March 16

Paper 12 AS Level English (9093)

Ans. 3a)
In this passage, the writer expresses her thoughts and experiences on visiting
the fountains in Rome. The writer, in a tone of immense dismay and lament,
speaks about her disappointment at visiting the waters of the fountains that she
had pictured with a colossal amount of romanticism- only to have her dreams
crushed ruthlessly by the great assault of Rome.
The romanticism is brought about in the very first sentence as the writer says
You walk close to your dreams. This short and thought-provoking sentence,
reflecting the writers expectations, is immediately followed by a long sentence
representing the brutal reality. The respective lengths of the two adjacent
sentences is itself able to portray to the reader, that the writers dreamlike
expectations were ruthlessly quelled by the reality of the fountains and their
surroundings. The thought evoked by the varied sentence structures is reiterated
by their words, as the writer depicts a chaotic atmosphere through the pulsing
crowds and their elbows and knees and souls touching and rubbing. This
mindless exercise and daily routine of the locals in Rome, represented as one of
monotony and drudgery, is hugely contrasted by the surreal belief of the writer,
who had long dreamt of fish tails or horses behinds: a fairy-tale-like impression
of the fountains.
The shock that is brought with this contrast of expectation against reality, is
expressed by the writer as she speaks about how the Anglo-Saxon mind, like
her own, is uninformed about the disorder of the locals normal daily life, and is
therefore unprepared for the assault that is to come. The writer, from the initial
trauma and disturbance, does however reach an eventual stage of acceptance or
immersion, as she helplessly succumbs to the pitiless attack on her heavenly
conjecture, where the key image is always water. By saying this, the writer is
also able to cement the position of the fountains, as a landmark in Rome. The
naivety of the Anglo-Saxon mind exists because the immersion in the dream
revolves around the romanticism and beauty of the fountains, unaware of the
unruly crowds that surround them.
The assault, that was only implied till now, is mentioned explicitly in the
second paragraph, as total and terrible. The use of this alliteration effectively
brings about the mood of the writer, which now seems to be transitioning from
distress to contempt. Further on into the paragraph, the tone of contempt and
disbelief is witnessed evidently as the writer uses impactful battle imagery to,
once again, counter the idyllic expectation with the brutal reality, but this time
more directly. The long sentence where the writer describes the thoughts of
foreigners like herself who wax so romantic about the fountains, is followed by
a straightforward and sudden short sentence, that sets the tone for the rest of
the passage: a scornful and disdainful tone reflected by the writers explicit
mention of the truth as extremely indecent.
Quite interestingly indeed, in the rest of the paragraph, the writer speaks on two
different levels, with every sentence having two different meanings- one level
speaking about the fountains, while the other referring to the people of Rome.

The writer, first of all, uses a historical allusion in a simile to compare the
indecency of their numbers to the lives of the Caesars, in order to portray
the conspiracies of Rome, and reflect the idea that the place has seen no
progress in decency and civility since the past. The use of their could be
referring to both, the fountains, or the locals. The writers fury is further
reiterated as she uses a hyperbole by saying that common reason expires
here. This is done to portray the idea that one has to expend all reasoning and
rationality to understand what Rome is truly, and really, about.
Furthermore, the existence of the two levels is made clearer as the writer states
that Their settings are apt to be extravagant and that they can have sprung
up anywhere. While these phrases can be regarded as a personification of the
fountains to reiterate the assault of Rome, they can equally be seen as the
writers acceptance of the idea that the pulsing crowds had the capability of
enhancing the splendour and elegance of the fountains, but it was their
behaviour and conduct rather than their very presence that ruined the dignified
aestheticism, which was her original perspective of Rome. The writer reassures
the reader of this idea, as she expresses, through the smiling sadism of
dreams, that it was the very grandeur and magnificence of her dreams that left
her disheartened; that it was only because she had raised her expectations so
high, that the fall was so hard, and so painful.
In the same paragraph, the writer once again ambiguously states that They are
not only memory, though they are that too. The writer further goes on to
claim that the city would have collapsed in its instability under the weight of its
past long ago, without them. The writer could be speaking about both, the
fountains as well as the people of Rome, as a memory of the city, and
therefore an element of its past. The writers claim that the city would have
fallen apart without them could also be referring to either the fountains or the
locals. The writer is therefore attempting to reveal the idea that the crowds and
fountains were in fact congruent in their beauty, and would enhance the
elegance of each other, at least in theory- neither would the fountains be able to
survive without the locals, nor the locals without the fountains.
The writer immediately supports her claim even further as she says that in times
of drought, the fountains become quiet and stale, or empty. While this could
be referring back to the first paragraph where the writer stated that the key
image is always water and therefore everything seems hollow and void without
it, the reference to drought could also be taken in a figurative rather than
literal manner, where the writer could be talking about the absence of the people
of Rome, that makes the fountains look desolate, dry and deserted. The real
outrage, hence, comes not because the people are merely present in large
numbers around the fountains, but because instead of augmenting the beauty of
the fountains and their otherwise surreal waters, the people ruin these very
waters through the formers lack of appreciation for the latters spectacular
opulence.
The writer then makes uses of a set of three as she speaks about how the
romantic, the idealist, the tender-minded, referring back to the unprepared
Anglo-Saxon mind, faces an unforgiving attack on the brilliance of their
imagination, which is suppressed to death by the verity of the fountains. This
unforgiving attack, once again, takes place because of only one mistake of the

romantic: the mistake of believing that the fountains were a representation of

heaven on earth; the mistake of expecting the artistic objects to receive the
respect they rightfully deserved; the mistake of thinking that one could actually
ever walk close to ones dreams.
The writer ends the passage in a straightforward and euphemistic tone. She
begins the last paragraph by explaining that it was because the fountains were
so perfect (genius spent on them) that the assault on her senses was so utterly
shocking. The writer expresses pity, though still infuriated, about the fact that
the fountains which entailed the elegance, sophistication and grace of the
stature of otherwise only dreams and sex, were treated with utter disrespect
and irreverence by the hundreds of individuals who regarded them as his own
private memory. The euphemism that the writer ends with, as he says that the
street cleaners cannot be everywhere at once, only goes on to reflect the
pitiful, grievous and rather lamentable situation in Rome, where the people not
only turned a blind eye towards the artistic eternity that existed in their own
neighbourhood, but in fact infiltrated this virtuous magnificence with all kinds of
rubbish.
Ans. 3b)
You savour the brilliance of your imagination. The innumerable waves of locals in
a sea of commercialization begin to redefine what in your nave mind was an
aesthetic beauty in a land revered so widely for the diversity of its own culture; a
sea that is in itself an infiltration in the fancy of your thoughts; waves that
themselves pollute the surreal image of a respected and prized arch-shaped
monumental figure, redefining artistry. For the uninformed foreign traveller, led
by the desire to witness an edifice of exquisiteness, blinded to the unruly
permeation of the throbbing crowds that myopically witness the same as a
means to satisfy their own lucrative interests, everything here at the India Gate
is scandalous- individually shattering to dust, every brick that builds the
foundation of our fantasy.
The quixotic, the perfectionist, the utopian from any stretch and corner of the
world, faces a pitiless torture as his priceless imagination is brutally quelled by
the piles of litter created by thousands of infiltrators; infiltrators who pollute the
otherwise surreal gardens of the Gate with their actions, as well as their mere
presence.