GRADE 11 Victoria Girls’ High School NOVEMBER 2023

TIME: 2½ HOURS English Home Language MARKS: 80

PAPER 2: LITERATURE

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INSTRUCTIONS AND INFORMATION:
1. Start each section on a NEW page (i.e. side).
2. Leave a line after each answer of a contextual question.
3. Rule off after each section.
4. Draw a 2cm margin on the right-hand side of each answer page.
5. Write neatly and legibly.
6. Number the answers correctly according to the numbering system used in this
question paper.
7. Pay attention to spelling, sentence construction and language.

CHOICE OF ANSWERS
1.This question paper consists of TWO sections:
SECTION A: POETRY (prescribed/seen poems and an unseen poem)
SECTION B: Novel: Tsotsi

2. Carefully follow the instructions for each question.

3. In SECTION A you must answer TWO out of FOUR questions set on the prescribed
poems, and Question 5 on the unseen poem.
In SECTION B you must answer the contextual questions AND an essay question.

4. LENGTH OF ANSWERS:
4.1 Poetry essay: Your answer should be about 200 – 250 words
(approximately one page).

4.2 Tsotsi essay question: Your answer should be about 350 – 400 words
(approximately 1½ pages).

4.2 Contextual question: Aim for strict relevance and conciseness, but note
that marks are allocated to questions in terms of their complexity. The answer
to a 4-mark question should therefore be longer than the answer to a 2-mark
question.

5. You are reminded to express your views/opinions with substantiation from the
text.
SECTION A: POETRY
PRESCRIBED POETRY

Answer TWO of the following questions

QUESTION 1: POETRY ESSAY
WE WEAR THE MASK – PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR

We wear the mask that grins and lies,

It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes –
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties. 5

Why should the world be over-wise,

In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
We wear the mask.

We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries 10

To thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh the clay is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
But let the world dream otherwise,
We wear the mask! 15

How does Dunbar compare surviving the pain of oppression to wearing a mask? Refer to
diction and specific figurative language in your answer.
Your response should take the form of a well-constructed essay of 200–250 words (About
one page). (10)

AND/OR
QUESTION 2: POETRY – CONTEXTUAL QUESTION

FUNERAL BLUES – W.H. Auden

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,

Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
 Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead 5
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crépe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,

My working week and my Sunday rest, 10
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood; 15
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

2.1) Refer to stanza 1. Identify one of the sounds and discuss why the speaker wants that
specific sound to be stopped. (2)

2.2) Consider ‘Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead’ (line 5). Why is the word
‘moaning’ appropriate given the context of the poem? (2)

2.3) What is the effect of the use of the possessive adjectives and the pronouns in the
third stanza? (2)

2.4) Do you agree that this poem is both about the depth of love and severity of loss?
Refer to specific examples in your answer. (4)
(10)
AND/OR
QUESTION 3
HOUSING TARGETS – KELWYN SOLE

Somewhere in our past

we believed in the future

that a better world

would discover foundation
under our feet, and we 5
would be forever singing,
in its kitchen.

Bricks pile up in a field.

Whether they will be enough
no one knows. How 10
they fit together
is anyone’s guess.

Men with darkening skins

scribbled on by weather
wait for their instructions. 15

From time to time

limousines miraculously appear:
there is always a somebody
in a suit willing to smile
and shake their hands 20

who lays the first stone.

Then the camera lights

and racing engines
turn around, shrink back
from where they came. 25

Those left behind

stare at their own hands
afterwards, puzzled
at precisely what
has been transacted, why 30
they are still being offered
bonds

squint
between gnarled fingers
pace out the hopeful distances: 35
– there will be a flower bowl
– my bed is going here.

As for now the doorknobs

have no doors.

Their windows peer out 40

at no sky.
3.1) What does the word ‘foundation’ (line 4) mean literally and figure literally and how
does it reveal the speaker’s hopes? (3)

3.2) Comment on the use of pronouns in stanza 3. (2)

3.3) Refer to paragraph 4. Who are the men who are waiting and why do they look like
that? (2)

3.4) How do the last four lines add to the tone of futility of the poem? Quote to support
your answer. (Glossary: futile = hopelessness, no sense of purpose) (3)
(10)
AND/OR
QUESTION 4
THE WOMAN – KRISTINA RUNGANO

A minute ago I came from the well

Where young women drew water like myself
My body was weary and my heart tired.
For a moment I watched the stream that rushed before me;
And thought how fresh the smell of flowers, 5
How young the grass around it.
And yet again I heard the sound of duty
Which ground on me – made me feel aged
As I bore the great big mud container on my head
Like a big painful umbrella. 10
Then I got home and cooked your meal
For you had been out drinking the pleasures of the flesh
While I toiled in the fields.
Under the angry vigilance of the sun
A labour shared only by the bearings of my womb. 15
I washed the dishes – yours –
And swept the room we shared
 Before I set forth to prepare your bedding
In the finest corner of the hut
Which was bathed by the sweet smell of dung 20
I had this morning applied to the floors
Then you came in,
In your drunken lust
And you made your demands
When I explained how I was tired 25
And how I feared for the child – yours – I carried
You beat me and had your way
At that moment
You left me unhappy and bitter
And I hated you; 30
Yet tomorrow I shall again wake up to you
Milk the cow, plough the land and cook your food,
You shall again be my Lord
For isn’t it right that woman should obey,
Love, serve and honour her man? 35
For are you not the fruit of the land?

4.1) What is the significance of the speaker’s inclusion of the woman’s surroundings in
lines 4–6? (2)

4.2) Account for the tautology of ‘great big’ (lines 9 and 10). (3)
4.3) To what extent is this poem a commentary on the traditional roles of women in rural
Africa? Consider the poem as a whole and refer to diction in support of your
answer. (3)

4.4) Look at the last four lines of the poem. How do they compare to the tone in the rest
of the poem? (2)
AND
QUESTION 5: UNSEEN POEM – COMPULSORY
 Career Woman - CHARLES MUNGOSHI

Thirty-five and very plain

she is learning to settle down
to her underpaid job as clerk-typist
in some obscure firm of lawyers in the city.

Slowly, she is learning to 5

wrap her dreams like a hot-water bottle
round her few belongings in her little room
that demands over half her wages in Southerton.

Thirty-five and childless

she is painfully coming to terms with reality 10
quietly sinking down into the centre
of her age’s demands and limitations.

Like some aquatic thing

in the middle of a puddle
at the beginning of a very long 15
dry season.

5.1.1) In your own words describe the woman's economic status. (1)
5.1.2) Provide two short quotes to support your answer in 5.1.1. (2)
5.2) Give a synonym for “obscure” (line 4). (1)
5.3) What is the effect of the speaker saying ‘she is learning to wrap her dreams like a
hot-water bottle round her few belongings’ (lines 5-7) (2)

5.4) How does ‘Thirty five and childless’ (line 9) relate to the title of the poem? (2)
5.5) Consider stanza 3. How does the poet convey the woman’s attitude towards her
situation. Answer in your own words. (2)
(10)

AND
SECTION B: NOVEL
QUESTION 6: TSOTSI BY ATHOL FUGARD

General Questions
6.1) What is Boston’s full name? (1)
6.2) What time does Isaiah ring the church bell? (1)
6.3) What is the name of the shebeen Tsotsi and his gang visit? (1)

Read the following extracts from Tsotsi and answer the questions that follow.
Extract A
When Tsotsi said ‘city’ he meant the open space formed by the junction of two streets
near the gasworks. It was known officially as Terminal Place, but people referred to it
variously as the ‘shopping centre’, because anything and everything could be bought in
the small, dimly-lit shops that were crowded along the sides, and from the hawkers’
carts parked in the gutter, or ‘the backyard’, because of its relationship to the rest of the 5
city, which was the white man’s world. One wit had even referred to it as ‘the
quidwrangle’. The sophisticated spoke simply of ‘the beginning’ or ‘the end’, depending
on which way they were travelling, because it was here that the buses with their bone-
rattled multitudes came together and parted on their endless traffic between the city
and the townships. 10

A few blocks away, if you walked with your back to the massive cooling towers of the
gasworks, was the ‘real’ city, the illuminated, glittering arcades of the white man’s
world. It might just as well have been on the other side of the earth.
. (Chapter 6)

6.4) Place the extract in context (3)

6.5) Refer to lines 1 and 12. Account for the diction used to describe the contrast
between Terminal Place and the ‘real’ city. (2)

6.6) Refer to line 9. Provide a synonym for the word ‘multitudes’. (1)

6.7) Refer to the last line of the extract. Identify the tone and explain why this is an
accurate conclusion to the extract. (2)

Extract B
“So Simon is dead, but I got my baby and there’s little David too. It’s hard times but I’m
doing washing and my brother gives me something each week and I manage.” Miriam
stood at the door, looking out into the yard. “I mean we gotta live. Little David – he’s got
to live. Anyway, Simon must and me too. Even you. We just got to live. Isn’t that so?
That’s what it is. That’s all it is. Tomorrow comes and you got to live. 5
 Tomorrow comes, Tsotsi thought, and a little boy has got no father and his mother never
came back and anyway he didn’t remember, but tomorrow taught him that he had to
live. She was right.
(Chapter 10) 9

6.8) Discuss the similarities that Simon and baby David have. (2)

6.9) Refer to line 7. Explain the significance of the word ‘tomorrow’ in context to this
extract and the novel. (2)

6.10) Discuss David’s role in Tsotsi’s transformation. Refer to this extract and other parts of
the novel. (3)

Extract C
‘Where is God?’ 1
‘Everywhere. Mostly inside there.’
‘What does he want?’
The old man thought about this for a time. ‘For people to be good. You know. To stop
stealing, and killing and robbing.’ 5
‘Why’s he want that?’
‘Because it’s a sin.’
‘What’s a sin?’
‘Robbing, stealing and killing.’
‘What happens if you do that?’ 10
‘Que! Lord Jesus Christ will punish you. You done those things?’
‘What do you mean punish?’
‘Give you hell.’
‘Kill you.’
‘Maybe.’ 15
The young man went away after that. But he came back a few minutes later.
(Chapter 12)
6.11) What is the name of the church they are referring to in this extract (1)
6.12) Who are the characters depicted above? (1)
6.13) Refer to lines 9-10. Why is it ironic? (2)
6.14) Discuss Tsotsi’s need for redemption through religion. (3)

CONTEXTUAL QUESTION:25
AND
QUESTION 7: LITERATURE ESSAY
Choose and complete ONE essay.
QUESTION 7.1
“Life is a matter of choices, and every choice you make, makes you” – John C Maxwell

In a carefully planned essay of 350–400 words (1½–2 pages) in length, discuss to what
extent the above statement is reflected in Tsotsi and how choices determine the outcome
of life to at least four characters. [25]

OR

QUESTION 7.2

"Fear is the path to the Dark Side. Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to
suffering. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that
fear." –Yoda

In a carefully planned essay of 350–400 words (1½–2 pages) in length, discuss how various
characters are driven by fear in different aspects of their lives. [25]

SECTION A: 30 MARKS
SECTION B: 50 MARKS
TOTAL FOR PAPER – 80 MARKS