APRIL RAIN SONG – LANGSTON HUGHES

Let the rain kiss you

Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops
Let the rain sing you a lullaby
The rain makes still pools on the sidewalk
The rain makes running pools in the gutter
The rain plays a little sleep song on our roof at night
And I love the rain.

Q: What does this poem suggest about the relationship which exists between nature and
humanity? (3 marks)

This poem suggests that nature can enhance one’s life by providing comfort and a break

from the chaos of city life. This is evident through the persona’s observation that “rain”

can “sing” people “lullab[ies]”. Hughes personifies the “rain” singing a “lullaby”, alluding

to parents singing their children to sleep, to illustrate how rain can comfort people,

similar to how parents comfort their children. Furthermore, the positive diction of

“kiss” and “love” constructs a positive tone, which permeates throughout the poem to

reflect the persona’s affectionate attitude towards the rain. Consequently, the persona’s

loving attitude towards nature is because it brings comfort to people from their busy

lifestyles.

MOTHER TO SON – LANGSTON HUGHES

Well, son, I’ll tell you:
Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.
It’s had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor—
Bare.
But all the time
I’se been a-climbin’ on,
And reachin’ landin’s,
And turnin’ corners,
And sometimes goin’ in the dark
Where there ain’t been no light.
So boy, don’t you turn back.
Don’t you set down on the steps
’Cause you finds it’s kinder hard.
Don’t you fall now—
For I’se still goin’, honey,
I’se still climbin’,
And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.

Q: What does this poem suggest about humanity’s ability to deal with adversity? (4
marks)

Humanity struggles to deal with the adversities of life, but refuses to give up. This is
evident when the persona teaches her son that her life has been a “stair” that is filled
with “tacks” and “splinters”. Hughes uses an extended metaphor to compare the
persona’s life to walking up a set of stairs that are filled with obstacles, such as tacks
and splinters. This is to suggest that the persona has had to endure a very difficult and
pain-filled life, similar to the experience that a person would have when walking along
stairs that had been filled with tacks and splinters. The fact that the persona had
endured through her life of great difficulty implies that humanity does not surrender
when faced with adversity. Furthermore, the persona tells her son that she is “still goin’”
and “still climbin’” through her life. The repetition of “still” used by Hughes puts
emphasis on how despite all the difficulties, the persona continually “climb[s]” through
life, which reflects the persistent nature of humanity when coping with adversity.
Additionally, the persona warns “don’t you turn back” and “Don’t you set down” to her
son. The persona’s imperative sentences which gives advice to her son about not giving
up shows that the persona is speaking from experience, and has overcome many
adversities herself. This illustrates how humanity doesn’t give up when dealing with
adversities.

Hughes uses “stairs” as an extended metaphor of the persona’s life, full of “tacks” and
“splinters”, symbolic of all her adversities and difficulties.
Q: How does this image show us the benefits of resisting the pressure to conform to the
majority? (4 marks)

This image shows that resisting the pressure to conform to the majority leads to
freedom in the way they behave and act. This is demonstrated in the artist’s use of
contrasting colours in this image. The figures around the centre are painted in white
and light gray, suggesting that they behave and act in unison. Contrastingly, the figure in
the centre is coloured in dark gray, which puts emphasis on how it is different to the
other figures, as it has more freedom and control over its actions. Furthermore, the
white and light gray figures’ bodies are stuck with each other’s, showing that they have
less freedom to move compared to the figure in the centre. Since the body language of
the figure in the centre is less restricted than the ones connected to each other, this
symbolises the additional freedom that he has. Moreover, the centre figure’s hairstyle is
abnormal to the surrounding figures’, which symbolises the freedom which it possesses
in expressing itself the way it wishes.
Q: What does this visual image reveal about the paradoxes that surround technology? (3
marks)

The paradox is that technology brings people together, but simultaneously creates
separation between relationships. This idea is demonstrated through the body language
and positioning of the people in this image. The people are positioned closely with each
other with their devices, suggesting that technology invites people to be together.
However, this is contradicted with each person facing in different directions and looking
at their own devices, not communicating or bonding with others.

THE TELL-TALE HEART – EDGAR ALLAN POE

If still you think me mad, you will think so no longer when I describe the wise
precautions I took for the concealment of the body. The night waned, and I worked
hastily, but in silence. First of all I dismembered the corpse. I cut off the head and the
arms and the legs.

I then took up three planks from the flooring of the chamber, and deposited all between
the scantlings. I then replaced the boards so cleverly, so cunningly, that no human eye
--not even his --could have detected any thing wrong. There was nothing to wash out
--no stain of any kind --no blood-spot whatever. I had been too wary for that. A tub had
caught all --ha! ha!
When I had made an end of these labors, it was four o'clock --still dark as midnight. As
the bell sounded the hour, there came a knocking at the street door. I went down to
open it with a light heart, --for what had I now to fear? There entered three men, who
introduced themselves, with perfect suavity, as officers of the police. A shriek had been
heard by a neighbour during the night; suspicion of foul play had been aroused;
information had been lodged at the police office, and they (the officers) had been
deputed to search the premises.

I smiled, --for what had I to fear? I bade the gentlemen welcome. The shriek, I said, was
my own in a dream. The old man, I mentioned, was absent in the country. I took my
visitors all over the house. I bade them search --search well. I led them, at length, to his
chamber. I showed them his treasures, secure, undisturbed. In the enthusiasm of my
confidence, I brought chairs into the room, and desired them here to rest from their
fatigues, while I myself, in the wild audacity of my perfect triumph, placed my own seat
upon the very spot beneath which reposed the corpse of the victim.

The officers were satisfied. My manner had convinced them. I was singularly at ease.
They sat, and while I answered cheerily, they chatted of familiar things. But, ere long, I
felt myself getting pale and wished them gone. My head ached, and I fancied a ringing in
my ears: but still they sat and still chatted. The ringing became more distinct: --It
continued and became more distinct: I talked more freely to get rid of the feeling: but it
continued and gained definiteness --until, at length, I found that the noise was not
within my ears.

No doubt I now grew very pale; --but I talked more fluently, and with a heightened
voice. Yet the sound increased --and what could I do? It was a low, dull, quick sound
--much such a sound as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton. I gasped for breath
--and yet the officers heard it not. I talked more quickly --more vehemently; but the
noise steadily increased. I arose and argued about trifles, in a high key and with violent
gesticulations; but the noise steadily increased. Why would they not be gone? I paced
the floor to and fro with heavy strides, as if excited to fury by the observations of the
men --but the noise steadily increased. Oh God! what could I do? I foamed --I raved --I
swore! I swung the chair upon which I had been sitting, and grated it upon the boards,
but the noise arose over all and continually increased. It grew louder --louder --louder!
And still the men chatted pleasantly, and smiled. Was it possible they heard not?
Almighty God! --no, no! They heard! --they suspected! --they knew! --they were making
a mockery of my horror!-this I thought, and this I think. But anything was better than
this agony! Anything was more tolerable than this derision! I could bear those
hypocritical smiles no longer! I felt that I must scream or die! and now --again! --hark!
louder! louder! louder! louder!

"Villains!" I shrieked, "dissemble no more! I admit the deed! --tear up the planks! here,
here! --It is the beating of his hideous heart!"
Q: What does this extract suggest about the effect which our emotions can have on our
behaviours? (4 marks)

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LET EVENING COME – JANE KENYON

Let the light of late afternoon
shine through chinks in the barn, moving
up the bales as the sun moves down.

Let the cricket take up chafing

as a woman takes up her needles
and her yarn. Let evening come.

Let dew collect on the hoe abandoned

in long grass. Let the stars appear
and the moon disclose her silver horn.
Let the fox go back to its sandy den.
Let the wind die down. Let the shed
go black inside. Let evening come.

To the bottle in the ditch, to the scoop

in the oats, to air in the lung
let evening come.

Let it come, as it will, and don’t

be afraid. God does not leave us
comfortless, so let evening come.

Q: How should humanity approach death? Respond to this question with reference to
the poem. (4 marks)
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THE PAPER MENAGERIE – KEN LIU

When I was ten, we moved to a new house across town. Two of the women neighbors
came by to welcome us. Dad served them drinks and then apologized for having to run
off to the utility company to straighten out the prior owner’s bills.

“Make yourselves at home. My wife doesn’t speak much English, so don’t think she’s
being rude for not talking to you.”

While I read in the dining room, Mom unpacked in the kitchen. The neighbors conversed
in the living room, not trying to be particularly quiet.

“He seems like a normal enough man. Why did he do that?”

“Something about the mixing never seems right. The child looks unfinished. Slanty eyes,
white face. A little monster.”

“Do you think he can speak English?”

The women hushed. After a while they came into the dining room.

“Hello there! What’s your name?”

“Jack,” I said.

“That doesn’t sound very Chinesey.”

Mom came into the dining room then. She smiled at the women. The three of them stood
in a triangle around me, smiling and nodding at each other, with nothing to say, until
Dad came back.

********

Mark, one of the neighborhood boys, came over with his Star Wars action figures. Obi-
Wan Kenobi’s lightsaber lit up and he could swing his arms and say, in a tinny voice,
“Use the Force!” I didn’t think the figure looked much like the real Obi-Wan at all.

Together, we watched him repeat this performance five times on the coffee table. “Can
he do anything else?” I asked.

Mark was annoyed by my question. “Look at all the details,” he said. I looked at the
details. I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to say. Mark was disappointed by my
response. “Show me your toys.”

I didn’t have any toys except my paper menagerie. I brought Laohu out from my
bedroom. By then he was very worn, patched all over with tape and glue, evidence of
the years of repairs Mom and I had done on him. He was no longer as nimble and sure-
footed as before. I sat him down on the coffee table. I could hear the skittering steps of
the other animals behind in the hallway, timidly peeking into the living room.

“Xiao laohu,” I said, and stopped. I switched to English. “This is Tiger.” Cautiously, Laohu
strode up and purred at Mark, sniffing his hands.

Mark examined the Christmas-wrap pattern of Laohu’s skin. “That doesn’t look like a
tiger at all. Your Mom makes toys for you from trash?”

I had never thought of Laohu as trash. But looking at him now, he was really just a piece
of wrapping paper.

Mark pushed Obi-Wan’s head again. The lightsaber flashed; he moved his arms up and
down. “Use the Force!”
Laohu turned and pounced, knocking the plastic figure off the table. It hit the floor and
broke, and Obi-Wan’s head rolled under the couch. “Rawwww,” Laohu laughed. I joined
him.

Mark punched me, hard. “This was very expensive! You can’t even find it in the stores
now. It probably cost more than what your Dad paid for your Mom!”

I stumbled and fell to the floor. Laohu growled and leapt at Mark’s face.

Mark screamed, more out of fear and surprise than pain. Laohu was only made of paper,
after all.

Mark grabbed Laohu and his snarl was choked off as Mark crumpled him in his hand
and tore him in half. He balled up the two pieces of paper and threw them at me. “Here’s
your stupid cheap Chinese garbage.”

After Mark left, I spent a long time trying, without success, to tape together the pieces,
smooth out the paper, and follow the creases to refold Laohu. Slowly, the other animals
came into the living room and gathered around us, me and the torn wrapping paper that
used to be Laohu.

Q: How does the collective majority react to those who they deem as anomalies? (4
marks)

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Q: What does this image suggest about the nature of human emotions? (3 marks)
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Q: What does this image reveal about the paradoxes associated with growing up? (4
marks)

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 BOYHOOD – BILLY COLLINS
Alone in the basement,
I would sometimes lower one eye
to the level of the narrow train track

to watch the puffing locomotive

pull the cars around a curve
then bear down on me with its dazzling eye.

What was in those moments

before I lifted my head and let the train
go rocking by under my nose?

I remember not caring much

about the fake grass or the buildings 
that made up the miniature town.

The same went for the station and its master,

the crossing gates and flashing lights,
the milk car, the pencil-size logs,

the metallic men and women,

the dangling water tower,
and the round mirror for a pond.

All I wanted was to be blinded

over and over by this shaking light
as the train stuck fast to its oval course.

Or better still, to close my eyes,

to stay there on the cold narrow rails
and let the train tunnel through me

the way it tunneled through the mountain

painted the color of rock,
and then there would be nothing

but the long whistling through the dark -

no basement, no boy,
no everlasting summer afternoon.

Q: What does this poem suggest about the imagination of youth? (3 marks)
1. Read the question first.
2. Check the mark allocation (establish the structure of your response).
3. Underline the key words of the question.
4. Consult your mental ideas-bank (determine what pre-prepared ideas you can use).
5. Read the text.
6. Underline the ‘reliable techniques’ and other techniques as you read.
7. Finalise your ideas (do not start writing until you have finalised your ideas).
8. Write!
9. Repeat 6, 7 & 8 until response is completed.