ELAT 2017 (2018 Entry)

Did your essay have to be about the theme that was given or could you have written about the extracts in anyway you wanted to - i.e. based it upon a different theme you thought was more fruitful writing about?

I can confirm that your answer can be literally about anything, the theme is just there's to link the extracts. Most people take a spin on the theme given but if you can think of another accurate and clear focus that is unrelated to the theme it is okay.

This year's ELAT it was almost impossible not to mention the theme. Still can't believe the theme was what it was! Felt so conflicted afterwards - comfort eating failed me lol.

As from now, ELAT discussion is no longer being moderated.

My over-arching argument was based on thought processes throughout the extracts and I compared the ways in which the characters attempt to rationalise their justifications on eating meat/not eating meat, the way in which fear can alter/aid thought processes when discussing meat and the ways in which thought processes are presented in union or in opposition.

I chose Dante and the Lobster and August: Osage County. Tbh I think I what i wrote made no sense 🙃

Could mean you both came up with brilliant points tho!!!! What college are you applying to??

I did similar. I chose Dante and the Lobster and to the Immortal Memory of the fine halibut on which I dined this day or whatever it was called (I shortened it to Immortal Memory)
I talked about how each of the characters anthropomorphised their food but they did so in different ways (cowper's persona did so in jest, Belacqua - who I instinctively referred to as Dante, hello rejection! - through the omniscient third person narrator who offered his perspective, attributed human verbs such as 'trembled' to the Lobster which he inhumanly referred to as 'it' for fear of approaching the topic of its life, and the 'aunt' unafraid to confront this fact, referred to lobsters using the human third person pronoun of 'they' but the non-human attribution of not being able to feel pain.

I then talked about the rejection of the life throughout both pieces with the aunts perspective and the juxtaposition in Cowper's semantic field of birth between 'spawn'd' which evokes revulsion and 'embryo' which connotes humanity but still is a matter of controversy for humanity.and compared this separation from humanity to the aunt's plosive 'boil the beast'.

I then talked about how both Belacqua (or Dante ahhhh still do mad at myself) and Cowper both eventually accepted the fate of the Lobster/halibut to be good with the idea of predestination - there were directly comparable quotes in each

I also talked about how Cowper's poem was very much a satirical elegy and forgot to say that Dante and the Lobster was an allegory I also remember some grasping at strings point about how the rigid blank verse structure reflects the exertion of human superiority over animals, who want to live without structure and the enjambment of 'doom'd' elongated the word, demonstrating how the halibut had to live his life with this fate overarching. Very wish washy but hopefully they appreciate my attempts ahaha

Tbh yours sounds near perfect aha I'm worried!

Realised I forgot to reply to this! I'm applying to LMH at Oxford you?

Kept my argument straightforward, clear and simple! I did C and D and compared the importance the characters give to their class, as constructed through the food they eat.

Only had enough time for 2 main paragraphs - first compared how people ate ( verbs), what they ate, and how they interacted with the provider of their food ( capitalisation, nouns, share of speech etc.) linking this back solely to C dismissing foods impact on class and D revelling in its impact so she felt superior.

Second paragraph was a mess of ideas basically linked to above focus. The overall idea I think was that both writers suggest it is easier to eat high class food/ c feels tension and conscious of problem that food has on class, D guilt free and unconscious. I stuffed ploce in their somewhere,.,

Then rushed my conclusion and finished just as exam had come to an end.

All in all not as good a second my practice, but not a total disaster.

Really? I'm certain that my answer was no where near as analytical and detailed as yours. I guess we will just have to wait... Best of luck xx

Hiya! I'm an international student (Canada) applying to Brasenose. Looking through all of your messages I think I may have had a different test? (possibly time zone affected??) Same theme but very different texts. Might only be applicable to my version but I was pleasantly surprised to see that, despite it being supposedly "unseen literature", I knew the novels very well.

I did the Moby-**** excerpt and the Ulysses excerpt (B & C I think?) and did a super basic compare/contrast about the speaker's reaction to food and the action of eating. I compared on the extensive detail and sensory imagery that both authors used (and for kicks threw in some stuff about the cow imagery in both being symbolic for the act of eating as an "inherently animalistic behaviour" ) and then contrasted with the speakers completely opposing views on food and eating which was mainly shown through tone.

I feel like I wrote an all-around solid and safe essay but if anything I'm a little concerned that it was too safe and I didn't explore more. I don't think I did exceptionally bad per se but I can't help but feel like it was just "meh". Perhaps it's just self-doubt kicking in but I feel like I really only scraped the surface and didn't do much deep diving on the symbolism of the pieces or an overarching theme other than the basic one I went with. I finished with a few minutes to spare to review back and I don't know whether to interpret that as good planning/time management or if I could have spent more time writing eek.


Anyways good luck to everyone! (now begins the long wait to hear back :/)

It sounds like a really interesting topic choice! I bet you’re absolutely fine! Don’t worry at all

Thanks! Very kind of you to reassure me Now time to revise for interview just in case! What books do you have on your PS?

Hi! International applicant from Malaysia applying to Trinity (Oxford) here

I chose Eating Out by U.A. Fanthorpe and Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay, and talked about the portrayal of gratitude towards food. My essay was pretty simplistic to be honest and I had a messy conclusion. I felt like I didn’t back up my points well enough and I only had enough time for two main body paragraphs.

I can’t remember exactly how I wrote the essay but in the first body paragraph I talked about how both writers used juxtaposition. I talked about how Lindsay juxtaposed the nonchalant, casual attitudes of the picnickers with that of the ants, to whom food is associated with hard work and effort, talking about the connotations of “Heaven-sen crumbs” and “crystallized ginger” and how those highlighted the worth of food to the ants. I also talked about the use of oxymoronic language in “miniature Saharas”. To contrast the ants, I talked about the way the food eaten by the picnickers is described, as well as the way they ate their food (the verbs used) e.g. “helping herself lavishly to cream”. As for Eating Out, I talked about how Fanthorpe’s use of juxtaposition in the first two lines highlighted the poet’s gratitude towards their food, how they view dining out with their parents as an exciting adventure despite the fact that it is a routine to them, how their attitude towards food is directly related to the memories of their parents. I remember this paragraph being extremely long and I probably should’ve divided it into two.

In the second body paragraph, I compared and contrasted the use of the third-person POV in Picnic at Hanging Rock and the first-person voice in Eating Out. I talked about how the POV used by Lindsay connotes detachment, yet spreads the reader’s attention between the human beings and the animals, equally drawing the reader’s attention towards both differing attitudes towards food. For Eating Out, I talked about how the first person voice bears the connotations of intimacy, how it echoes the way dining out is something near and dear to the poet, as it is closely associated with fond memories of their parents.

I initially planned for a third main body paragraph focusing on the structure and form of both but I ran out of time so I just hastily wrote my conclusion, reiterating my main points and relating them back to my thesis statement.

Overall the test wasn’t a disaster but it definitely could’ve gone better. My essay ended up not being very in-depth analysis-wise but what’s done is done I guess, no point moping about it now haha