INTRODUCTION TO BRITISH LITERATURE FINAL ASSIGNMENT

Dear students,
As you know, because of the terrible snow, the final tests for
almost all classes at university were cancelled last week. (Maybe you felt
happy?!). Thus, instead of the final test, please do this final assignment
instead.
Please write your own ideas and opinions to answer each question
below—I want to know what you think. Do not copy and paste other people’s
writing off the internet or use Google Translate (or anything like that)—I No hair!
can easily see when students have done that, and it makes me
angry, so then I have to give a very-low score!
On the other hand, if you try hard to write your own ideas in your
own words (even if the English is not perfect!), I will give you a nice score!
For each question, please write your answer in about 6 lines (of
course, a little more or less than that is also OK! This format [=MS Word
file] is flexible!). I hope you will take time to sit down and think carefully
about each question, then write a good answer. In total, there are 10
questions (1 question= 10 points).
When you have finished, please send your answer document back to
me as an attached file: dylan@f-edu.u-fukui.ac.jp
You have one week to finish it! The deadline is next Friday,
February 16th at 11 p.m.
Actually, I think this assignment will not take you so long to
complete and is not so difficult! I have enjoyed teaching this course (there
are so many nice students!), and I have been pleased to see that almost all
students have done good work in this class so far; so please feel confident
and do your best!

D. Jones
 INTRODUCTION TO BRITISH LITERATURE FINAL ASSIGNMENT

Your name:
Your student number:

Questions about the Class Presentations:

We had 10 class presentations: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Howl’s Moving
Castle, Peter Rabbit, Peter Pan, Mary Poppins, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,
Pride and Prejudice, The Invisible Man, Sherlock Holmes (series), and The Lion, the
Witch and the Wardrobe

1) On which book did you give your presentation to the class? Who wrote this
book? Why do you like this book? What can we learn from it?

2) Which book introduced in another group’s presentation do you think might be

interesting to read? Who wrote it? What is interesting about it for you?

Questions about A Christmas Carol:

3) Scrooge is visited by the ghost of his business partner, Jacob Marley. Why must
this ghost always carry a long, heavy chain, and why does he visit Scrooge?
 Please read this scene from A Christmas Carol; then, answer the question.

“Christmas a humbug, uncle!” said Scrooge’s nephew. “You don’t mean that, I am sure?”
“I do,” said Scrooge. “Merry Christmas! What right have you to be merry? What reason
have you to be merry? You’re poor enough.”
“Come, then,” returned the nephew gaily. “What right have you to be dismal? What
reason have you to be morose? You’re rich enough.”
Scrooge having no better answer ready on the spur of the moment, said, “Bah!” again;
and followed it up with “Humbug.”
“Don’t be cross, uncle!” said the nephew.
“What else can I be,” returned the uncle, “when I live in such a world of fools as this?
Merry Christmas! Out upon merry Christmas! What’s Christmas time to you but a time for
paying bills without money; a time for finding yourself a year older, but not an hour richer;
a time for balancing your books and having every item in ’em through a round dozen of
months presented dead against you? If I could work my will,” said Scrooge indignantly,
“every idiot who goes about with ‘Merry Christmas’ on his lips, should be boiled with his
own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart. He should!”
“Uncle!” pleaded the nephew.
“Nephew!” returned the uncle sternly, “keep Christmas in your own way, and let me keep
it in mine.”
“Keep it!” repeated Scrooge’s nephew. “But you don’t keep it.”
“Let me leave it alone, then,” said Scrooge.

4) Please explain what happens in this scene and why it is important in the novel.

Questions about about About a Boy

Please read these 2 scenes (a & b) from About a Boy; then, answer the questions.
a) After Marcus’s first day at his new school in London:
During the night after his first day [at school] Marcus woke up every half-hour or so.
He could tell from the luminous hands of his dinosaur clock: 10.41, 11.19, 11.55, 12.35,
12.55, 1.31 . . . He couldn’t believe he was going to have to go back there the next
morning, and the morning after that, and the morning after that and . . . well, then it would
be the weekend, but more or less every morning for the rest of his life, just about. Every
time he woke up his first thought was that there must be some kind of way past, or round,
or even through, this horrible feeling; whenever he had been upset about anything before,
there had usually turned out to be some kind of answer—one that mostly involved telling
his mum what was bothering him. But there wasn’t anything she could do this time. She
wasn’t going to move him to another school, and even if she did it wouldn’t make a whole
lot of difference. He’d still be who he was, and that, it seemed to him, was the basic
problem.
He just wasn’t right for schools. Not secondary schools, anyway. That was it. And
how could you explain that to anyone? It was OK not to be right for some things (he
already knew he wasn’t right for parties, because he was too shy, or for baggy trousers,
because his legs were too short), but not being right for school was a big problem.
Everyone went to school. There was no way round it.
b) About Will’s life:
His way of coping with the days was to think of activities as units of time, each unit
consisting of about thirty minutes. Whole hours, he found, were more intimidating, and
most things one could do in a day took half an hour. Reading the paper, having a bath,
tidying the flat, watching Home and Away and Countdown, doing a quick crossword on the
toilet, eating breakfast and lunch, going to the local shops…That was nine units of a
twenty-unit day (the evenings didn’t count) filled by just the basic necessities. In fact, he
had reached a stage where he wondered how his friends could juggle life and a job. Life
took up so much time, so how could one work and, say, take a bath on the same day?

5) What do these 2 scenes tell us about how differently Marcus and Will feel
about their lives at the start of the novel?
6) Then, in what ways do both Marcus and Will change (and change each other)
later in the novel?

7) What do you think about Fiona, Marcus’ mother?

8) Who are Rachel and Ellie? What are their roles in the novel? What do you think
about them?

9) Character Analysis: Scrooge and Will are similar because they are both rich,
selfish, and seem happy with their lonely lives in London. But they are also very
different. Please explain how they are different.
10) Which novel did you like better, A Christmas Carol or About a Boy? Why?

THE END: Thank you for your hard work! おつかれさまでした。

sentence
ひまま !
つり!!! Please enjoy your spring vacation!!! No more snow!!!

Let’s
enjoy free
time!!!