SCORING COMMENTARY for George Bernard Shaw excerpt
Question 2 (1981) – Sample Essays
Low Score
Middle Score
The excerpt presents Shaw’s mother in two different
ways. Supposedly she is dead, but yet she talks.
Supposedly she is cremated, but yet the crematories are
disguises. There is a plausible explanation for these
contrasting events: Shaw loved his mother greatly, and
could not believe she was dying an unglorious death.
The coffin “mysteriously” vanishes. This suggests that
the coffin perhaps is not vanishing into a furnace but
something else. This something else is revealed in a
flashback, beginning with the third sentence. Shaw tries
to except that she is not dying an ugly death by
cremation. He tries to glorify the death. “Streaming
ribbons” gives us a happy feeling of flame that it actually
painful.
He watches the actual cremation the “wasted little
figure” and “dainty little heap,” though it may be just
this, gives the reader a tone of indifference. The image of
“kitchen” and “cooks” glorifies her death; it is actually a
place where the ugly remains are remove by workers.
Shaw imagines her as alive again when she says
something to him. This affectation of Shaw’s is only
artificial. He would like to believe she died a happy
glorious death, when in reality it was ugly and pitiful.
Shaw comes down to earth when he addresses the grave.
“Where is thy victory?” He is trying to satisfy himself by
finding the answer to the question. What good is the body
for the grave? How does it gain anything by getting a
body? It doesn’t gain. It is just one more absurd
idiosyncrasy of life.
George Bernard Shaw had a definite attitude
towards his mother as he sees her coffin disappear into
the furnace. But when he returns his attitude has changed
as he watches the cooks sift through the ashes of his
mother. He realizes that these ashes are not his mother at
all. They have nothing to do with his mother’s “wasted
little figure and wonderful face” Only then can Shaw
experience the humor of this scene in which the ashes are
sorted out. When Shaw imagines that Mama is with him
watching the scene, that shows that he believes his mother
is separate from the actual ashes. This is the reason that
Shaw finds the ash scene “wildly funny” and that his
mother would have “enjoyed it enormously.”
Shaw’s actual attitude towards his mother is only
shown in the opening paragraphs as he describes the
actual cremation as a glorious event fit for a glorious
person. He marvels at the “streaming ribbons” of the
“lovely flame” and is in awe as he watches the
“Pentecostal tongues” lovingly and eagerly consume his
mother in a shimmering fire. He says that his mother
became that beautiful fire and imagines that it is his
mother herself who makes the fire beautiful. He obviously
must have thought his mother to be a wonderful and
glorious person when she was alive.
When the ashes remained, Shaw believed his mother
was not there, that she had departed with the fire. Shaw
then conveys his careless attitude about the ashes by
describing them with humorous diction and detailing the
disposal of his mother’s ashes with a nonchalant attitude.
Althogether Shaw witnessed a “wonderful” departure of
his mother but refused to recognize any beauty in her
remains or the in the disposal of them. The grave has no
victory as that honor was reserved for the fire of the
coffin.
SCORING COMMENTARY: Although the phrase in the
question “on the death of his mother” might have misled the
student, it would be a challenge not to mislead someone who
reads this passage as a son’s witnessing his living mother’s
incineration. Since Shaw’s attitude toward his mother and
her cremation are so distant from his view, although both are
clearly there for the finding, the student invents a plausible
explanation for what seems to be implausible. Insensitive to
Shaw’s diction, the student settles for the least effective, if not
the most inaccurate, word or phrase: the Pentecostal tongues
“give us a happy feeling,” as the “wasted little figure” does
a “tone of indifference,” and Shaw’s “affectation…is only
artificial.”
SCORING COMMENTARY: The paragraphs here seem
somehow to average out to the average. The first confidently
asserts that Shaw has an attitude toward both his mother and
her cremation, and that the attitude changes, and then skips
to the last half of the passage. Often in these responses,
students rush in to the essay and, as this one does, discover
half-way through that they have slighted something earlier—
a pardonable mistake. The second paragraph retraces a
writer’s first quick steps in the first sentence and in the next
two nicely considers Mama’s lovely consummation. But the
writer is still in a hurry, too much so to pause for more
precise terms for Shaw’s attitude than “careless” or
“nonchalant” or “humorous.” With a little more time or
patience, the student, I suspect, would have found the critical
vocabulary to raise this essay to a higher score. That such
diction was a hand is suggested by the description of the
“shimmering” fire, a word that Shaw himself might have
used; and the final sentence argues that the student can
manipulate syntax. But the essay as a whole is too cursory to
receive a high score.
SCORING COMMENTARY for George Bernard Shaw excerpt
High Score
George Bernard Shaw describes the cremation of his
mother in playful and soothing terms that reveal his
affection for her and show that he regards death as an
inevitable but gently process that robs one of only the
physical (and not the spiritual) presence of loved ones. By
using simple sentences, surprising adjectives like “dainty
little heap of ashes,” and establish the imaginary,
humorous presence of his mother watching the
cremation, Shaw both entertains the reader and relaxes
all who expect a morbid reaction from him. He chooses to
describe the cremation graphically and joyfully, an
approach that likewise shows that he remembers that
closeness and happiness of his relationship with his
mother and that these elements endure in his mind even
at her death. Shaw simplicity of style and unusual
description of the cremation enable him to preserve the
witty and carefree nature of his mother and he feelings
toward her.
The passage views death as a calm and unchangeable
process of nature, and Shaw’s sentence structure reflects
this. He writes the passage in a simple narrative style,
rarely using subordinate clause or multiple adjectives. He
does not stop to dwell on the philosophical implication of
the cremation, instead proceeding continuously with the
narrative itself. However, his introduction of his mother’s
spirit and the spirit’s comical views of the scene serves as
a device to convey the very philosophical picture of
happiness that Shaw seeks to. Similarly, his willingness to
minutely and graphically describe the cremation process
indirectly transmits to the reader Shaw’s feelings of
beauty and contentment over the burning of the body.
Shaw chains together the declarations of “no heat, no
noise. No roaring draught. No flame. No fuel.” The
directness and simplicity of these statements makes it
clear to all that Shaw sees no violence of cruelty in the
cremation process. By staying with the narrative
throughout the passage and keeping the narrative direct
and simple, Shaw relaxes the reader while successfully
transmitting his philosophical attitudes toward his
mother and the cremation.
Shaw’s word choices within the calm narrative are
both surprising and affective in that they associate the
quality of splendor with the cremation and bring an
uncommon environment of beauty to the entire scene.
Such unusual descriptions as “lovely flame,” “beautiful
fire,” and the cool, clean, and sunny,” cremation chamber
all sway the reader from the conventional associations of
brutality and pain with fire. Similarly, the violet color of
the coffin and the “merry episode” of Shaw’s mother
chuckling over the scene brings feelings of calmness and
humor to the death scene. The metaphorical conversion of
the laboratory into a kitchen further characterizes the
scene as a happy one, and the notion of “cooks” who
“sweep” and “shake out” Shaw’s mother from a sieve-like
instrument shows how Shaw himself minimizes the
physical significance of the death.
Shaw’s attitude toward his mother involves filial
affection alongside an appreciation of her sense of humor
and her inclination towards humbleness. By casting her
cremation as a “merry episode” and colorfully detailing
the procedure, Shaw playfully diminishes the importance
of the physical occurrences. This draws the reader’s
attention toward the spiritual, or emotional, feelings for
this mother, and his use of her as an imaginary viewer of
the kitchen scene strengthens his charaterization of her.
The fact that his mother is “present” and watching the
process shows that Shaw feels she remains spiritually
alive, and her “shaking laughter” and joke about the
heaps of ash illustrates her sense of humor and selfdeprecation while amplifying the power of her spiritual
presence. “O grave, where is thy victory?” says Shaw to
defy the implication that his mother’s spirit might also
die with her physical death. Shaw’s style and approach
demonstrate conclusively that his mother’s happy
qualities remain with him and that he views the
cremation as an attractive, if unimportant stage in her
life.
SCORING COMMENTARY: The length of an essay is rarely
a reason for scoring what is written; but it may, as with this
one, mark a commendable exuberance in the act of writing. A
longish essay, it is inevitably repetitive at times, but seen as a
first draft it is a fine performance.
The first paragraph begins a complex syntactical pattern
that manages to introduce all the writer’s major concerns. It
then turns to tick off in a business-like manner, the letter’s
diction, syntax, and rhetoric. The last sentence, with a nice
insight, argues that aspects of the description of cremation
“enable” Shaw to “preserve” (a not inappropriate word) the
character of his mother and their relationship. The second
paragraph turns to the letter’s larger narrative structure and
demonstrates, again, how the narration of the first part is
complemented by the introduction of the mother’s ironic
commentary in the second. The third paragraph turns to
diction, and although the critical vocabulary is somewhat
less than effective, terms like “surprising” and “unusual”
mark a good start toward describing the cremation and its
culinary conclusion. By the fourth paragraph the student has
begun to reconsider the earlier term, “philosophical,” and to
substitute “spiritual and emotional” for what needs to be
identified in Shaw’s attitude. As the writer turns to that topic,
Shaw’s dramatic skill is hinted at with the description of him
“casting her cremation as a ‘merry episode’, “and with a
little revision, the student might well have seen how well the
word “playfully” works in the paragraph. A responsive
reader and a sensitive writer like this one warrants
recognition
THE ASSIGNMENT:
USING WHAT YOU NOW
KNOW, PLEASE REWRITE, REVISE AND/OR EDIT
YOUR IN-CLASS TIMED WRITE AND SUBMIT TO
TURNITIN.COM by Monday at midnight. While you can
take hints from the essay(s) you’ve read here, your work
must be your own and plagiarism will result in a zero on the
assignment. Be amazing!