OCR A Level English Literature Comparative and contextual study June 2023 question paper H472/02

Write a critical appreciation of this passage, relating your discussion to your reading of American

Literature 1880–1940.

This novel is set in New York City in the 1910s. In the extract, Roger Gale is accompanying his
daughter Deborah, a school principal, to visit her school, which is largely attended by immigrant
children.
Out of the subway they emerged into a noisy tenement¹ street. Roger had
known such streets as this, but only in the night-time, as picturesque and
adventurous ways in an underground world he had explored in search of
strange old glittering rings². It was different now. Gone were the Rembrandt³
shadows, the leaping flare of torches, the dark surging masses of weird
uncouth humanity. Here in garish daylight were poverty and ugliness, here
were heaps of refuse and heavy smells and clamor. It disgusted and repelled
him, and he was tempted to turn back. But glancing at Deborah by his side he
thought of the night she had been through. No, he decided, he would go on
and see what she was up to here.

They turned into a narrower street between tall dirty tenements, and in a
twinkling all was changed. For the street, as far as he could see, was gay with
flaunting colors, torrents of bobbing hats and ribbons, frocks and blouses,
shirts and breeches, vivid reds and yellows and blues. It was deafening with
joyous cries, a shrill incessant chatter, chatter, piercing yells and shrieks of
laughter. Children, swarms of children, children of all sizes passed him, clean
and dirty, smiling, scowling, hurrying, running, pummeling, grabbing, whirling
each other round and round—till the very air seemed quivering with wild spirits
and new life!

He heard Deborah laughing. Five hilarious small boys had hold of her hands
and were marching in triumph waving their caps. “Heigh there—heigh there!
Heigh—heigh—heigh!”

The school was close in front of them. An enormous building of brick and tile
wedged into a disordered mass of tenements, shops and factories, it had
been built around a court shut out from the street by a high steel fence. They
squeezed into the gateway, through which a shouting punching mob of urchins
were now pushing in; and soon from a balcony above Roger looked down into
the court, where out of a wild chaos order was appearing. Boys to the right
and girls to the left were forming in long sinuous lines, and three thousand
faces were turned toward the building. In front appeared the Stars and Stripes.
Then suddenly he heard a crash from underneath the balcony, and looking
down he saw a band made up of some thirty or forty boys. Their leader, a dark
Italian lad, made a flourish, a pass with his baton, and the band broke into a
blaring storm, an uproarious, booming march. The mob below fell into step,
and line after line in single file the children marched into their school.

“Look up! Look all around you!” He heard Deborah’s eager voice in his ear. And as he looked up from the court below he gave a low cry of amazement. In hundreds of windows all around, of sweatshops, tenements, factories, on tier

upon tier of fire escapes and even upon the roofs above, silent watchers had
appeared. For this one moment in the day the whole congested neighborhood
had stopped its feverish labor and become an amphitheater with all eyes upon
the school. And the thought flashed into Roger’s mind: “Deborah’s big family!”

Ernest Poole, His Family (1917)

₁   : a building containing many apartments, here overcrowded and run-down.
tenement
₂   : Roger is a collector of antique rings.
strange old glittering rings
₃   : Seventeenth-century Dutch artist famous for his treatment of light and shadow.
Rembrandt

In your answer to Question 2, you must compare at least two texts from the list. At least one text must be from the two texts at the top of the list in bold.

F Scott Fitzgerald: The Great Gatsby

‘The contrast between wealth and poverty is a powerful feature of much American literature.’

By comparing The Great Gatsby with at least one other text prescribed for this topic, discuss

how far you agree with this view.

John Steinbeck: The Grapes of Wrath

‘Toughness of character is often important in American literature.’

By comparing The Grapes of Wrath with at least one other text prescribed for this topic,

discuss how far you agree with this view.

‘A sense of justice is central to American writing.’

By comparing at least two texts prescribed for this topic, discuss how far you have found this to be the case.

In your answer you must include discussion of either The Great Gatsby and/or The Grapes

of Wrath.

The Gothic

Answer Question 3. Then answer Question 4(a) or 4(b) or 4(c).

You should spend about 1 hour and 15 minutes on each question.

3 Write a critical appreciation of this passage, relating your discussion to your reading of the

Gothic.

Theodora and Eleanor are young women who have joined a small psychic research group staying in a house which is believed to be haunted. In the extract, they are disturbed during the night.

Theodora’s grasp loosened, and tightened, and Eleanor, lulled for a minute by the sounds, started and looked across to where Theodora ought to be in the darkness, and then thought, screamingly, Why is it dark? Why is it dark? She rolled and clutched Theodora’s hand with both of hers, and tried to speak and could not, and held on, blindly, and frozen, trying to stand her mind on its feet, trying to reason again. We left the light on, she told herself, so why is it dark? Theodora, she tried to whisper, and her mouth could not move; Theodora, she tried to ask, why is it dark? and the voice went on, babbling, low and steady, a little liquid gloating sound. She thought she might be able to distinguish words if she lay perfectly still, if she lay perfectly still, and listened, and listened and heard the voice going on and on, never ceasing, and she hung desperately to Theodora’s hand and felt an answering weight on her own hand.

Then the little gurgling laugh came again, and the rising mad sound of it
drowned out the voice, and then suddenly absolute silence. Eleanor took a
breath, wondering if she could speak now, and then she heard a little soft
cry which broke her heart, a little infinitely sad cry, a little sweet moan of wild
sadness. It is a child, she thought with disbelief, a child is crying somewhere,
and then, upon that thought, came the wild shrieking voice she had never
heard before and yet knew she had heard always in her nightmares. “Go
away!” it screamed. “Go away, go away, don’t hurt me,” and, after, sobbing,
“Please don’t hurt me. Please let me go home,” and then the little sad crying
again.

I can’t stand it, Eleanor thought concretely. This is monstrous, this is cruel, they have been hurting a child and I won’t let anyone hurt a child, and the babbling went on, low and steady, on and on and on, the voice rising a little and falling a little, going on and on.

Now, Eleanor thought, perceiving that she was lying sideways on the bed in
the black darkness, holding with both hands to Theodora’s hand, holding so
tight she could feel the fine bones of Theodora’s fingers, now, I will not endure
this. They think to scare me. Well, they have. I am scared, but more than
that, I am a person, I am human, I am a walking reasoning humorous human
being and I will take a lot from this lunatic filthy house but I will not go along
with hurting a child, no, I will not; I will by God get my mouth to open right now
and I will yell I will I will yell “STOP IT,” she shouted, and the lights were on
the way they had left them and Theodora was sitting up in bed, startled and
disheveled.

“What?” Theodora was saying. “What, Nell? What?”

“Good God,” Eleanor said, flinging herself out of bed and across the room to stand shuddering in a corner, “Good God—whose hand was I holding?”

Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House (1959)

In your answer to Question 4, you must compare at least two texts from the list. At least one text must be from the two texts at the top of the list in bold.

*Candidates writing about The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories should select material from the whole text.

Either

Bram Stoker: Dracula

‘Gothic literature often places an ancient myth in a more recent setting.’

Consider how far you agree with this statement by comparing Dracula with at least one other

text prescribed for this topic.

Angela Carter: The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories *

‘Gothic texts are inclined to challenge traditional gender roles.’

By comparing The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories * with at least one other text

prescribed for this topic, discuss how far you agree with this view.

‘Gothic literature retains a sense of mystery at its heart.’

By comparing at least two texts prescribed for this topic, discuss how far you have found this to be the case.

In your answer you must include discussion of either Dracula and/or The Bloody Chamber

and Other Stories *.

In your answer to Question 6, you must compare at least two texts from the list. At least one text must be from the two texts at the top of the list in bold.

George Orwell: Nineteen Eighty-Four

‘People in authority in dystopian literature often inspire both love and fear.’

By comparing Nineteen Eighty-Four with at least one other text prescribed for this topic,

discuss how far you agree with this view.

Margaret Atwood: The Handmaid’s Tale

‘The human body is often portrayed as a battleground in dystopian fiction.’

By comparing The Handmaid’s Tale with at least one other text prescribed for this topic,

discuss how far you agree with this view.

‘Dystopian literature often features the failure and disappointment of romantic love.’

By comparing at least two texts prescribed for this topic, explore how far you agree with this view.

In your answer you must include discussion of either Nineteen Eighty-Four and/or The

Handmaid’s Tale.

Women in Literature

Answer Question 7. Then answer Question 8(a) or 8(b) or 8(c).

You should spend about 1 hour and 15 minutes on each question.

7 Write a critical appreciation of the passage, relating your discussion to your reading concerning

Women in Literature.

Julia Almond is a woman of 20 who has lost her sweetheart, Alfie, in World War One. In this extract she is preparing to wed Herbert, whose first wife has died, and who has been staying with Julia’s family at their home, Two Beresford Villas. Other characters mentioned include Julia’s mother (Mrs Almond), Julia’s cousin Elsa, and Herbert’s sister Bertha.

There were, of course, things to be talked over, and Julia found herself
as business-like as she was at the shop. She wouldn’t, she said quite frankly,
marry Herbert if Bertha were to live with them, neither would she—and here
Herbert was terribly shocked—share a bedroom with him. She didn’t tell him
it was a room to herself that was beckoning her, particularly that lovely room
in Saint Clement’s Square, with the tall windows, cut into large square panes,
and the window-boxes, and the view of the drooping trees and the broken
statue of Apollo striking his dumb lyre in the midst of them.
“You can come and see me when you want to,” said Julia firmly, “but I’m
a very light sleeper”—this was totally untrue—“and men snore, at least Dad
did, and I’m sure you do. After all, you slept in your present room all the last
months you were …” She stopped. She didn’t like to say: “All the last months
you were married to your wife.”
Herbert looked down at her, his expression a mingling of indulgence and
irritation. “Oh, well,” he said, “I suppose you’ll have to have it your own way.”
In spite of Mrs. Almond’s tearful objections, the marriage took place at the
Registrar’s, much to Julia’s relief after she had read the wedding service. The
things they wanted you to say …
She felt funny enough the morning of her marriage as it was. She awoke
in a state of panic, feeling that she couldn’t go through with it. She sat up
in bed and stared across her room at the saucy little face upon the pillow
opposite, a face purged now of its impertinence by unconsciousness, the
face of a child. Lucky Elsa, not having to be married this morning … And yet,
she supposed, lucky Julia, to be going to be married to what Dad had always
called a good solid man, who loved her, and was taking her away from this
dreadful Two Beresford; where Uncle George boomed, and Aunt Mildred
organised everyone almost out of existence, and Elsa was always altering her
performances and being a different sort of little girl, none of them real, and
Mum was tearful and sycophantish by turns.
And as to marriage itself … well, Julia had picked up fragments of
knowledge here and there, and had no reason to believe, taught as she
had been by her own and Alfie’s youth and ardour, that it would be anything
dreadful.

F Tennyson Jesse, A Pin to see the Peepshow (1934)

In your answer to Question 8, you must compare at least two texts from the list. At least one text must be from the two texts at the top of the list in bold.

Jane Austen: Sense and Sensibility

‘Female characters in literature often show strength in adversity.’

By comparing Sense and Sensibility with at least one other text prescribed for this topic,

discuss how far you have found this to be the case.

Virginia Woolf: Mrs Dalloway

‘The lives of female characters narrow as they grow older.’

By comparing Mrs Dalloway with at least one other text prescribed for this topic, discuss how

far you agree with this view.

‘Female characters in literature are acutely aware of the importance of money and status.’

By comparing at least two texts prescribed for this topic, explore how far you agree with this claim.

In your answer you must include discussion of either Sense and Sensibility and/or Mrs

Dalloway.

The Immigrant Experience

Answer Question 9. Then answer Question 10(a) or 10(b) or 10(c).

You should spend about 1 hour and 15 minutes on each question.

9 Write a critical appreciation of the passage, relating your discussion to your reading concerning

the Immigrant Experience.

The novel concerns Lev, a middle-aged immigrant from Eastern Europe. He is hoping to find work in the UK so that he can send money home to his family. In this extract, he wants to use the station toilets in London to clean up after his long journey.

He followed signs to the station toilets, then found himself barred from entering
them by a turnstile. He put down his bag and watched what other people did.
They put money into a slot and the turnstile moved, but the only money Lev
had was a wad of twenty-pound notes – each one calculated by Rudi to last
him a week, until he found work.
‘Please may you help me?’ said Lev to a smart, elderly man approaching
the stile. But the man put in his coin, pushed at the turnstile with his groin and
held his head high as he passed through, as though Lev hadn’t even come
within his sightline. Lev stared after him. Had he said the words incorrectly?
The man didn’t pause in his confident stride.
Lev waited. Rudi, he knew, would have vaulted over the barrier, without a
second’s pause, untroubled by what the consequences might be, but Lev felt
that vaulting was beyond him right now. His legs lacked Rudi’s inexhaustible
spring. Rudi made his own laws and they were different from his and this
would probably always be the case.
Standing there, Lev’s longing to be clean increased steadily as the
moments passed. He could feel stinging pains here and there on his skin, like
sores. Sweat broke on his skull and ran down the back of his neck. He felt
slightly sick. He took out a cigarette from an almost empty pack and lit it, and
the men coming and going from the washroom stared at him, and those stares
drew his attention at last to a No Smoking sign stuck onto the tiles a few feet
from where he stood. He drew in a last sweet breath from the cigarette and
ground it out under his feet and he saw then that his black shoes were stained
with mud and thought, This is the mud of my country, the mud of all Europe,
and I must find some rags and wipe it away …
After some time, a young man, wearing overalls, unshaven and carrying a
canvas bag of tools, approached the washroom turnstile and Lev decided that
this man – because he was young and because the overalls and the work-
bag marked him as a member of the once-honourable proletariat – might not
pretend that he hadn’t seen him, so he said as carefully as he could: ‘May you
help me, please?’
The man had long, untidy hair and the skin of his face was white with
plaster-dust. ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘What’s up?’
Lev indicated the turnstile, holding up a twenty-pound note. The man
smiled. Then he rummaged in the pocket of his overalls, found a coin, handed
it to Lev and snatched the note away. Lev stared in dismay. ‘No,’ he said. ‘No,
please …’
But the young man turned, went through the barrier and began to walk
into the washroom. Lev gaped. Not a single word of English would come to
him now and he cursed loudly in his own language. Then he saw the man
coming back towards him with a smile that made dark creases in the white

dust of his face. He held the twenty-pound note out to Lev. ‘Only joking,’ he said. ‘Just joking, mate.’

Rose Tremain, The Road Home (2007)

In your answer to Question 10, you must compare at least two texts from the list. At least one text must be from the two texts at the top of the list in bold.

Henry Roth: Call It Sleep

‘Immigrants in literature carry the weight of their past lives with them.’

By comparing Call It Sleep with at least one other text prescribed for this topic, discuss how

far you agree with this view.

Mohsin Hamid: The Reluctant Fundamentalist

‘Immigration narratives offer both opportunities and challenges to their central figures.’

By comparing The Reluctant Fundamentalist with at least one other text prescribed for this

topic, discuss how far you agree with this view.

‘The literature of immigration explores the desire to belong.’

By comparing at least two texts prescribed for this topic, discuss how far you agree with this view.

In your answer you must include discussion of either Call It Sleep and/or The Reluctant

Fundamentalist.