in shifting darkness as Mina struggles to locate the sleepwalking Lucy, to continue features of the traditional gothic atmosphere and also develop Dracula as a villain who is directly responsible for the manipulation of nature. While many characters find it difficult to believe in the possibility of a supernatural cause for Lucy's illness and death, Stoker shows that Dracula is paradoxically closely tied to nature itself.
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