Scylla and Minos Critique

Review of essay

Rating: 3 star(s)

Response to the question

This answer is a response to the prompt to write a character critique of Scylla and Minos, and while there is some good material here on Scylla, there is nothing written on Minos. Minos’ reaction to what Scylla has done and the actions he took to punish her should have been mentioned and discussed; in failing to do so the candidate has failed to address a substantial part of the question and risks losing a lot of marks. There is also a large section at the beginning to the essay which is purely narrative – in A level Latin it is often better to avoid these sort of ‘the story so far’ paragraphs and get directly to answering the question (there is a limited amount of time in the examination and you will not get marks for it), either analysing the extract line by line or otherwise by discussing the themes, characters and motifs within the extract and using examples from the text where appropriate.

Level of analysis

There is some good analysis here, but I felt it could have been developed a lot more. The candidate has shown a good appreciation of how Scylla’s infatuation with Minos develops throughout the text, although she is perhaps not so black and white as the candidate makes out. She spends a lot of time thinking it through before she finally decides to carry out her act of parricide; there is a long internal monologue in which she essentially talks herself into murdering her father. The candidate could have included this as a way of showing the subtleties of Scylla’s character. Furthermore, how does she deal with Minos’ rejection? This is an important part of the story, as her inability to cope with his refusal to marry her is vital to the plot and also reveals how strongly she believed Minos would love her back. The candidate unfortunately gives this only a brief mention in his/her conclusion. In general, while there are good elements to this essay, there is a lot more that could be written. A particularly strong point is that the candidate has referenced the Latin text (and included an English translation) very closely and extensively when making his/her points. This is very important for getting good marks in essay questions.

Quality of writing

The English in this essay is generally very good, and there are only some minor points regarding punctuation where the candidate has slipped up: failing to punctuate before a quotation mark, and inconsistent use of quotation marks, i.e. alternating between double (“) and single (‘) – it is better to stick with one. However these are extremely minor points and it is unlikely that they would have an effect on the candidate’s QWC marks. Overall the quality of writing is very good, and the style of the essay is fluent. There is also a clear structure to the essay, which makes the candidate’s argument easy to follow, however, it could perhaps be improved with a stronger introduction setting out the argument s/he will put forward – it is, after all, important to make a good first impression on the examiner.