HWA CHONG INSTITUTION

(College Section)

PRELIMINARY EXAMINATION 2008

LITERATURE IN ENGLISH

Higher 1 8810/01

Higher 2 9725/01
PAPER 1 READING LITERATURE

August 28th September 2008 3 hours

(8.15 - 8.35am: Checking of texts) (8.35 - 11.35am)

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Instructions to Candidates

Answer three questions, one from each of Sections A, B and C.

Keep each answer separate.
All questions in this paper carry equal marks.

Information for Candidates

Set texts may be brought into the examination room. They may bear underlining
or highlighting. Any kind of folding or flagging of pages in texts (e.g. use of post-
its, tape flags, or paper clips) is not permitted.

You are reminded of the need for good English and clear presentation in your
answers.

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 SECTION A

1.

Either (a) The following poems are by William Butler Yeats (A) and Claude McKay (B).
Compare and contrast the poems paying particular attention to form and language.

A I know that I shall meet my fate

Somewhere among the clouds above;

Those that I fight I do not hate,
Those that I guard I do not love;
My county is Kiltartan Cross,
My countrymen Kiltartan's poor, 5
No likely end could bring them loss
Or leave them happier than before.
Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,
Nor public men, nor cheering crowds,
A lonely impulse of delight 10
Drove to this tumult in the clouds;
I balanced all, brought all to mind,
The years to come seemed waste of breath,
A waste of breath the years behind
In balance with this life, this death. 15

B If We Must Die

If we must die, let it not be like hogs

Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,
While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,
Making their mock at our accursèd lot.
If we must die, O let us nobly die, 5
So that our precious blood may not be shed
In vain; then even the monsters we defy
Shall be constrained to honor us though dead!
O kinsmen! we must meet the common foe!
Though far outnumbered let us show us brave, 10
And for their thousand blows deal one death-blow!
What though before us lies the open grave?
Like men we'll face the murderous, cowardly pack,
Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!

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Or ( b) Compare and contrast “The Breather” by Billy Collins and “Her” by Jackie Kay. Pay
particular attention to the devices used to convey the poets’ experiences of love.

A) The Breathers

Just as in the horror movies 1

when someone discovers that the phone calls
are coming from inside the house

so too, I realized
that our tender overlapping 5
has been taking place only inside me.

All that sweetness, the love and desire—

it's just been me dialing myself
then following the ringing to another room

to find no one on the line, 10

well, sometimes a little breathing
but more often than not, nothing.

To think that all this time—

which would include the boat rides,
the airport embraces, and all the drinks— 15

it's been only me and the two telephones,

the one on the wall in the kitchen
and the extension in the darkened guest room upstairs.

B) Her

I had been told about her. 1

How she would always, always.
How she would never, never.
I’d watched and listened
but I still fell for her, 5
how she always, always.
How she never, never.

In the small brave night,

her lips, butterfly movements.
I tried to catch her and she laughed 10
a loud laugh that cracked me in two,
but then I had been told about her,
how she would always, always.
How she would never, never.

We two listened to the wind. 15

We two galloped a pace.
We two, up and away, away, away.
And now she’s gone,
like she said she would go.
But then I had always been told about her 20
how she would always, always.
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 SECTION B

TONI MORRISON: Beloved

EITHER (a) Comment on the use of symbols in Beloved.

OR (b) Based on a close analysis of the extract, discuss the importance of the
community in Beloved.

It was three in the afternoon on a Friday so wet and hot Cincinnati’s stench
had traveled to the country: from the canal, from the hanging meat and things rotting
in jars; from small animals dead in the fields, town sewers and factories. The stench,
the heat, the moisture—trust the devil to make his presence known. Otherwise it
looked almost like a regular workday. They could have been going to do the laundry 5
at the orphanage or the insane asylum; corn shucking at the mill; or to clean fish,
rinse offal, cradle whitebabies, sweep stores, scrape hog skin, press lard, case-pack
sausage or hide in tavern kitchens so whitepeople didn’t have to see them handle
their food.
But not today. 10
When they caught up with each other, all thirty, and arrived at 124, the first
thing they saw was not Denver sitting on the steps, but themselves. Younger,
stronger, even as little girls lying in the grass asleep. Catfish was popping grease in
the pan and they saw themselves scoop German potato salad onto the plate.
Cobbler oozing purple syrup colored their teeth. They sat on the porch, ran down to 15
the creek, teased the men, hoisted the children on their hips or, if they were the
children, straddled the ankles of old men who held their little hands while giving
them a horsey ride. Baby Suggs laughed and skipped among them, urging more.
Mothers, dead now, moved their shoulders to mouth harps. The fence they had
leaned on and climbed over was gone. The stump of the butternut had split like a 20
fan. But there they were, young and happy, playing in Baby Suggs’ yard, not feeling
the envy that surfaced the next day.
Denver heard mumbling and looked to the left. She stood when she saw
them. They grouped, murmuring and whispering, but did not step foot in the yard.
Denver waved. A few waved back but came no closer. Denver sat back down 25
wondering what was going on. A woman dropped to her knees. Half of the others
did likewise. Denver saw lowered heads, but could not hear the lead prayer—only
the earnest syllables of agreement that backed it: Yes, yes, yes, oh, yes. Hear me.
Hear me. Do it, Maker, do it. Yes. Among those not on their knees, who stood
holding 124 in a fixed glare, was Ella, trying to see through the walls, behind the 30
door, to what was really in there. Was it true the dead daughter come back? Or a
pretend? Was it whipping Sethe? Ella had been beaten every way but down. She
remembered the bottom teeth she had lost to the brake and the scars from the belt
were thick as rope around her waist. She had delivered, but would not nurse, a hairy
white thing, fathered by “the lowest yet.” It lived five days never making a sound. 35
The idea of that pup coming back to whip her too set her jaw working, and then Ella
hollered.
Instantly the kneelers and the standers joined her. They stopped praying and
took a step back to the beginning. In the beginning there were no words. In the
beginning was the sound, and they all knew what that sound sounded like. 40

(Part III Section 1)

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 SECTION C

OLIVER GOLDSMITH: She Stoops to Conquer

3.

Either (a) Why would you say She Stoops to Conquer has enduring appeal?

Or (b) Write a detailed commentary on the following extract, paying particular attention
to how it characterises the genre. .

Enter Mrs Hardcastle

Mrs Hard: Oh, Tony, I’m killed. Shook. Battered to death. I shall never survive
it. The last jolt that laid against the quickest hedge has done my
business.

Tony: Alack, Mama, it was all your fault. You would be for running away
by night, without knowing one inch of the way. 5

Mrs Hard: I wish we were at home again. I never met so many accidents in so
short a journey. Drench’d in the mud, overturn’d in a ditch, stuck
fast in a slough, jolted to a jelly, and at last to lose our way.
Whereabouts do you think we are, Tony?

Tony: By my guess we should come upon Crackskull common, about forty 10

miles from home.

Mrs Hard: O lud! O lud! The most notorious spot in all the country. We only
want a robbery to make a complete night on’t.

Tony: Don’t be afraid, Mama, don’t be afraid. Two of the five that kept
here are hanged, and the other three may not find us. Don’t be 15
afraid. Is that a man that’s galloping behind us? No; it’s only a tree.
Don’t be afraid.

Mrs Hard: The fright will certainly kill me.

Tony: Do you see any thing like a black hat moving behind the thicket?

Mrs Hard: O death! 20

Tony: No, it’s only a cow. Don’t be afraid, Mama, don’t be afraid.

Mrs Hard: As I am alive, Tony, I see a man coming towards us. Ah! I’m sure
on’t. If he perceives us we are undone.

Tony (Aside): Father-in-law, by all that’s unlucky, come to take one of his night
walks. (To her) Ah, it’s a highwayman, with pistols as long as 25
my arm. A damn’d ill-looking fellow.

Mrs Hard: Good Heaven defend us? He approaches.

Tony: Do you hide yourself in the thicket, and leave me to manage

him. If there be any danger I’ll cough and cry hem. When I
cough be sure to keep close. 30

Mrs Hardcastle hides behind a tree in the back scene.

(Act 5, Scene 2)