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A319 Literature in the Modern World

A319 SPECIMEN EXAMINATION

PAPER AND NOTES

Mid-Course Examination
Time allowed: 3 hours

You must answer THREE questions, one from each part. The three parts carry equal weight
in marks, and you are advised to divide your time equally between them. (Note: the time of
three hours allowed for the whole examination includes the time it will take you to read the
paper.)

Spend time working out which texts are most appropriate for your answers to questions from
Parts II and III. ‘Text’ here means a complete piece of prose fiction or drama, a single
extended poem or a number of shorter ones from the groups of poems studied in the course;
specify clearly the texts you choose for each essay.

Taken as a whole, your answers should demonstrate knowledge of at least TWO of the
THREE genres studied in the first semester. As you work through the paper, you should also
take care to avoid significant re-use of material already covered in one of your answers.

A list of texts associated with each block is printed at the end of this paper.

(Please see page 7 for notes on the Specimen Examination Paper.)

Copyright # 2005 The Open University SUP 80252 0

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PART 1 Answer ONE question from this section
Question 1
‘In a dramatic performance, there are so many sign-systems operating ... that words alone
cannot determine meaning’. Consider this statement with detailed reference to ONE of the
following extracts. Remember to include examples such as set, props, costume, gesture and
lighting.

EITHER

(A) From Samuel Beckett, Endgame

[Pause.]
HAMM Is it not time for my pain-killer?
CLOV Yes.
HAMM Ah! At last! Give it to me! Quick!
[Pause.]
CLOV There’s no more pain-killer.
[Pause.]
HAMM [ Appalled .] Good ... ! [Pause .] No more pain-killer!
CLOV No more pain-killer. You’ll never get any more pain-killer.
[Pause.]
HAMM But the little round box. It was full!
CLOV Yes. But now it’s empty.
[Pause. CLOV starts to move about the room. He is looking for a place to put down the alarm-
clock.]
HAMM [ Soft .] What’ll I do? [ Pause. In a scream .] What’ll I do? [ CLOV sees the picture, takes
it down, stands it on the floor with its face to the wall, hangs up the alarm-clock in its place. ]
What are you doing?
CLOV Winding up.
HAMM Look at the earth.
CLOV Again!
HAMM Since it’s calling to you.
CLOV Is your throat sore? [ Pause. ] Would you like a lozenge?
[ Pause .] No? [ Pause. ] Pity.
[ CLOV goes, humming, towards window right, halts before it, looks up at it.]
HAMM Don’t sing.
CLOV [ Turning towards HAMM.] One hasn’t the right to sing any more?
HAMM No.
CLOV Then how can it end?
HAMM You want it to end?
CLOV I want to sing.
HAMM I can’t prevent you.
[Pause. CLOV turns towards window right.]
CLOV What did I do with that steps? [ He looks round for ladder.] You didn’t see that steps?
[He sees it .] Ah, about time. [ He goes towards window left .] Sometimes I wonder if I’m in
my right mind. Then it passes over and I’m as lucid as before. [ He gets up on ladder, looks

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out of window.] Christ, she’s under water! [He looks .] How can that be? [ He pokes forward
his head, his hand above his eyes .] It hasn’t rained. [ He wipes the pane, looks. Pause .] Ah
what a mug I am! I’m on the wrong side! [ He gets down, takes a few steps towards window
right .] Under water! [He goes back for ladder .] What a mug I am! [He carries ladder
towards window right .] Sometimes I wonder if I’m in my right senses. Then it passes off and
I’m as intelligent as ever. [ He sets down ladder under window right, gets up on it, looks out
of window. He turns towards HAMM.] Any particular sector you fancy? Or merely the whole
thing?
HAMM Whole thing.
CLOV The general effect? Just a moment. [He looks out of window. Pause.]
HAMM Clov.
CLOV [ Absorbed .] Mmm.
HAMM Do you know what it is?
CLOV [ As before .] Mmm.
HAMM I was never there. [ Pause .] Clov!
CLOV [ Turning towards HAMM, exasperated.] What is it?
HAMM I was never there.
CLOV Lucky for you. [ He looks out of window.]

OR

(B) From Samuel Beckett, Endgame

HAMM Take me for a little turn. [ CLOV goes behind the chair and pushes it forward. ] Not too
fast! [CLOV pushes chair.] Right round the world! [ CLOV pushes chair.] Hug the walls, then
back to the centre again. [ CLOV pushes chair.] I was right in the centre, wasn’t I?
CLOV [ Pushing. ] Yes.
HAMM We’d need a proper wheel-chair. With big wheels. Bicycle wheels! [ Pause. ] Are you
hugging?
CLOV [ Pushing. ] Yes.
HAMM [ Groping for wall. ] It’s a lie! Why do you lie to me?
CLOV [ Bearing closer to wall. ] There! There!
HAMM Stop! [CLOV stops chair close to back wall. HAMM lays his hand against wall. ] Old wall!
[ Pause. ] Beyond is the ... other hell. [ Pause. Violently.] Closer! Closer! Up against!
CLOV Take away your hand. [ HAMM withdraws his hand. CLOV rams chair against wall. ]
There! [ HAMM leans towards wall, applies his ear to it.]
HAMM Do you hear? [ He strikes the wall with his knuckles.] Do you hear? Hollow bricks! [He
strikes again.] All that’s hollow! [Pause. He straightens up. Violently.] That’s enough. Back!
CLOV We haven’t done the round.
HAMM Back to my place! [CLOV pushes chair back to centre .] Is that my place?
CLOV Yes, that’s your place.
HAMM Am I right in the centre?
CLOV I’ll measure it.
HAMM More or less! More or less!
CLOV [ Moving chair slightly.] There!
HAMM I’m more or less in the centre?
CLOV I’d say so.
HAMM You’d say so! Put me right in the centre!

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CLOV I’ll go and get the tape.
HAMM Roughly! Roughly! [CLOV moves chair slightly.] Bang in the centre!
CLOV There! [ Pause. ]
HAMM I feel a little too far to the left. [ CLOV moves chair slightly.] Now I feel a little too far to
the right. [ CLOV moves chair slightly.] I feel a little too far forward. [ CLOV moves chair
slightly.] Now I feel a little too far back.
[ CLOV moves chair slightly.] Don’t stay there [i.e. behind the chair ], you give me the shivers.
[ CLOV returns to his place beside the chair.]
CLOV If I could kill him I’d die happy. [Pause.]

PART II Answer ONE question from this section

Questions 2 and 3 cover texts from Blocks One and Two. Questions 4 and 5 cover texts
from Block Three, Part One.

Question 2
‘Modernists argued that a complex art was necessary to render adequately a modern
consciousness of the world.’

Discuss this statement with close reference to one or two texts from Blocks One or Two.

Question 3
‘Principles of fragmentation and discontinuity can be said to be integral to much Modernist
work.’ With close reference to one or two texts from Blocks One or Two discuss how far, and
in what ways, they illustrate these principles.

Question 4
Compare the ways in which national identity is presented in literary texts as much by gaps
and silences as by what is said overtly, drawing on one or two texts from Block Three, Part
One .

Question 5
‘England, this country of ours, where nobody is well’ (W.H. Auden). How far do texts from
Block Three, Part One, which engage with the question of Englishness, exemplify this
view? You should make detailed reference to one or two texts.

PART III Answer ONE of the following two questions

In answering your chosen question you should make detailed reference to at
least TWO texts from Block Three, Part Two.

Question 6
To what extent, if any, do the texts in Block Three, Part Two explore the constraints placed on
women? Discuss in relation to any two texts from Block Three, Part Two.

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Question 7
‘There is no such thing as a work of literature devoid of ideological content.’ Discuss this
statement with close reference to any two texts from Block Three, Part Two.

A319 texts
The following list is a reminder of the A319 texts from which you may choose.

Block 1 Introduction
‘Odour of Chrysanthemums’, ‘The Old Chief Mshlanga’, ‘Kew Gardens’, ‘In the Village’,
Endgame .
‘During Wind and Rain’, ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’, ‘The Second Coming’, ‘Preludes’.
‘Blackberrying’, ‘The Soldier’.

Block 2 The Impact of Modernism

Mrs Dalloway , ‘Kew Gardens’, The Waste Land and Other Poems,
W.B. Yeats’s poems, Sweeney Agonistes, The Dreaming of the Bones.

Block 3 Literature and Ideology

Part One: ‘Englishness’

Officers and Gentlemen, W.H. Auden’s poetry; John Betjeman’s poetry; Georgian poetry,
‘Indian Summer of an Uncle’, ‘A Sahibs’ War’.

Part Two: Language and Gender

‘Kew Gardens’, ‘The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber’; Stevie Smith’s poetry, Stevie
Smith extract from Over the Frontier ; Sylvia Plath, poems; Elizabeth Bishop, ‘In the
Village’; Elizabeth Bishop, poems; Adrienne Rich, poems.

[END OF QUESTION PAPER]

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Notes to accompany the A319 Specimen Exam
Paper
You may take the two course anthologies (covering prose, poetry and drama) and The Waste
Land into the examination room with you. This should avoid the need for you to try to
commit these set texts to memory and enable you to write about at least a selection of the set
texts in the course in a precise way (particularly important if you are quoting poetry).
However, beware of spending too much time in the exam looking up quotations and
copying them into your essays. Only basic annotation is permitted in the books you take
with you into the exam room, and there must be no writing at all on endpapers or on the
inside covers of books.

The Specimen Exam Paper sets out the structure of the paper and shows the kind of questions
you will be asked. This note sets out some of the principles behind the format, and gives
advice on how to approach the exam.

Overall aims and structure

In the exam paper, as in the course, the emphasis will be on (a) the themes that form the block
structures, (b) the individual texts, and (c) the critical ideas and methods stressed in the
course. We aim to give you the opportunity to write about each of these and thus, within the
limits of the exam situation, to find out what you have learnt through the semester. The paper
is divided into three parts and each part has a different emphasis. Some indication of the
nature of the three parts is given below. You will need to revise a range of texts across the
blocks and spend some time at the beginning of the exam session working out where you will
use those you wish to write about. Take care to follow the instruction on the front of the paper
about demonstrating knowledge of two genres; this is an important element in the
Learning Outcomes for A319, so marks will be deducted from the paper as a whole if
you are not able to show understanding of texts from two genres. Take care also not to
repeat material.

Part I
This part contains one question specific to the drama, and is the only part that requires you to
write about a particular genre and a named text. The exact text ( Endgame ) and the form of
question given on the Specimen Exam Paper will recur in the actual paper, but the
actual extracts for discussion will be different. The emphasis here, then, is ‘formal’ and
analytical.

The question builds on your work on ‘sign-systems’ and dramatic conventions in Block 1 and
on your study of a particular play. Your ideas on this topic may be clarified by re-reading
Martin Esslin’s ‘The Signs of Drama’, and Umberto Eco’s ‘Semiotics of Theatrical
Performance’ in Part Two, Section I of the Reader. You might want to make some general
points about the play text and performance, but the bulk of your answer should be based on
specific analysis of the passage given.

Part II

Part II questions focus on Blocks 1, 2 and 3, Part 1. In some cases you will be asked to
discuss a particular statement or issue raised in a block. Remember that this involves going
into the arguments for and against the statement or opinion, saying something about any
problems it raises, and showing how the arguments and problems can be illustrated in the

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texts you have chosen to write about. In other cases you may be asked to look at the relevant
block theme from a more general, distanced perspective, but here again the need to construct
an argument based on specific texts should give you scope to debate the issues raised or
implied.

Again you should be wary of limiting your performance through narrow revision. You might,
for example, prefer to answer on a Block 3, Part 1 theme, but then find that you are not happy
with the actual question, and be put into the uncomfortable situation of either doing it anyway,
or tackling a question about Block 1 or 2 which you haven’t fully revised. Try to revise for
Part II so that you are equally prepared to write on any of the blocks and can make a real
choice between the questions on offer. Although there is no restriction as to genre in the Part
II questions, you need to bear in mind the rule that you must cover at least two genres in the
paper as a whole.

Part III
In this part of the exam you will be asked to choose from one of two questions based on the
texts from Block 3, Part 2. As with Part II of the paper, you will be asked to discuss a
particular statement or issue or theme raised in the block, and your approach to the question
will take the same form, that is, an argument based on your chosen texts and which opens up
the scope for debating the issues raised or implied. In this question, you should try to make
further use of the theoretical approaches to literature and ideology you have encountered in
this block. Notice that you are free to base your answer on one or two genres (drama does not
figure in Block 3, Part 2), and that the total number of texts you discuss is left to you – it must
be at least two.

General advice
In designing the exam we have accepted that any exam involves students being suddenly
confronted with new tasks in a highly controlled and unusual environment. But we hope to
have made the exam a little less intimidating by giving clear guidance on what the paper will
contain and what we expect you to do, by allowing you to take books into the exam, and by
offering suggestions about the scope of your revision.

We know from experience, however, that there are pitfalls, and it might be as well to mention
some of them here:

1One danger of having books with you is that under the pressure of the exam you will
spend more time than you can afford either looking up material or copying it into your
essays. In exam questions brief quotations provide evidence for your argument and
strengthen your essay, but exam essays are almost always shorter than TMA essays, and
long quotations take up space which you should be using to show your own ideas.
Remember that only basic annotation is permitted (highlighting, circling and underlining,
but no actual writing in the margins or on the inside covers of books).
2Knowing the topic in advance, as in Part I, allows you to prepare the groundwork for
your answer more fully than if it is unseen, but remember that you will need to think
about the topic in the context of the passage on the exam paper. Equally, do not try to
remember long quotations from critics or theoreticians or have in mind long extracts
from the anthologies which you intend to copy into your essay.
3Do not think that a wonderful answer in any one part of the paper will lead to a high
overall exam score if you skimp on the other parts; the three parts are weighted equally
and you need to distribute your time and effort evenly across the paper as a whole.

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Finally, it is worth bearing in mind that if you have worked steadily through the first semester
and attempted both of the TMAs, the requirements of the exam should be comfortably within
your scope. Half the assessment (your scores for TMAs and quizzes) will be behind you
before you begin the exam. However, you may well find that preparing for the exam gives
you new perspectives on the work you did earlier. So, if possible, try to look on the exam not
simply as a test, but as providing an organised framework for the further development of
knowledge, understanding and skills you have been building up through the semester.

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