Literature 1: Short Stories Analysis

MOCK TEST

There are three sections. Section one is gap fill; section two is short answer; section
three is short answer about an unseen story.

• You may use an English-English dictionary during the test.

• Answer ALL the questions on the lined test paper (NOT on the exam).
• Do not change the order of the test questions. If necessary, leave a blank space
on your test paper and return to that section later.
• You can earn up to 80 points for this exam. The pass mark is 44 points (55%).
• You have two hours.

Section 1: Gap fill 20 points, 2 points per question

Instructions: Read each question carefully and write only the answer (up to four words)
on your answer paper.

ON THE REAL EXAM there will be ten gap fill questions similar to the ones below
covering the literary elements studied during the course.

PREPARATION TIP: As preparation, you could make a list of your own gap fill questions
with your classmates to practice with.

1. Within Freytag’s pyramid for plot analysis, the _______________ is the point in
the plot when the conflict is introduced, causing tension to start rising.

2. A story in which the main character is lost at sea, fighting waves and wind and
starvation is an example of a person vs. _______________ conflict.

3. A protagonist whose goal is to bravely fight against a corrupt social order is a(n)
_______________ character.

4. A story narrated by the protagonist who misrepresents the truth of events to the
reader to try and mislead them, is told from the _______________ point of view.

5. …

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Section 2: Short answer 40 points, 5 or 10 points per question

Instructions: Read each passage carefully and then answer the questions which follow it.
Ensure that your answers are clear, cohesive and concise. When quoting, provide the
first two and the last two words of the quote.

ON THE REAL EXAM there will be ten short answer questions covering four of the
stories covered during the course and all of the literary elements: three stories have
three 5-point questions each, and one story has one 10-point question about theme.

PREPARATION TIP: It is highly recommended that you complete a worksheet about

each of the stories covered during the course. You must be prepared to answer
questions on any of the literary elements about any of the short stories. Rather than
trying to ‘memorise’ answers, you are advised to carefully study the elements of fiction
and the stories in order to understand them both so that you demonstrate your analytical
skills during the exam.

Fragment 1, from The Sniper by Liam O’Flaherty (1923)

Then the dying man on the roof crumpled up and fell forward. The body
turned over and over in space and hit the ground with a dull thud. Then it lay
still.
The sniper looked at his enemy falling and he shuddered. The lust of
battle died in him. He became bitten by remorse. The sweat stood out in beads
on his forehead. Weakened by his wound and the long summer day of fasting
and watching on the roof, he revolted from the sight of the shattered mass of
his dead enemy. His teeth chattered, he began to gibber to himself, cursing the
war, cursing himself, cursing everybody.
He looked at the smoking revolver in his hand, and with an oath he
hurled it to the roof at his feet. The revolver went off with a concussion and the
bullet whizzed past the sniper's head. He was frightened back to his senses by
the shock. His nerves steadied. The cloud of fear scattered from his mind and
he laughed.

1. Analyse the plot of The Sniper in up to 7 bullet points. Use the terminology from
Freytag’s Pyramid to name and briefly describe each of the plot elements present
in The Sniper in the order in which they occur in the story. (5 points)

2. Characterisation in The Sniper: (5 points)

a. In the fragment above, what type of characterisation is predominantly
being used to characterise the sniper? (1 point)
b. Provide and explain using at least two examples from the fragment above
to support your answer. (4 points)
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Fragment 2, from Everything that Rises Must Converge by
Flannery O’Connor (1965)

“The world is in a mess everywhere,” his mother said. “I don't know how
we’ve let it get in this fix.”
“What gets my goat is all those boys from good families stealing
automobile tires,” the woman with the protruding teeth said. “I told my boy, I
said you may not be rich but you been raised right and if I ever catch you in
any such mess, they can send you on to the reformatory. Be exactly where
you belong.”
“Training tells,” his mother said. “Is your boy in high school?”
“Ninth grade,” the woman said.
“My son just finished college last year. He wants to write but he’s selling
typewriters until he gets started,” his mother said.
The woman leaned forward and peered at Julian. He threw her such a
malevolent look that she subsided against the seat. On the floor across the
aisle there was an abandoned newspaper. He got up and got it and opened it
out in front of him. His mother discreetly continued the conversation in a
lower tone but the woman across the aisle said in a loud voice, “Well that’s
nice. Selling typewriters is close to writing. He can go right from one to the
other.”
“I tell him,” his mother said, “that Rome wasn't built in a day.”
Behind the newspaper Julian was withdrawing into the inner
compartment of his mind where he spent most of his time. This was a kind of
mental bubble in which he established himself when he could not bear to be a
part of what was going on around him. From it he could see out and judge
but in it he was safe from any kind of penetration from without. It was the
only place where he felt free of the general idiocy of his fellows. His mother
had never entered it but from it he could see her with absolute clarity.

3. Point of view in Everything that Rises Must Converge: (5 points)

a. Identify the specific point of view used in Everything that Rises Must
Converge. (1 point)
b. What evidence supports this point of view type? (1 point)
c. Explain the effect of the point of view, analysing at least one quote or
example from the story to support your answer. (3 points)

4. … (5 points)

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Fragment 3, from Lamb to the Slaughter Roald Dahl (1953)

"Please," she begged. "Please eat it. Personally I couldn't touch a thing,
certainly not what's been in the house when he was here. But it's all right for
you. It'd be a favor to me if you'd eat it up. Then you can go on with your work
again afterwards."
There was a good deal of hesitating among the four policemen, but they
were clearly hungry, and in the end they were persuaded to go into the kitchen
and help themselves. The woman stayed where she was, listening to them
speaking among themselves, their voices thick and sloppy because their mouths
were full of meat.
"Have some more, Charlie?"
"No. Better not finish it."
"She wants us to finish it. She said so. Be doing her a favor."
"Okay then. Give me some more."
"That's the hell of a big club the gut must've used to hit poor Patrick," one
of them was saying. "The doc says his skull was smashed all to pieces just like
from a sledgehammer."
"That's why it ought to be easy to find."
"Exactly what I say."
"Whoever done it, they're not going to be carrying a thing like that around
with them longer than they need."
One of them belched.
"Personally, I think it's right here on the premises."
"Probably right under our very noses. What you think, Jack?"
And in the other room, Mary Maloney began to giggle.

5. Irony in Lamb to the Slaughter: (5 points)

a. Name the specific type of irony evident at the end of Lamb to the
Slaughter. (1 point)
b. Explain your answer for (a) by analysing at least one quote from the
fragment above. (1 point)
c. Briefly explain the effect the stated type of irony has on the reader’s
experience of the story. (3 points)

6. … (5 points)

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Fragment 4, from The Moment Before the Gun Went Off by
Nadine Gordimer (1991)

An accident. There are accidents with guns every day of the week:
children playing a fatal game with a father's revolver in the cities where guns
are domestic objects, and hunting mishaps like this one, in the country. But
these won't be reported all over the world. Van der Vyver knows his will be. He
knows that the story of the Afrikaner farmer - a regional Party leader and
Commandant of the local security commando - he, shooting a black man who
worked for him will fit exactly their version of South Africa. It's made for them.
They'll be able to use it in their boycott and divestment campaigns. It'll be
another piece of evidence in their truth about the country. The papers at home
will quote the story as it has appeared in the overseas press, and in the back-
and-forth he and the black man will become those crudely-drawn figures on
anti-apartheid banners, units in statistics of white brutality against the blacks
quoted at United Nations - he, whom they will gleefully call 'a leading member'
of the ruling Party.
People in the farming community understand how he must feel. Bad
enough to have killed a man, without helping the Party’s, the government’s, the
country’s enemies, as well.
They see the truth of that. They know, reading the Sunday papers, that
when Van der Vyver is quoted saying he is ‘terribly shocked,’ he will ‘look after
the wife and children,’ none of those Americans and English, and none of those
people at home who want to destroy the white man’s power will believe him.
And how they will sneer when he even says of the farm boy (according to one
paper, if you can trust any of those reporters), ‘He was my friend, I always took
him hunting with me.’ Those city and overseas people don't know it's true:
farmers usually have one particular black boy they like to take along with them
in the lands: you could call it a kind of friend, yes, friends are not only your
own white people, like yourself, you take into your house, pray with in church
and work with on the Party committee.

7. Theme in The Moment Before the Gun Went Off: (10 points)
a. Write down one of the themes evident in The Moment Before the Gun Went Off
in your opinion. (2 points)
b. Explain how the literary element of conflict is used to develop and support the
theme you identified in (a.). Provide and analyse at least one quote or example
from the story to support your answer. (4 points)
c. Explain how another literary element of your own choosing is used to develop
and support the theme you identified in (a.). Identify the element, then provide
and analyse at least one example from the story to support your answer. (4
points)
PLEASE TURN OVER
Section 3: Short answer on a new story
20 points, 5 points per question

Instructions: Read the story carefully and then answer the questions below. Ensure that
your answers are clear, cohesive and concise. When quoting, provide the first two and
the last two words of the quote.

ON THE REAL EXAM there will be a different new story to the one below which will be
between one and two pages long.

PREPARATION TIP: This section of the exam is where you demonstrate your ability to
apply and analyse the use of literary elements in short stories. As with Part 2, you are
advised to carefully study the elements of fiction. You should also practice your reading
skills and could practice your analysis by applying the literary elements to any fictional
story you have read.

1. Point of view in Fishing for Jasmine: (5 points)

a. Identify the specific point of view used in Fishing for Jasmine. (1 point)
b. Explain the effect of the point of view on the story. (4 points)

2. Throughout the story there are references to ‘barracuda’ (a predatory fish). Explain
the symbolism of the barracuda in the story by analysing at least two quotes. (5
points)

3. Explain the significance of the title, Fishing for Jasmine, in relation to the two physical
settings of the story. Support your explanation by analysing at least two quotes or
examples from the story. (5 points)

4. Theme in Fishing for Jasmine: (5 points)

a. Write down one of the themes evident in Fishing for Jasmine in your opinion.
(1 point)
b. Explain your answer for (a.) by analysing at least two examples from the text.
(4 points)

PLEASE TURN OVER FOR THE STORY

HE TEST
Fishing for Jasmine by John Ravenscroft
r Jasmine” by John Ravenscroft
The silent young woman in bed number six is called Jasmine. So am I, but
names are only superficial things, floats bobbing on the surface of the water, and
we share deeper connections than that. Which is why she fascinates me - why I
spend my off-duty time sitting beside her.
Today is difficult. The ward heaves with patients and I am kept busy
emptying bed-pans, filling out forms, changing dressings. Finally, late in the
afternoon, I get a few moments to make coffee, to take it over to the orange
plastic chair beside her bed. I am thankful to be off my feet, glad to be in her
company once again.
"Hello, Jasmine," I say, as if greeting myself.
She does not reply. Jasmine never replies. She is down too deep.
Like me, she has been sea-damaged. I too am the daughter of a fisherman,
so I bait my words like fish-hooks, cast them into her ears, imagine them sinking
down through cold, dark water. Down to wherever she may be.
"I have little time today," I tell her, touching her hair.
With Jasmine, it is always difficult not to touch. She is that rare thing, a truly
beautiful woman. Because of this, people invent reasons to walk by. I catch them
looking, drinking her in, feeding on her. They are barracuda, all of them.
Wheelchair-pushing porters who slow to a crawl when they near her bed. Roaming
visitors with greedy eyes. Doctors who stop, draw the thin screen of curtain, and
continually re-examine that which does not need examination.
Great beauty is something Jasmine and I do not share. I am glad of it. "Your
father may be here soon," I say. "Last week he said he would come." Jasmine says
nothing. Her left eyelid flickers, perhaps.
It is two months since the incident on her father's fishing boat, since she fell
overboard, sank, became entangled in the nets. It was some time before anyone
noticed, then there was panic. Her father hauled her back on board and sailed for
home. When he finally arrived, he carried ashore what he thought was his
daughter's body.
"Jasmine," I whisper. I want her to take our baited name. I want her to
swallow it.
Fortunately, there was a doctor in the village that morning, a young man
visiting relatives. It was he who brought this drowned woman back from the brink,
he who told me her story.
She opened her eyes, he said, looked up at her father and spoke a single
word - then sank again, this time into coma.
Barracuda. That is what Jasmine said.
When her father visits, he touches her hair, kisses her cheek, sits in the
orange plastic chair at the side of her bed and holds her hand. Like my own father,
he has the big, brown, life-roughened hands of a fisherman. He too smells of the
sea, and pretends he is a good, simple man.

PLEASE TURN OVER

 Jasmine. We share so much, we are almost one.
I remember early mornings, my hair touched to wake me, my father lifting
me half-asleep from my bed, carrying me, dropping me into his boat. His voice
rough in my ear, his hands rough on my skin. I never wanted to go, but I was just
a child. He did as he wished.
I remember salt water, hot sun, my mother shrinking on the shore. I
remember the rocking of
the boat, the screams of the gulls.
"Jasmine, you have a life inside you. Can't you hear it calling?" Nothing.
The ward door bangs, and I see Jasmine's father walking towards us,
carrying flowers. He smiles at me. Even in death, my own child had my father's
smile, and Jasmine's will have this man's. I know it.
He stops by her bed and touches her hair. Something stirs deep inside me. I
watch Jasmine's eyelids, waiting for her to bite.

END OF THE TEST