UNIVERSITY OF LONDON

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1 UNIVERSITY OF LONDON 033 E010 BA/Diploma EXAMINATION for External students ENGLISH Foundation Unit: Approaches to Text Thursday 5 May 2011: 10am-1pm THREE HOURS Answer THREE questions: QUESTION 1 from Section A and TWO further questions from Section B (all three questions carry equal marks). YOU SHOULD READ INSTRUCTIONS FOR SECTION B BEFORE COMMENCING YOUR ANSWER TO SECTION A. Do NOT present substantially the same material in any two answers, whether on this paper or on any other parts of your examination. SECTION A 1. EITHER comment on ONE, OR compare and contrast TWO, of the following examples using terms and concepts you have encountered in studying for this course. You should pay attention to issues of form as well as content. Example A At last I could row no further. My hands were blistered, my back was burned, my body ached. With a sigh, making barely a splash, I slipped overboard. With slow strokes, my long hair floating about me, like a flower of the sea, like an anemone, like a jellyfish of the kind you see in the waters of Brazil, I swam towards the strange island, for a while swimming as I had rowed, against the current, then all at once free of its grip, carried by the waves into the bay and on the beach. There I lay sprawled on the hot sand, my head filled with the orange blaze of the sun, my petticoat (which was all I had escaped with) baking dry upon me, tired, grateful, like all the saved. A dark shadow fell upon me, not of a cloud but of a man with a dazzling halo about him. Castaway, I said with my thick dry tongue. I am cast away. I am all alone. And I held out my sore hands. The man squatted down beside me. He was black: a Negro with a head of fuzzy wool, naked save for a pair of rough drawers. I lifted myself and studied the flat face, the small dull eyes, the broad nose, the thick lips, the skin not black but a dark grey, dry as if coated with dust. Agua, I said, trying Portuguese, and made a sign of drinking. He gave no reply, but regarded me as he would a seal or porpoise thrown up by the waves, that would shortly expire and might then be cut up for food. At his side he had a spear. I have come to the wrong island, I thought, and let my head sink: I have come to an island Page 1 of 8

2 of cannibals. He reached out and with the back of his hand touched my arm. He is trying my flesh, I thought. But by and by my breathing slowed and I grew calmer. He smelled of fish, and of sheepswool on a hot day. Then, since we could not stay thus forever, I sat up and again began to make motions of drinking. I had rowed all morning, I had not drunk since the night before, I no longer cared if he killed me afterwards so long as I had water. The Negro rose and signed me to follow. He led me, stiff and sore, across sanddunes and along a path ascending to the hilly interior of the island. By we had scarcely begun to climb when I felt a sharp hurt, and drew from my heel a long black-tipped thorn. Though I chafed it, the heel quickly swelled till I could not so much as hobble for the pain. The Negro offered me his back, indicating he would carry me. I hesitated to accept, for he was a slight fellow, shorter than I. But there was no help for it. So part-way skipping on one leg, part-way riding on his back, with my petticoat gathered up and my chin brushing his springy hair, I ascended the hillside, my fear of him abating in this strange backwards embrace. He took no heed where he set his feet, I noted, but crushed under his soles whole clusters of the thorns that had pierced my skin. (J.M. COETZEE, from Foe, 1986) Example B I was surprised to see a white man walk into Joppy s bar. It s not just that he was white but he wore an off-white linen suit and shirt with a Panama straw hat and bone shoes over flashing white silk socks. His skin was smooth and pale with just a few freckles. One lick of strawberry-blond hair escaped the band of his hat. He stopped in the doorway, filling it with his large frame, and surveyed the room with pale eyes; not a color I d ever seen in a white man s eyes. When he looked at me I felt a thrill of fear, but that went away quickly because I was used to white people by I had spent five years with white men, and women, from Africa to Italy, through Paris and into the Fatherland itself. I ate with them and slept with them, and I killed enough blueeyed young men to know that they were just as afraid to die as I was. The white man smiled at me, then he walked to the bar where Joppy was running a filthy rag over the marble top. They shook hands and exchanged greetings like old friends. The second thing that surprised me was that he made Joppy nervous. Joppy was a tough ex-heavyweight who was comfortable brawling in the ring or in the street, but he ducked his head and smiled at that white man just like a salesman whose luck had gone bad. I put a dollar down on the bar and made to leave, but before I was off the stool Joppy turned my way and waved me toward them. Com on over here, Easy. This here s somebody I want ya t meet. I could feel those pale eyes on me. This here s a ole friend a mines, Easy. Mr Albright. You can call me DeWitt, Easy, the white man said. His grip was strong but slithery, like a snake coiling around my hand. Hello, I said. Yeah, Easy, Joppy went on, bowing and grinning. Mr Albright and me go way back. You know he prob ly my oldest friend from L.A. Yeah, we go ways back. That s right, Albright smiled. It must ve been 1935 when I met Jop. What is it Page 2 of 8

3 30 now? Must be thirteen years. That was back before the war, before every farmer, and his brother s wife, wanted to come to L.A. Joppy guffawed at the joke; I smiled politely. I was wondering what kind of business Joppy had with that man and, along with that, I wondered what kind of business that man could have with me. (WALTER MOSLEY, from Devil in a Blue Dress, 1990) Example C Church Going Once I am sure there s nothing going on I step inside, letting the door thud shut. Another church: matting, seats, and stone, And little books; sprawlings of flowers, cut For Sunday, brownish now; some brass and stuff Up at the holy end; the small neat organ; And a tense, musty, unignorable silence, Brewed God knows how long. Hatless, I take off My cycle-clips in awkward reverence. Move forward, run my hand around the font. From where I stand, the roof looks almost new - Cleaned, or restored? Someone would know: I don t. Mounting the lectern, I peruse a few Hectoring large-scale verses, and pronounce Here endeth much more loudly than I d meant. The echoes snigger briefly. Back at the door I sign the book, donate an Irish sixpence, Reflect the place was not worth stopping for. Yet stop I did: in fact I often do, And always end much at a loss like this, Wondering what to look for; wondering, too, When churches will fall completely out of use What we shall turn them into, if we shall keep A few cathedrals chronically on show, Their parchment, plate and pyx in locked cases, And let the rest rent-free to rain and sheep. Shall we avoid them as unlucky places? Or, after dark, will dubious women come To make their children touch a particular stone; Pick simples for a cancer; or on some Advised night see walking a dead one? Power of some sort will go on Page 3 of 8

4 In games, in riddles, seemingly at random; But superstition, like belief, must die, And what remains when disbelief has gone? Grass, weedy pavement, brambles, buttress, sky, A shape less recognisable each week, A purpose more obscure. I wonder who Will be the last, the very last, to seek This place for what it was; one of the crew That tap and jot and know what rood-lofts were? Some ruin-bibber, randy for antique, Or Christmas-addict, counting on a whiff Of gown-and-bands and organ-pipes and myrrh? Or will he be my representative, Bored, uninformed, knowing the ghostly silt Dispersed, yet tending to this cross of ground Through suburb scrub because it held unspilt So long and equably what since is found Only in separation - marriage, and birth, And death, and thoughts of these for which was built This special shell? For, though I ve no idea What this accoutred frowsty barn is worth, It pleases me to stand in silence here; A serious house on serious earth it is, In whose blent air all our compulsions meet, Are recognized, and robed as destinies. And that much never can be obsolete, Since someone will forever be surprising A hunger in himself to be more serious, And gravitating with it to this ground, Which, he once heard, was proper to grow wise in, If only that so many dead lie round. (PHILIP LARKIN, 1955) 5 Example D The Snow Party Basho, coming To the city of Nagoya, Is asked to a snow party. There is a tinkling of china And tea into china; Page 4 of 8

5 There are introductions. Then everyone Crowds to the window To watch the falling snow Snow is falling on Nagoya And farther south On the tiles of Kyoto; Eastward, beyond Irago, It is falling Like leaves on the cold sea. Elsewhere they are burning Witches and heretics In the boiling squares, 20 Thousands have died since dawn In the service Of barbarous kings; But there is silence In the houses of Nagoya And the hills of Ise. (DEREK MAHON, 1975) QUESTION CONTINUES ON NEXT PAGE UL11/0448 Page 5 of 8

6 Example E: Frances Flora Palmer, Across the Continent: Westward the Course of Empire Makes its Way (1868) QUESTION CONTINUES ON NEXT PAGE UL11/0448 Page 6 of 8

7 Example F: George Morland, The Slave Trade (1791) SECTION B IS ON NEXT PAGE UL11/0448 Page 7 of 8

8 SECTION B You must answer TWO questions from this section. You may use any of the examples from Section A to illustrate your answer, provided you do not use the same examples in your answer to the questions in Section A. 2. To what extent is the concept of ideology important for the study of literature? Your answer should be illustrated by reference to relevant theories and at least two texts. 3. With reference to the work of at least two poets, discuss the role and function of poetry. 4. Woman must write her self: must write about women and bring women to writing, from which they have been driven away as violently as from their bodies (HELENE CIXOUS). With reference to at least two texts, how does the concept of women s writing help us to understand the literary and cultural role of texts in theories concerning gendered identities? 5. Words point to things even invisible things, like God or toothache or epistemology (VALENTINE CUNNINGHAM). With reference to at least two examples, to what extent does literature question or validate the ability of language to represent the world? 6. What does Freud s concept of the uncanny offer to the analysis of literature? Your answer should refer to at least two texts. 7. The West constructed the Orient as a projection of everything it believed it was not, and in the process was able to constitute itself as the opposite: so if the Orient was, for example, irrational, lazy, and barbaric, the West was by implication the rational, hardworking, civilizing force that was needed to tame the Orient through colonization (WILLIAM STEPHENSON). Discuss with reference to at least two texts. 8. With reference to at least two examples, discuss the ways in which the classification of a text within a particular genre helps or hinders our appreciation or understanding of that text. 9. Because performances take place at a particular time and for particular audiences, they have to meet the challenge of being in some way relevant to those audiences (MARTIN MONTGOMERY). In the light of this quotation, discuss the ways in which a play s performance influences its meaning. UL11/0448 END OF PAPER Page 8 of 8