TESTS

Chapter 3 – Tests

Use the glossary of literary terms to decode the texts and find
appropriate solutions to the tasks formulated.

TEST ONE
But what stamps the carnival
with its spirit of pure mischief is the
velvet domino – conferring upon its
wearers the disguise which each
man in his secret heart desires above
all. To become anonymous in an 1. Comment on Alexandria as
anonymous crowd revealing neither setting and character.
sex nor relationship nor even facial
expression – for the mark of this
demented friar‟s habit leaves only
two eyes, glowing like the eyes of a
Moslem woman or a bear. Nothing
else to distinguish one by; the thick
folds of the blackness conceal even 2. Isolate the principal tropes
the contours of the body. Everyone embedded in the fragment and
becomes hipless, breastless, develop on their usage.
faceless. And concealed beneath the
carnival habit (like a criminal desire in
the heart, a temptation impossible to
resist, an impulse which seems
preordained) lie the terms of
something: of a freedom which man
has seldom dared to imagine for 3. How much emphasis is placed
himself. One feels free in this on the question of the truthfulness
disguise to do whatever one likes of love and to what purpose?
without prohibition. All the best
murders in the city, all the most tragic
cases of mistaken identity, are the
fruit of the early carnival, while most
love affairs begin or end during these
three days and nights during which
we are delivered from the thrall of 4. Consider the carnival situation
personality, from the bondage of and the carnivalesque discourse.
ourselves. Once inside that velvet
cape and hood, and wife loses
husband, husband wife, lover the
beloved. The air becomes crisp with
the saltpetre of feuds and follies. The
fury of battles, of agonizing night-long
searches, of despairs. You cannot
tell whether you are dancing with a
man or a woman. The dark tides of
Eros, which demand full secrecy if

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they are to overflow the human soul, 5. Look into the shifts in
burst out during carnival like narrative practice and technique.
something long dammed up and
raise the forms of strange primeval
creatures – the perversions which
are, I suppose, the psyche‟s aliment
[…] Yes, who can help but love
carnival when in it all debts are paid,
all crimes expiated or committed, all 6. Discuss the excerpt in terms
illicit desires stated – without guilt or of the relativity of truth.
premeditation, without the penalties
which conscience or society enact?
But I am wrong about one thing
– for there is one distinguishing mark
by which your friend or enemy may
still identify you: hands. Your lover‟s
hands, if you have ever noticed them 7. Dwell on the mythic
at all, will lead you to her in the suggestiveness of the text above.
thickest press of maskers. Or by
arrangement she may wear, as
Justine does, a familiar ring – the
ivory intaglio taken from the tomb of
a dead Byzantine youth – worn upon
the forefinger of the right hand. But
this is all, and it is only just enough. 8. Find the existentialist ideas
(Pray that you are not as unlucky as rendered by the text and relate
Amaril who found the perfect woman them to the reading pattern
during carnival but could not suggested by the whole novel
persuade her to raise her hood and sequence.
stand identified. They talked all night
lying in the grass by the fountain,
making love together with their velvet
faces touching, their eyes caressing
each other. For a whole year now, he
has gone about the city trying to find 9. Identify the metafictional
a pair of human hands, like a stance and point to its functioning
madman. But hands are so alike! as a disclaimer in itself.
She swore, this woman of his, that
she would come back next year to
the same place, wearing the same
ring with its small yellow stone. And
so tonight he will wait trembling for a
pair of hands by the lily-pond – hands 10. How much does the text
which will perhaps never appear anticipate the further development
again in his life. Perhaps she was of the story pattern?
after all an afreet or a vampire – who
knows? Yet years later, in another
book, in another context, he will
happen upon her again, almost by
accident, but not here, not in these
pages too tangled already by the
record of ill-starred loves…)
(adapted from Justine, 1982: 98)
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TEST TWO
I do not know. This story I am
telling is all imagination. These
characters I create never existed
outside my own mind. If I have
pretended until now to know my 1. How is the postmodernist
characters‟ minds and innermost debate illustrated?
thoughts, it is because I am writing in
(just as I have assumed some of the
vocabulary and „voice‟ of) a
convention universally accepted at
the time of my story: that the novelist
stands next to God. He may not
know all, yet he tries to pretend that 2. What purpose does the
he does. But I live in the age of Alain mentioning of Alain Robbe-Grillet
Robbe-Grillet and Roland Barthes; if and Roland Barthes serve?
this is a novel, it cannot be a novel in
the modern sense of the word. […]
You may think novelists always
have fixed plans to which they work,
so that the future predicted by
Chapter One is always inexorably 3. Develop on the discussion on
the actuality of Chapter Thirteen. But authors/authority as embedded in
novelists write for countless different the excerpt.
reasons: for money, for fame, for
reviewers, for parents, for friends, for
loved ones; for vanity, for pride, for
curiosity, for amusement: as skilled
furniture-makers enjoy making
furniture, as drunkards like drinking, 4. What is stated with regard to
as judges like judging, as Sicilians readers/readings?
like emptying a shotgun into an
enemy‟s back. I could fill a book with
reasons, and they would all be true
of all. Only one same reason is
shared by all of us: we wish to create
worlds as real as, but other than the 5. Focus on the reality/fiction
world that is. Or was. This is why we borderline foregrounded.
cannot plan. We know a world is an
organism, not a machine. We also
know that a genuinely created world
must be independent of its creator; a
planned world (a world that fully
reveals its planning) is a dead world. 6. How does the text break with
It is only when our characters and tradition at the level of structure
events begin to disobey us that they and content?
begin to live. […]
In other words, to be free
myself, I must give [Charles], and
Tina, and Sarah, even the
abominable Mrs Poulteney, their
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freedoms as well. There is only one 7. Refer to the time and tense of
good definition of God: the freedom the fictional discourse.
that allows other freedoms to exist.
And I must conform to that definition.
The novelist is still a god, since
he creates (and not even the most
aleatory avant-garde modern novel
has managed to extirpate its author 8. Concentrate on the
completely); what has changed is existentialist principles formulated.
that we are no longer the gods of the
Victorian image, omniscient and
decreeing; but in the new theological
image, with freedom our first
principle, not authority. I have
disgracefully broken the illusion? No. 9. Identify the rhetorical devices
My characters still exist, and in a employed throughout the fragment.
reality no less, or no more, real that
the one I have just broken. Fiction is
woven into all, as a Greek observed
some two and a half thousand years
ago. I find this new reality (or
unreality) more valid; and I would 10. Delineate the fictional worlds
have you share my own sense that I that words build.
do not fully control these creatures of
my mind, any more than you control
– however hard you try, however
much of a latter-day Mrs Poulteney
you may be, your children,
colleagues, friends or even yourself.
(adapted from The French
Lieutenant’s Woman, 1983: 85-87)

TEST THREE

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Philip to Hilary
Darling, I was stricken with guilt
as soon as I saw your second air- 1. How much ‘reality’ may be
letter this morning. Mea culpa, but it observed at the level of this
has been a rather hectic week, with epistolary section of the novel?
the term, or quarter as they call it,
beginning. […]
I confess I had something of the
raw-recruit feeling when I went to
meet my classes for the first time this
week. The system is so different, and
the students are so much more
heterogeneous than they are at 2. Note the cultural clash obvious
home. They‟ve read the most in the letters and draw an outline
outlandish things and not read the of each.
most obvious ones. I had a student
in my room the other day, obviously
very bright, who appeared to have
read only two authors, Gurdjieff (is
that how you spell him?) and
somebody called Asimov, and had
never even heard of E. M. Forster.
I‟m teaching two courses, which 3. Identify the characteristics of
means I meet two groups of students the two educational systems which
three times a week for ninety help support Lodge’s commentary
minutes, or would do if it weren‟t for on the way literature is/should be
the Third World Students‟ strike. taught.
There‟s a student called Wily (sic)
Smith, who claims he‟s black, though
in fact he looks scarcely darker than
me, and he pestered me from the
day I arrived to let him enroll in my
creative writing course. Well, I finally
agreed, and then on the first
occasion the class met, what d‟you 4. Develop on the academic as the
think happened? Wily Smith source of the comic.
harangued his fellow students and
persuaded them that they must
support the strike by boycotting my
class. There‟s nothing personal in it,
of course, as he was kind enough to
explain, but it did seem rather a
nerve.
Well, darling, I hope the length
of his letter will make up for my
remissness of late. Please assure
Matthew that my house is not about
to slide into the sea. As to Robin 5. Analyse the symbolism of
Dempsey, I think it‟s unlikely that names with the characters above.
he‟ll get a senior lectureship this
year, promotion prospects being
what they are at Rummidge, but not
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through any competition with me, I‟m
afraid. He has published quite a lot of
articles.
All my love, Philip
6. Comment on the retreat of the
Morris to Desiree authorial presence.
[…] Desiree, your letter did
nothing to lighten a heavy week.
It isn‟t true after all that there
are no students at British
universities: this week they returned
from their prolonged Christmas
vacation. Too bad, I was just
beginning to get the hang of things. 7. Extract the parodic and self-
Now the teaching has thrown me parodic instances in the text.
back to square one. I swear the
system here will be the death of me.
Did I say system? A slip of the
tongue. There is no system. They
have something called tutorials,
instead. Three students and me, for
an hour at a time. We‟re supposed to
discuss some text I‟ve assigned. 8. Consider literature as an act of
This, apparently, can be anything communication and analyse the
that comes into my head, except that roles played by the addressers and
the campus bookshop doesn‟t have addressees.
anything that comes into my head.
But supposing we manage to agree,
me and the students, on some book
of which four copies can be
scratched together, one of them
writes a paper and reads it out to the
rest of us. After about three minutes
the eyes of the other two glaze over
and they begin to sag in their chairs.
It‟s clear they have stopped listening.
I‟m listening like hell but can‟t
understand a word because of the
guy‟s limey accent. All too soon, he
stops. “Thank you,” I say, flashing
him an appreciative smile. He looks
at me reproachfully as he blows his
nose, then carries on from where he 9. Discuss the main tropes in the
paused, in mid-sentence. The other text and their cultural implications.
two students wake up briefly,
exchange glances and snigger.
That‟s the most animation they ever
show. When the guy reading the
paper finally winds it up, I ask for
comments. Silence. They avoid my
eye. I volunteer a comment myself.
Silence falls again. It‟s so quiet you
can hear the guy‟s beard growing.
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Desperately I ask one of them a 10. Find the autobiographical
direct question. “And what did you component of the excerpt above.
think of the text, Miss Archer?” Miss
Archer falls off her chair in a swoon.
Well, to be fair, it only
happened once, and it had
something to do with the kid‟s period
that she fainted, but somehow it
seemed symbolic.
Believe it or not, I‟m feeling
quite homesick for Euphoric State
politics. What this place needs is a
few bomb outrages. They could
begin by blowing up the Chairman.
(adapted from Changing Places,
1978: 122-125)

TEST FOUR
We ate in the kitchen, for which 1. Identify the general feminist
he said he was grateful, making a issues addressed in the excerpt.
joke of it. […] When we went back to
the living room we were restless, did
not sit down for a time, then did; but
got up, and went strolling about, he
to examine my – I nearly said our,
since Freddie bought it – Picasso
lithograph, and set of flower prints. 2. Discover their particular
Very nice, they are; but then, so is instantiations and comment on
my living room, this whole flat. I them.
offered him a drink. We both had
another Scotch, and then it was
eleven o‟clock and both of us knew it
was all impossible.
We were stricken, shocked,
shaken, but it would not have been
possible for us to go into our
bedroom, take our clothes off and 3. Find the female stereotypes
make love. I was thinking wildly, If all alluded to and discuss their
the lights were switched off, what reception.
then? A thought which utterly
amazed me, so foreign was it to me.
And he said, just as I thought it,
„If the lights were off, Janna –but
who would we be making love with, I
wonder?‟ And he was looking at me
from an unfriendly distance, and 4. Develop on sexuality and
even laughing, a most masculine (meta)symbolism.
laugh I judged it, full of irony – and
finality. Yet I felt my spirits lift as I
heard it, for there was a sanity there
which had been missing.
Then he said, „I‟m going. I
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shouldn‟t have come.‟
„Yes, you must,‟ and I couldn‟t 5. What are the barriers inferred
wait for him to leave. […] and to what extent are they
As for me, his going was a load overcome inside the text and
off me; literally, I felt myself expand outside it?
and breathe again and want to move
about and do things. So I did –
tidied, cleared up, put on the radio
and danced a little by myself, which I
do very often, coming back from
Richard. But last evening, it was 6. Concentrate on the man-woman
sheer relief. Yet of course I could relationship and underline the
have wept, too. Not so much for „the deviations from
night of love‟ which had been accepted/acceptable patterns.
presenting itself to us so
unpleasantly, like something on an
agenda, provided for by
circumstances and by careful
planning – was that the rub? – but
because we had both been in such 7. Discuss the narrative technique
disarray that we were foregoing the employed to forward the text.
treat of a whole day together, today,
which we were to have spent free of
all other ties.
It goes without saying that I
dreamed of Freddie, my lost love.
Who was never my love. Or I don‟t
think he was. It is strange what a
bad memory I have for the things 8. How much does the diary form
that matter. I can remember exactly contribute to facilitating
what I wore and what he wore, introspection?
where we were: we were married in
Kensington Registry Office and
Freddie‟s parents and my parents
gave a reception at the Savoy. My
parents could not have afforded it by
themselves. Joyce was my matron
of honour. We never saw Freddie‟s 9. Observe the deliberate
best man, or I don‟t think we did, textualisation of the self and
after the wedding. We were all jolly. I discuss it in relation with the
looked, I had no doubt, very pretty; contemporary situation.
after all, I was very pretty. But what
was I feeling? I have no idea at all.
The honeymoon, motoring in the
Dordogne, is a mystery to me. I
remember lovely scenery, wonderful
food. I am sure we had wonderful
sex, because we did. What did I 10. Point to the juxtaposition of
feel? As for what he felt, I am sure I temporal levels and the
didn‟t give that a thought. Did I ever demarcation between the real and
ask myself what Freddie felt about the fictional(ised).
anything, until after he was dead?
And yet, what a credit I was all
POSTMODERNISM AND THE NOVEL IN ENGLISH 46
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round! I do remember strolling back
into the office, after the honeymoon,
and the satisfaction of it, as after a
job properly done! I‟ve done that,
done it well, everything is as it
should be!
(adapted from The Diaries of
Jane Somers, 1978: 122-125)

TEST FIVE

Down among the women. What a

place to be! Yet here we all are by
accident of birth, sprouted breasts
and bellies, as cyclical of nature as
our timekeeper the moon – and down
here among the women we have no
option but to stay. So says Scarlet‟s
mother Wanda, aged sixty-four,
gritting her teeth.

On good afternoons I take the

children to the park. I sit on a wooden
bench while they play on the swings,
or roll over and over down the hill, or 1. Discuss the impact that the title
mob their yet more infant victims – as refrain has upon the reader.
disporting in dog mess and inhaling
the swirling vapours that compose
our city air.
The children look healthy
enough, says Scarlet, Wanda‟s brutal
daughter, my friend, when I complain.
The park is a woman‟s place,
that‟s Scarlet‟s complaint. Only when
the weather gets better do the men
come out. They lie semi-nude in the
grass, and add the flavour of
unknown possibilities to the
blandness of our lives. Then
sometimes Scarlet joins me on my
bench.
Today the vapours are swirling 2. Mention the ideas overtly
pretty chill. It‟s just us women today. I expressed and the ones barely
have nothing to read. I fold the edges suggested.
of my cloak around my body and
consider my friends.
One can‟t take a step without
treading on an ant, says Audrey, who
abandoned her children on moral
grounds, and now lives with a
married man in more comfort and
happiness than she has ever known
before. She, once imprisoned on a
POSTMODERNISM AND THE NOVEL IN ENGLISH 47
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poultry farm, now runs a women‟s
magazine, bullies her lover and 3. Refer to the oblique criticism
teases her chauffeur. How‟s that for addressed to patriarchal society.
the wages of sin? With her children,
his children, her husband, his wife,
that makes eight. Eight down and two
to play, as Audrey boasts. With the
chauffeur‟s wife creeping up on the
outside to make nine.
Sylvia, of course, got into the
habit of being the ant; she kept
running into pathways and waiting for
the boot to fall. Sylvia too ran off with
a married man. The day his divorce 4. Read the text again with a view
came through he left with her friend, to understanding the role of the
and her typewriter, leaving Sylvia immasculation of discourse.
pregnant, penniless and stone deaf
because he‟d clouted her.
How‟s that for a best friend?
You‟ve got to be careful, down here
among the women. So says Jocelyn,
respectable Jocelyn, who not so long
ago pitched her middle-class voice to
its maternal coo and lowered her
baby into a bath of scalding water.
Seven years later the scars still
show; not that Jocelyn seems to
notice. In any case, the boy‟s away at
prep school most of the time.
„Better not to be here at all‟,
says Helen to me from the grave,
poor wandering wicked Helen,
rootless and uprooted, who decided 5. Which are the female
in the end that death was a more stereotypes brought to attention
natural state than life; that anything and how is each perceived?
was better than ending up like the
rest of us, down here among the
women.
It is true that others of my
women friends live quiet and happy
married lives, or would claim to do
so. I watch them curl up and wither
gently, and without drama, like
cabbages in early March which have
managed to survive the rigours of
winter only to succumb to the 6. Are men associated with
passage of time. „We are perfectly money? If so, why?
happy,‟ they say. Then why do they
look so sad? Is it a temporary
depression scurrying in from the
North Sea, a passing desolation
drifting over from Russia? No, I think
not. There is no escape even for
POSTMODERNISM AND THE NOVEL IN ENGLISH 48
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them. There is nothing more glorious
than to be a young girl, and there is
nothing worse than to have been 7. What is the importance of time
one. in the presentation of
Down here among the women: womanhood?
it‟s what we all come to. […]

Wanda‟s flat, at the present

time, is two rooms and a kitchen in
Belsize Park. It won‟t be for long.
Wanda has moved twenty-five times
in the last forty years. She is sixty-
four now. Rents go up and up. Not for 8. How is the text narrated and by
Wanda the cheap security of a long- whom?
standing tenancy. Wanda turns her
naked soul to the face of every chilly
blast that‟s going: competes in the
accommodation market with every
long-haired arse-licking mother-
fucking (quoting Wanda) lout that
ever wanted a cheap pad.

Wanda‟s flat then, twenty years

ago, when we begin Byzantia‟s story, 9. What purpose do the breaks in
was two rooms and a kitchen in the text serve?
another part of Belsize Park. Some
women have music wherever they
go, Wanda has green and yellow lino.
Scarlet, who at this time is twenty,
has been sleepwalking on this lino
since she was five and last felt the
tickle of wall-to-wall Axminster
between her toes. That was before
Wanda left her husband Kim in
search of a nobler truth than comfort. 10. Why do you think the urban
The lino used to be lifted, rolled, setting was chosen?
strung, tucked under some male arm
and heaved into the removal van.
Presently it cracked and folded
instead of curling itself gracefully, and
the male arms became impatient and
scarcer, so Wanda hacked it into
square tiles with a kitchen knife, and
now when it‟s moved it goes piled,
and Wanda carries it herself.
Amazing how good things last. The
lino belonged in the first place to
Wanda‟s lover‟s wife. This lady,
whose name was Millie, bravely
threw it out along with the past when
she discovered about Wanda and her
husband Peter – Peter for short,
Peterkin for affection – but
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depression returned, sneaking under
the shiny doors (three coats best
gloss, think of that, in wartime!).
(adapted from Down
Among the Women, 1973: 5-7)

TEST SIX
„An Anglo?‟ Padma exclaims in
horror. „What are you telling me? You
are an Anglo-Indian? Your name is
not your own?‟
„I am Saleem Sinai,‟ I told her,
„Snotnose, Stainface, Sniffer, Baldy,
Piece-of-the-Moon. Whatever do you
mean – not my own?‟
„All the time,‟ Padma wails 1. What central postcolonial issues
angrily, „you tricked me. Your mother, are addressed in the text above?
you called her; your father, your
grandfather, your aunts. What thing
are you that you don‟t even care to
tell the truth about who your parents
were? You don‟t care that your
mother died giving you life? That
your father is maybe still alive
somewhere, penniless, poor? You
are a monster or what?‟
No: I‟m no monster. Nor have I 2. Develop on hybridity:
been guilty of trickery. I provided manifestations and perceptions.
clues… but there‟s something more
important than that. It‟s this: when we
eventually discovered the crime of
Mary Pereira, we all found that it
made no difference! I was still their
son; they remained my parents. In a
kind of collective failure of
imagination, we learned that we
simply could not think out way out of
our pasts… If you had asked my
father (even him, despite all that 3. Discuss the central paradox of
happened!) who his son was, nothing the excerpt: being fathered by
on earth would have induced him to history and rewritten by fiction.
point in the direction of the
accordionist‟s knock-kneed,
unwashed boy. Even though he
would grow up, this Shiva, to be
something of a hero.
So: there were knees and a
nose, a nose and knees. In fact, all
over the new India, the dream we all
shared, children were being born
who were only partially the offspring
of their parents – the children of the
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time; fathered, you understand, by 4. Consider the metafictional
history. It can happen. Especially in a aspect: the dialogue between the
country which is itself a sort of narrator/author and the
dream. narratee/reader.
„Enough,‟ Padma sulks. „I don‟t
want to listen.‟ Expecting one type of
two-headed child, she is peeved at
being offered another. Nevertheless,
whether she is listening or not, I have
things to record.
Three days after my birth, Mary
Pereira was consumed by remorse.
[…] She gave up her job at the
Nursing Home and approached
Amina Sinai with, „Madam, I saw 5. How many diegetic levels may
your baby just one time and fell in be observed?
love. Are you needing an ayah?‟ And
Amina, her eyes shining with
motherhood, „Yes.‟ Mary Pereira
(„You might as well call her your
mother,‟ Padma interjects, proving
she is still interested, „She made you,
you know‟), from that moment on,
devoted her life to bringing me up,
thus binding the rest of her days to
the memory of her crime.
On August 20th, Nussie Ibrahim 6. How does structure contribute
followed my mother into the Pedder to forwarding content?
Road clinic, and little Sonny followed
me into the world – but he was
reluctant to emerge; forceps were
obliged to reach in and extract him;
Dr. Bose, in the heat of the moment,
pressed a little too hard, and Sonny
arrived with little dents beside each
of his temples, shallow forceps-
hollows which would make him as
irresistibly attractive as the hairpiece
of William Methwold had made the 7. Analyse the magic realism of the
Englishman. Girls (Evie, the Brass fragment.
Monkey, others) reached out to
stroke his little valleys … it would
lead to difficulties between us.
But I‟ve saved the most
interesting snippet for the last. So let
me reveal now that, on the day after I
was born, my mother and I were
visited in a saffron and green
bedroom by two persons from the
Time of India (Bombay edition). I lay
in a green crib, swaddled in saffron, 8. Focus on the role of the media
and looked up at them. There was a in catching the moment.
reporter, who spent his time
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interviewing my mother; and a tall,
aquiline photographer who devoted
his attentions to me. The next day,
words as well as pictures appeared
in newsprint…
Quite recently, I visited a
cactus-garden where once, many
years back, I buried a toy tin globe,
which was badly dented and stuck
together with Scotch Tape; and
extracted from its insides the things I
had placed there all those years ago.
Holding them in my left hand now, as 9. Which personal and national
I write, I can still see – despite histories are developed upon and
yellowing and mildew – that one is a to what purpose?
letter, a personal letter to myself,
signed by the Prime Minister of India;
but the other is a newspaper cutting.
It was a headline: MIDNIGHT‟S
CHILD.
And a text: „A charming pose of
Baby Saleem Sinai, who was born
last night at the exact moment of our
Nation‟s independence – the happy
Child of the glorious Hour!‟
And a large photograph: an A-I 10. Observe the multitude of ‘I’s
top-quality front-page jumbo-sized and eyes holding the text together
baby-snap, in which it is still possible and reread it from this perspective.
to make out a child with birthmarks
staining his cheeks and a runny and
glistening nose. (The picture is
captioned: Photo by Kalidas Gupta.)
Despite headline, text and
photograph, I must accuse our
visitors of the crime of trivialization;
mere journalists, looking no further
than the next day‟s paper, they had
no idea of the importance of the
event they were covering. To them, it
was no more than a human-interest
drama.
(adapted from Midnight’s
Children, 1982: 118-119)

TEST SEVEN
I hope you will agree that in
these two instances I have cited from 1. What is Englishness defined
his career – both of which I have had in terms of and why?
corroborated and believe to be
accurate – my father not only
manifests, but comes close to being
the personification itself, of what the
Hayes Society terms „dignity in keeping
POSTMODERNISM AND THE NOVEL IN ENGLISH 52
 TESTS
with his position‟. If one considers the
difference between my father at such 2. Concentrate on the
moments and a figure such as Mr. Jack ‘(re)writing’ of the national and
Neighbours even with the best of his personal self as obvious in the
technical flourishes, I believe one may excerpt.
begin to distinguish what it is that
separates a „great‟ butler from a merely
competent one. We may now
understand better, too, why my father
was so fond of the story of the butler
who failed to panic on discovering a
tiger under the dining table; it was 3. Discuss the quality of the
because he knew instinctively that discourse in relation with the
somewhere in this story lay the kernel problematics envisaged.
of what true „dignity‟ is. And let me now
posit this: „dignity‟ has to do crucially
with a butler‟s ability not to abandon
the professional being he inhabits.
Lesser butlers will abandon their
professional being for the private one
at the least provocation. For such 4. Point to the subversive
persons, being a butler is like playing practices and techniques
some pantomime role; a small push, a employed.
slight stumble, and the façade will drop
off to reveal the actor underneath. The
great butlers are great by virtue of their
ability to inhabit their professional role
and inhabit it to the utmost; they will not
be shaken out by external events,
however surprising, alarming or vexing. 5. What tropes are predominant
They wear their professionalism as a and what roles do they play?
decent gentleman will wear his suit: he
will not let ruffians or circumstance tear
it off him in the public gaze; he will
discard it when, and only when, he wills
to do so, and this will invariably be
when he is entirely alone. It is, as I say,
a matter of „dignity‟. 6. Disambiguate the I, the you
It is sometimes said that butlers and the we in the text.
only truly exist in England. Other
countries, whatever title is actually
used, have only manservants. I tend to
believe this is true. Continentals are
unable to be butlers because they are
as a breed incapable of the emotional
restraint which only the English race is 7. How may the existentialist
capable of. Continentals – and by and references be interpreted?
large the Celts, as you will no doubt
agree – are as a rule unable to control
themselves in moments of strong
emotion, and are thus unable to
maintain a professional demeanour
other than in the least challenging of
POSTMODERNISM AND THE NOVEL IN ENGLISH 53
 TESTS
situations. If I may return to my earlier 8. Discuss the ratio
metaphor – you will excuse my putting seriousness/irony in the text.
it so coarsely – they are like a man who
will, at the slightest provocation, tear off
his suit and his shirt and run about
screaming. In a word, „dignity‟ is
beyond such persons. We English
have an important advantage over
foreigners in this respect and it is for
this reason that when you think of a
great butler, he is bound, almost by 9. To what extent does the
definition, to be an Englishman. historical debate support the
(adapted from The Remains of argument formulated?
the Day, 1990: 67)

10. Which might be the worlds

colliding in Mr. Stevens’
presentation and how is
otherness perceived?

POSTMODERNISM AND THE NOVEL IN ENGLISH 54