“The Way Up to Heaven”
Essay Plan
Prose Questions 2008 Question 4
Choose a novel or short story which has a turning
point or moment of realisation for one of the
characters.
Briefly describe what has led up to the turning point
or moment. Go on to show what impact this has had
on the character(s) and how it affects your feelings
towards the character.
Essay
• The essay you are going to be writing will be asking you to
show how a character has changed over the course of events
in a short story, and to what extent you sympathise with the
character.
• In order to write a successful essay, you will have to show:
– what the character of Mrs Foster is like at the beginning of the story.
– Why and how she begins to change (turning point).
– What the character of Mrs Foster is like at the end of the story.
Introduction
• Keep it relatively short!
• Text, Author, Reference to question.
• Brief response to question.
Introduction Example
• “The Way up to Heaven” by Roald Dhal is a
short story in which the character of Mrs
Foster has a moment of realisation. She takes
the opportunity to leave her emotionally
abusive husband to die. Our feelings about
Mrs Foster change throughout the story, as
her character develops from being a weak
and timid victim to a confident person who
can take control of their own life.
“Briefly describe what has led up to the turning point
or moment.”
Mrs Foster is dominated by a cruel husband who enjoys seeing her discomfort
when she is afraid she will be late. Indeed, as she is leaving to go to the
airport to fly to Paris to visit her daughter, he appears to be deliberately
holding her back. Mrs Foster has long wished to visit her daughter and
grandchildren in Paris and has had great difficulty in persuading her husband
to “allow” her to go. Mrs Foster’s moment of realisation comes when Mr
Foster pretends he has forgotten something in the house and returns to get it.
Mrs Foster, in her agitation, follows him to the house, and just before opening
the door, appears to listen intently for several seconds. Quite suddenly, Mrs
Foster, returns to the car and orders the driver to leave immediately and take
her to the airport. We later discover that Mr Foster has become trapped in
the elevator in the house and that Mrs Foster has resolved to leave him there.
As Mr Foster has dismissed all the servants, there is no possibility that Mr
Foster will be discovered and saved. Mrs Foster has taken the opportunity to
be free of her husband and can now spend her remaining years in Paris with
her family.
PEAR
• POINT Topic sentence with a linking word. It tells the
examiner what your paragraph is going to be about.
• EVIDENCE Explain what is happening in the part of the
story from which you have taken your quotation or your
example.
• ANALYSIS Explain what the quotation or example tells you
about how the character is feeling or what it tells us about
the theme of the text.
• RESPONSE Explain how your evidence RESPONDS to the
question. For example, why do you feel sympathy for Martin.
what impact this has had on the character(s) and how it
affects your feelings towards the character.
Initially, before we reach the turning point in the story, our feelings for
Mrs Foster are of sympathy. She is intimidated by her bullying
husband, despite having “served him loyally and well”. We can see the
nature of their relationship when she is waiting for her husband to
come downstairs to leave for the airport:
“She would never dare call out and tell him to hurry. He had
her too well disciplined for that.”
This chilling example suggests the power that Mr Foster has had over
his wife. She is clearly afraid of him and the word “disciplined” furthers
the idea that Mr Foster has had control over his wife. It makes me
think of the relationship a dog might have with his master, rather than
a wife with her husband. At this early part of the story, I feel a great
deal of sympathy for a woman who has spent most of her life trying to
please a cruel and bullying husband who has little respect for his wife.
Your turn…
• Before the change
x1 or 2 PEAR
• The turning point
x1 pear
• After the turning point.
x2 or 3 PEAR