A-LEVEL CLASSICAL CIVILISATION CIV3C Greek Tragedy Report on the Examination 2020 June 2016 Version: 1.0
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CIV3C Greek Tragedy General Comments As usual, this was by far the most popular of the four CIV3 units. The standard of the best work was high, and there were a few scripts of outstanding quality. Some students had well-developed analytical and critical skills which they demonstrated in their answers to the 10- and 20-mark questions. There was some evidence of sophisticated judgement, sensitivity and perception, particularly in responses to the synoptic questions, and of some excellent and committed teaching. Some centres had continued to empower their students to use the appropriate technical language correctly, though, as before, weaker responses tended to scatter the terminology liberally in uncertainty of its meaning: peripeteia was one of the most popular victims of this trend. Some students were clearly not in a position to deploy either classical concepts or terminology. There is still a noticeable tendency to provide narrative rather than analytical answers, or to use everything they remember about a particular topic, whether appropriate to the question or not. More generally, there is still a failure to support statements with references to the play, and a strong tendency to respond to the 40-mark questions with a descriptive play-by-play treatment rather than a thematic one. Weaker scripts paid less attention to the 20-mark question than they might, and so failed to demonstrate the knowledge of the individual play which would have gained them marks. There were widespread examples of poor writing and avoidable spelling mistakes. Section 1 Option A This was substantially the more popular of the two structured questions. A number of answers to Question 01 failed to identify the speech as Creon s rant to Haemon and the Chorus after Antigone and Ismene have been despatched into the palace to await the carrying out of Creon s sentence. These tended to give more of the earlier story. Good answers to Question 02 were able to think about Creon s commitment to the rule of law and political efficiency; this speech is very much concerned with Creon s interest in the hierarchical government structure, the household and the family, and the army as a parallel, all of which work by the maintenance of discipline. Credit was given for the recognition that the issues of government, and foreign policy, democratic or not, and of individual liberty that this raises would have been important ones for an Athenian audience of the day to hear raised and debated. There would certainly have been some sympathetic listeners. Emphasis on the gender issue was frequent, and given credit as appropriate. Answers to Question 03 varied between agreement and alternative suggestions, the most convincing of which was probably the encounter with Teiresias, which received some perceptive comments. Many answers, however, recognised that Antigone has just achieved a major act of subversion in demonstrating commitment to her brother, to religious values, even at extreme personal cost, and that she is openly and aggressively against the regime Creon represents, and against his secularisation of power. Her treatment of Ismene, Haemon and Creon reveals her as committed to maintaining independence from those who are not with her; in herself she is destructive of Creon s whole conceptual framework. Haemon s gradual shift, in the face of Creon s intransigence to a commitment to Antigone s cause as well as to her personally and the threat of his own suicide, reinforces Creon s own maintenance of his position, and the rest of the ensuing tragic structure follows. Weaker answers tended to the generic, without much use of the passage. 3 of 5
Option B Those students who preferred this option largely responded well. Most answers to Question 04 were able to situate the extract well as the consequence of the opening speech by Aphrodite announcing her intention of intervening in Theseus family; Hippolytus makes it clear that he is her opponent; Phaedra is supported onstage, sick, by the Nurse, and given a seat by the attendants, and in the ensuing dialogue it becomes clear that her prevailing emotion is aidos, leading to her veiling, and a discussion between the nurse and the Chorus of the apparent situation. Phaedra eventually reveals the cause of her spiritual anguish, to which the Nurse reacts by advising a practical and physical solution. Many answers to Question 05 were able to centre on marital chastity, as a mainstay of the orthodox oikos and its succession system, to which Phaedra and Hippolytus are both to some extent anomalous. Allied to this is the concept of family honour and reputation, and its place in the honour of their city no doubt a current issue when the Hippolytus was first put on. The Nurse, whose slave status gives her a different perspective, ignores these issues, and goes for what she views as a realistic solution to the problem in front of her, deliberately misunderstanding Phaedra s scruples. Answers to question 06 largely treated it, rightly, as a cue for discussion of notions of honour, family values, father-son relationships, husband-wife relationships, stepmothers, responsibility versus personal desires, and the nurse as a member of a socially excluded class with a different notion of most of these issues. The stronger answers were able to develop links between this scene and the rest of the play; weaker answers either went for a negative answer strategy, or noted themes without development or use of other parts of the play as supporting evidence. Section 2 Option C This was the more popular 40-mark question, but many students simply offered play-by-play readings. Some argued within individual plays, some rejected forgiveness completely in some of them. Thus, whilst it was a popular choice, students were not always prepared to offer analytical responses to this question. Some very good answers took thematic approaches that looked at how forgiveness related to other themes such as revenge and even what could be inferred about forgiveness from its absence. Students who at least started to develop links were rewarded. A few students started with the idea of drawing a line under an issue of guilt, and moving on, and used all four plays to consider whether this is a factor in the resolution of any of them. Rather more students thought in terms of forgiveness, or a lack of it, as a factor which could have altered the plot or its outcomes for individual characters: Hippolytus was an obvious starting point, using both the Phaedra story, and at least some or all of the Artemis, Theseus, Hippolytus scenario, and especially Artemis speech to Theseus before the revelation of Hippolytus accident. Some better answers were able to extend this to discussion of Antigone, Creon and Haemon in Antigone and the chain of events which leads to Creon s failure to rescue his family. Equally, some answers thought about Oedipus, Jocasta and Creon in King Oedipus again, Jocasta s suicide, and both Oedipus own form of penitence and Creon s actions to force a resolution figured. Probably inevitably, Medea often produced a discussion which weighed up revenge as against pardon / penitence / admission of guilt by any of the figures involved, but especially Medea. Good answers had a sense of the way in which these factors play a part in the characterisation of the major players, as well as the plot, and had something to say about the classical ethical framework in which they fit. 4 of 5
Option D This was the less popular synoptic question, but encouraged stronger answers with awareness of the need for a thematic approach. Most connected plays through concepts such as dramatic irony and political motifs. There were also some good answers that understood how myths had been changed and / or engineered to shock and engage the audience. Some students were less well prepared for this and asserted that elements of the plots would be taken for granted by Athenians where this might not be the case, for instance Medea s murder of her children. There were some weaker play-by-play responses but these were less common for this question. Stronger responses demonstrated that students recognised that the question encouraged discussion of familiar legends and dramatic irony as devices for including the audience in the working out of the plot; Oedipus the King provided a lot of the fuel we know much more than he does, and almost everything he says is double edged. In the Hippolytus our pity is perhaps moved by what we know will happen to him, if not so much by the minutiae of what he says. Our knowledge of his fate will affect the view we take of Theseus treatment of him, and also probably our reception of Phaedra. Antigone is perhaps the least ironic of all the plays, though there is a reversal of fortune which will contribute to our appreciation of the twists of the plot; the view we take of Creon will be fuelled by our knowledge of the outcome of his adherence to principles which are not wrong by one set of standards, and which he views as universal and impersonal rules of good government but which will lead to disaster of a particularly personal and domestic kind in the loss of his wife and son. Good answers were able to use all four plays to illustrate a sense of dramatic irony as a convention and as a tool for managing audience reaction. Credit was given for recognition that both playwrights used variable myths or innovated (including the fate of Haemon, the two versions of Hippolytus, and Euripides probable introduction of infanticide in Medea ) thus using material which may not have been familiar to the audience. Mark Ranges and Award of Grades Grade boundaries and cumulative percentage grades are available on the Results Statistics page of the AQA Website. Converting Marks into UMS marks Convert raw marks into Uniform Mark Scale (UMS) marks by using the link below. UMS conversion calculator 5 of 5