: You are correct. You should not let a good general rule override common sense and correct writing in a specific case. The best way to conceptualize it is this. Picture your analysis as

@Kevin153

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You are correct. You should not let a good general rule override common sense and correct writing in a specific case.

The best way to conceptualize it is this. Picture your analysis as traveling through the plot of the story as you analyze it. Anything that is happening in the book at the point of your analysis should be rendered in the present tense. But things that are in the past relative to the moment of your analysis should be rendered in the past tense.

In a way, this is one of the benefits of using the present tense as the main mode of your analysis --it allows you to distinguish between the current moment in your analysis and things that happened in the past of the characters (as relative to that moment).

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