LITERATURA INGLESA III.

PENSAMIENTO Y CREACIÓN LITERARIA

INGLESA EN LA PRIMERA MITAD DEL SIGLO XX
CONVOCATORIA FEBRERO 2022

MODEL 2: FEEDBACK

Here follow some guidelines that will help you revise the answers you gave in your exams.
Please, bear in mind that these are only the key ideas and concepts provided by the course
materials to answer the questions. The grading process has taken into account how you
handle them to write a well-developed and informed essay with solid arguments and suitable
references to the literary texts. Answers may vary but they have to show a good command
on the materials studied in the course and the compulsory readings. The more into these
arguments the answers have gone, the better valued in the grading of your exams.

GENERAL GUIDELINES TO BE TAKEN INTO ACCOUNT:

Clarity of the argument and correction in the writing of the answers

Accuracy in the answer avoiding unnecessary digressions or the use of common

sense-based knowledge or mere plot telling.

Reference to the literary works, if a quote has been used much better, but in any
case, the literary texts are the core of the questions, and the answers must show
these texts are known and have been read.

Mistakes in the names of theoretical authors and/or ascribing theories to wrong

authors are mistakes that have been penalized. Particularly important if the
mistake shows a lack of knowledge rather than a “distraction”.

1. Read the following quote and explain these verses in relation to some contradictions found
in any of the two compulsory readings of Unit 2 concerning the presence of the “white man”
in the colonies:

Your new-caught sullen peoples,

Half devil and half child.
Take up the White Man's burden -
In patience to abide
To veil the threat of terror
And check the show of pride;

The question asks you to analyse either Heart of Darkness or A Passage to India
along the main themes shown in this quote.
 Students should identify the author, Rudyard Kipling, and the title of the poem ‘The
White Man´s Burden’. Once this is done, it suffices to say that these lines expressed a
point of view widely shared among British colonialists at the end of the 19th and early
20th centuries regarding the view that it was beneficial for the colonies to be brought
British customs and culture and the sacrifices that this duty brought about to the
colonisers.
It should be pointed out how, at first, and on the surface, Heart of Darkness seems to
coincide with the view of Africans as devil and infantile beings and, indeed, the
narrative shows the hardships of white men in a hostile, to them, environment.
However, students have to pinpoint how the narrative shows these sacrifices are not
altruistic and explain the “burden” as the white man’s mission to extract wealth
(“Ivory”). It is also important to discuss how the perception of evilness in Africans
serves as an excuse to impose a regime of terror among the colonized.
Images of enslavement, humiliation, constant beating and unjust punishments are
shown to contrast the image of saviours and altruistic providers held in Europe and
shown in the poem.
It must be explained how “the burden”, in the text, is the preoccupation about how to
become more efficient in extracting the wealth and obtaining better benefits.

The key character to be discussed here is Kurtz (abandons human ideals to become a
destructive god like figure, etc.). It must be mentioned how Marlow, confronted with the
actual experience in the colonies, “The horror”, decides to perpetuate the lie in his
writing to Kurtz’s fiancé.
In A Passage to India, the contradictions are shown in many ways. For instance, Adela
Quested wants to see India but is not interested in learning anything about Indians.
Fielding makes it impossible for Aziz to accept his friendship, for it is not one among
equals. British appear as just rulers and yet the trials show their unfair justice by
assuming white superiority. Mrs. Moore’s pivotal viewpoint is a good aid to vertebrate
this argument.
The key character here is Ronny Heaslop. Changed when arrived in India, as Mrs
Moore and Adela notice. He is shown as a character colonized by the idea of the
colony abandoning his individuality in pursuit of the colonialist views of those whites
who are surrounding him in India. He is the victim of the colonial system and yet he is
the epitome of the white man’s burden.

Again, answers may vary but the argument must address the contradictions found in
the ideal when confronted with the reality of colonization in the novels.
2. Consider the poem ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ at large and write an essay analysing Wilfred
Owen’s poetical devices to portray IN THE POEM the felt reality of war experience.

The question asks you to point out Wilfred Owen’s poetical devices in a particular poem,
‘Dulce et Decorum Est’. In this sense, the following items should be addressed:

➢ Poetical voice’s commitment: to tell the truth about “the pity of War”.

➢ Anti-establishment poem.
➢ Tittle. Latin tag (instead of English). The allusion to Horace. The glorious image of war
versus the horrifying reality

➢ New subject matter (gas attack).

➢ Similes (“bent double, like old beggars under sacks”, “flound’ring like a man in fire”)

➢ Metaphorical language (drunk with fatigue”)

➢ Ambiguity (“distant rest”)

➢ Sounds: Use of hard consonants: "b" ("bent," "double," and "beggars"), "c" ("coughing"
"cursed"), "k" ("sacks", "backs").

➢ Use of different pronouns: we, I, you.

➢ Use of direct speech. Short sentences and monosyllables to convey surprise (“Gas!
Gas! Quick, boys!)

➢ Dash creating a pause.

➢ Paradox: “ecstasy”

➢ Transferred epithet (“clumsy helmets”).

➢ The third stanza is shorter to convey the desolation and lack of words.

➢ “My”: Owen as a victim. Trauma, Shell-shock.

➢ Verbs in gerund (guttering, choking, drowning) evoke the sounds of the dying man
and the length of the suffering

➢ Contrastive and powerful images aimed at creating a strong emotional impact.

➢ The allusion to Jessie Pope (patriotism).

If your mark is low, this is probably because:

• You summarised the content of the poem.

• Lack of supporting examples.
• Your answer contains mistakes that show that you do not know the poem well
enough.
• Organization and development. Your answer is poorly structured; it lacks
cohesion or coherence. There is no introduction.
3. Read the following quote and write an essay describing and discussing the building up of
Walter Morel as a character bearing in mind D. H. Lawrence narrative technique and paying
attention to his presence in the novel at large rather than a unique moment of his life in the
novel:

Afterwards, she said she had been silly, that the boy’s hair would have had to be
cut, sooner or later. In the end, she even brought herself to say to her husband, it was just
as well he had played barber when he did. But she knew, and Morel knew, that that act
had caused something momentous to take place in her soul. She remembered the scene
all her life, as one in which she had suffered the most intensely.

The question asks about Walter Morel as a character and therefore, although other
characters related may be mentioned, the answer must focus on Mr. Morel. In this sense,
it should be notice that the narrative represents his fading as a family figure by making
him a less important character as we move on into the story, this does not mean that he
disappears, he is an absent character as present as an absent father or husband may be.

Having said this, the following points should be addressed in the answers, all of
them closely related to the literary texts (examples may vary, but the text must be used as
a reference for the argument):

➢ Evolution of the character of Walter Morel through the novel.

➢ Turning point in chapter I (scene from the fragment).

➢ Antagonistic figures (Gertrude and Walter [from Walter’s perspective]): background

(working-class/middle class), education (uneducated miner).

➢ Speaks local dialect (versus his wife's refined English).

➢ Alcoholism, lies, violence.

➢ Self-destruction. His own worst enemy.

➢ Contrast city (industrialization) and nature (Walter). Coal miner.

➢ Walter represents the senses (versus Gertrude’s ideas).

➢ Primitive man. Animal dimension. Physicality. Brutalized. Broken by the industrial system.

➢ An outcast. He chooses real life.

➢ Frustration and disappointment. Alienated from his family.

➢ Failure to be a good husband, father and breadwinner.

We are very happy to be able to say that most exams are good enough and we do
congratulate and thank you all for the work and effort put in the study of the course.