Language for literary discussion (French B HL)

How you say it matters: At HL only, your literary individual oral and your written literary responses are not about the plot you remember.

Three things you always do: Almost every good comment in a literary oral does one of three jobs. You'll get a phrase bank for each in the next three sections.

Same scene — basic French: Compare:

Basic: La femme regarde la neige et elle est triste. (The woman looks at the snow and is sad.)

Same scene — analytical French

Analytical: L’auteur montre Marthe à la fenêtre ; la neige symbolise l’oubli, et cela suggère qu’elle lutte pour ne pas oublier son frère. (The author shows Marthe at the window; the snow symbolises forgetting, and this suggests she is fighting not to forget her brother.)

Describe → interpret → respond: A strong answer rarely stops at description. The pattern to use is: describe what happens, interpret what it means, then add your response. Learn one reliable phrase from each bank and you can build that pattern every time.

Describing = saying what is on the page: Description is your starting point: you name what the author does, what a character does, what a scene shows — neutrally, before you interpret it.

Describe in the present tense: These verbs in the present tense are the standard way to talk about a text (l’auteur montre…, not l’auteur montrait…).

Present tense for the text: We talk about what a text does in the present: l’auteur montre, la scène présente, Marthe regarde la neige — even though you read it in the past. This is the literary present (le présent de narration), and it's expected in the oral.

Don't get stuck on description: Description is necessary, but it is not enough on its own. Use one describing phrase to set up the detail, then move straight into interpretation — that's the next section.

Interpreting = saying what it means: Interpretation is the heart of your analysis. After you describe a detail, you say what it means beneath the surface — the theme, the symbol, the effect.

Phrases that turn a comment into analysis: These are the phrases that turn a comment into analysis. Read this short ORIGINAL extract, then watch how each phrase is used.

Extrait — La neige: Marthe appuya son front contre la vitre et regarda la neige tomber sur la cour. Il n’avait pas neigé ainsi depuis que son frère était parti. La neige efface tout, pensa-t-elle, sauf ce que l’on veut se rappeler. Elle ferma la fenêtre, mais le froid était déjà dans la maison, et en elle.

Always link the phrase to a detail: Cela suggère que… on its own is empty — the cela must point at a specific quotation or detail. The shape to use is detail → interpreting phrase → meaning: name it, quote it, then say what it means.

Personal response = saying what YOU think: After describing and interpreting, a strong answer adds a personal response: what you think, what struck you, how it made you feel.

Justify every opinion: An opinion only works when it's anchored in the text: « Ce qui me frappe le plus, c’est la phrase « La neige efface tout », parce qu’elle montre que Marthe craint l’oubli. » The « parce que… » (because…) is what turns a feeling into analysis.

Avoid the empty j’aime bien: Le livre me plaît says nothing. Reach for je trouve le roman émouvant, parce que… or ce qui me frappe le plus, c’est…. Make sure every personal response has a reason.

Plain summary vs analytical language: The single biggest trap is describing in plain narrative language instead of analysing. Compare what to do with what to avoid.

Power structure 1 — le conditionnel: The conditionnel softens an opinion and sounds mature and tentative.

Power structure 2 — la voix passive: The passive lets you talk about how the text is constructed without naming an agent — a hallmark of literary analysis.

How to form the passive: Form: être + past participle (participe passé), agreeing with the subject.

Narrator ≠ author: When you describe a first-person novel, the je is the narrateur (narrator), a character — not the auteur, the real writer. L’auteur dit je is a classic slip; say le narrateur or le je narratif (the first-person narrator).