OCR A Level English Literature Comparative and contextual study November 2021 question paper H472/02

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

Literature 1880–1940.

In this passage, Pete takes Maggie to see a show in the Bowery, an impoverished district of Manhattan known at the time for popular entertainment.

When [the girl] broke into the swift rattling measures of a chorus some half-tipsy men near the stage joined in the rollicking refrain and glasses were pounded rhythmically upon the tables. People leaned forward to watch her and to try to catch the words of the song. When she vanished there were long rollings of applause.
Obedient to more anticipatory bars, she reappeared amidst the half-suppressed cheering of the tipsy men. The orchestra plunged into dance music and the laces of the dancer fluttered and flew in the glare of gas jets. She divulged the fact that she was attired in some half dozen skirts. It was patent that any one of them would have proved adequate for the purpose for which skirts are intended. An occasional man bent forward, intent upon the pink stockings. Maggie wondered at the splendor of the costume and lost herself in calculations of the cost of the silks and laces.
The dancer’s smile of stereotyped enthusiasm was turned for ten minutes upon the faces of her audience. In the finale she fell into some of those grotesque attitudes which were at the time popular among the dancers in the theatres up-town, giving to the Bowery public the phantasies of the aristocratic theatre-going public, at reduced rates.
‘Say, Pete,’ said Maggie, leaning forward, ‘dis is great.’
‘Sure,’ said Pete, with proper complacence.
A ventriloquist followed the dancer. He held two fantastic dolls on his knees. He made them sing mournful ditties and say funny things about geography and Ireland.
‘Do dose little men talk?’ asked Maggie.
‘Naw,’ said Pete, ‘it’s some damn fake. See?’
Two girls, on the bills as sisters, came forth and sang a duet that is heard occasionally at concerts given under church auspices. They supplemented it with a dance which of course can never be seen at concerts given under church auspices.
After the duettists had retired, a woman of debatable age sang a negro melody. The chorus necessitated some grotesque waddlings supposed to be an imitation of a plantation darky¹, under the influence, probably, of music and the moon. The audience was just enthusiastic enough over it to have her return and sing a sorrowful lay, whose lines told of a mother’s love and a sweetheart who waited and a young man who was lost at sea under the most harrowing circumstances. From the faces of a score or so in the crowd, the self-contained look faded. Many heads were bent forward with eagerness and sympathy. As the last distressing sentiment of the piece was brought forth, it was greeted by that kind of applause which rings as sincere.
As a final effort, the singer rendered some verses which described a vision of Britain being annihilated by America, and Ireland bursting her bonds.

A carefully prepared crisis was reached in the last line of the last verse, where the singer threw out her arms and cried, ‘The star-spangled banner.’ Instantly a great cheer swelled from the throats of the assemblage of the masses, most of them of foreign birth.

Stephen Crane, Maggie: A Girl of the Streets (1893)

₁   : this act, imitating an African American slave, would now be considered
imitation of a plantation darky
offensive.

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

F Scott Fitzgerald: The Great Gatsby

‘American literature is often preoccupied with the idea of greatness.’

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

‘The family plays a key role in American writing.’

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 place is always important in American novels.’

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 one question from 4(a), 4(b) or 4(c). You should spend 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.

The narrator of this passage is an antiquarian book dealer. After taking a wrong turn on a journey he comes across a derelict Edwardian house and decides to explore the garden.

It was a place which had been left to the air and the weather, the wind, the sun, the rabbits and the birds, left to fall gently, sadly into decay, for stones to crack and paths to be obscured and then to disappear, for windowpanes to let in the rain and birds to nest in the roof. Gradually, it would sink in on itself and then into the earth. How old was this house? A hundred years? In another hundred there would be nothing left of it.
I turned. I could barely see ahead now. Whatever the garden, now ‘closed’, had been, nature had taken it back, covered it with blankets of ivy and trailing strands of creeper, thickened it over with weed, sucked the light and the air out of it so that only the toughest plants could grow and in growing invade and occupy.
I should go back.
But I wanted to know more. I wanted to see more. I wanted for some reason I did not understand to come here in the full light of day, to see everything, uncover what was concealed, reveal what had been hidden. Find out why.
I might not have returned. Most probably, by the time I had made my way back to the main road, as of course I would, and reached London and my comfortable flat, the White House and what I had found there in the dusk of that late evening would have receded to the back of my mind and before long been quite forgotten. Even if I had come this way I might well never have found it again.
And then, as I stood in the gathering stillness and soft spring dusk, something happened. I do not much care whether or not I am believed. That does not matter. I know. That is all. I know, as surely as I know that yesterday morning it rained onto the windowsill of my bedroom after I had left a window slightly open. I know as well as I know that I had a root canal filling in a tooth last Thursday and felt great pain from it when I woke in the night. I know that it happened as well as I know that I had black coffee at breakfast.
I know because if I close my eyes now I feel it happening again, the memory of it is vivid and it is a physical memory. My body feels it, this is not only something in my mind.
I stood in the dim, green-lit clearing and above my head a silver paring of moon cradled the evening star. The birds had fallen silent. There was not the slightest stirring of the air.
And as I stood I felt a small hand creep into my right one, as if a child had come up beside me in the dimness and taken hold of it. It felt cool and its fingers curled themselves trustingly into my palm and rested there, and the small thumb and forefinger tucked my own thumb between them. As a reflex, I bent it over and we stood for a time which was out of time, my own man’s hand and the very small hand held as closely together as the hand of a father and his child. But I am not a father and the small child was invisible.

Susan Hill, The Small Hand (2010)

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

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

Either

Bram Stoker: Dracula

‘Gothic fiction shows the human need for some kind of religion.’

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 *

‘In Gothic writing, characters and events must be rooted in ordinary life.’

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 writing deals in extreme feelings.’

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 *.

Dystopia

Answer Question 5.

Then answer one question from 6(a), 6(b) or 6(c). You should spend 1 hour and 15 minutes on each question.

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

literature.

This passage is narrated by a woman who is searching for her brother in a city which has fallen into chaos and disorder. The passage occurs during a time called ‘the Terrible Winter’.

It would snow for a week—immense, blinding storms that pummelled the city into whiteness—and then the sun would come out, burning briefly with a summer-like intensity. The snow would melt, and by mid-afternoon the streets would be flooded. The gutters would overflow with rushing water, and everywhere you looked there would be a mad sparkle of water and light, as though the whole world had been turned into a huge, dissolving crystal. Then, suddenly, the sky would grow dark, night would begin, and the temperature would fall below zero again—freezing the water so abruptly that the ice would form in weird configurations: bumps and ripples and whorls, entire waves caught in mid-undulation, a kind of geological frenzy in miniature. By morning, of course, walking would be next to impossible—people slipping all over themselves, skulls cracking on the ice, bodies flopping helplessly on the smooth, hard surfaces. Then it would snow again, and the cycle would be repeated. This went on for months, and by the time it was over, thousands and thousands were dead. For the homeless, survival was nearly out of the question, but even the sheltered and well-fed suffered innumerable losses. Old buildings collapsed under the weight of the snow, and whole families were crushed. The cold drove people out of their minds, and sitting around in an underheated apartment all day was finally not much better than being outside. People would smash up their furniture and burn it for a little warmth, and many of these fires got out of control. Buildings were destroyed almost every day, sometimes whole blocks and neighborhoods. Whenever one of these fires broke out, vast numbers of homeless people would flock to the site and stand there for as long as the building burned—revelling in the warmth, cheering the flames as they rose up into the sky. Every tree in the city was chopped down during the winter and burned for fuel. Every domestic animal disappeared; every bird was shot. Food shortages became so drastic that construction of the sea wall was suspended—just six months after it had begun—so that all available policemen could be used to guard the shipments of produce to the municipal markets. Even so, there were a number of food riots, which led to more deaths, more injuries, more disasters. No one knows how many people died during the winter, but I have heard estimates as high as one-third to one-fourth of the population.
Somehow or other, my luck held out. In late November, I came close to being arrested in a food riot on Ptolemy Boulevard. There was an endless line that day as usual, and after waiting for more than two hours in the bitter cold without advancing, three men just ahead of me began insulting a police guard. The guard pulled out his billy club and came straight toward us, ready to swing at anyone who got in his way. The policy is to hit first and ask questions later, and I knew there wouldn’t be a chance for me to defend myself. Without even pausing to think, I broke out of the line and started sprinting down the street, running for all I was worth.

Paul Auster, In the Country of Last Things (1987)

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

George Orwell: Nineteen Eighty-Four

‘Violence and physical suffering are central to many dystopian novels.’

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

‘Dystopian fiction often hints at a utopian ideal which has gone wrong.’

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

discuss how far you agree with this view.

‘Writers of dystopian fiction often delight in inventing new uses of language.’

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 one question from 8(a), 8(b) or 8(c). You should spend 1 hour and 15 minutes on each question.

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

Women in Literature.

In this passage, the girls of Mrs Appleyard’s College for Young Ladies are preparing to go for a picnic at Hanging Rock, a local beauty spot. The novel is set in Australia in 1900.

Greta McCraw had undertaken to take on picnic duty today, assisted by Mademoiselle, purely as a matter of conscience. A brilliant mathematician – far too brilliant for her poorly paid job at the College – she would have given a five pound note to have spent this precious holiday, no matter how fine, shut up in her room with that fascinating new treatise on the Calculus. A tall woman with dry ochre skin and coarse greying hair perched like an untidy bird’s nest on top of her head, she had remained oblivious to the vagaries of the Australian scene despite a residence of thirty years. Climate meant nothing, nor fashion, nor the never ending miles of gum trees and dry yellow grass, of which she was hardly more aware than of the mists and mountains of her native Scotland, as a girl. The boarders, used to her outlandish wardrobe, were no longer amused, and her choice for today’s picnic went without comment – the well known church-going toque and black laced boots, together with the puce-coloured pelisse¹, in which her bony frame took on the proportions of one of her own Euclidean triangles, and a pair of rather shabby kid gloves.
Mademoiselle, on the other hand, as an admired arbiter of fashion, was minutely examined and passed with honours, down to the turquoise ring and white silk gloves. ‘Although,’ said Blanche, ‘I’m surprised at her letting Edith go out in those larky blue ribbons. Whatever is Edith looking at over there?’ A pasty-faced fourteen-year-old with the contours of an overstuffed bolster was standing a few feet away, staring up at the window of a room on the first floor. Miranda tossed back her straight corn-coloured hair, smiling and waving at a pale little pointed face looking dejectedly down at the animated scene below. ‘It’s not fair,’ said Irma, waving and smiling too, ‘after all the child is only thirteen. I never thought Mrs A. would be so mean.’
Miranda sighed. ‘Poor little Sara – she wanted so much to go to the picnic.’
Failure to recite ‘The Wreck of the Hesperus’ yesterday had condemned the child Sara Waybourne to solitary confinement upstairs. Later, she would pass the sweet summer afternoon in the empty schoolroom, committing the hated masterpiece to memory. The College was already, despite its brief existence, quite famed for its discipline, deportment and mastery of English Literature.
Now an immense purposeful figure was swimming and billowing in grey silk taffeta on to the tiled and colonnaded verandah, like a galleon in full sail. ‘Good morning, girls,’ boomed the gracious plummy voice, specially imported from Kensington.
‘Good morning, Mrs Appleyard,’ chorused the curtseying half-circle drawn up before the hall door.
‘Are we all present, Mademoiselle? Good. Well, young ladies, we are indeed fortunate in the weather for our picnic to Hanging Rock. I have instructed Mademoiselle that as the day is likely to be warm, you may remove your gloves after the drag² has passed through Woodend. You will partake of luncheon at

the Picnic Grounds near the Rock. Once again let me remind you that the Rock itself is extremely dangerous and you are therefore forbidden to engage in any tomboy foolishness in the matter of exploration, even on the lower slopes.’

Joan Lindsay, Picnic at Hanging Rock (1967)

₁   : a woman’s hat and coat
toque … pelisse
² : a horse-drawn coach
drag

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

Jane Austen: Sense and Sensibility

‘Endurance is a key quality for female characters in literature.’

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

‘Living in a domestic world can make female characters feel lonely and isolated.’

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

far you agree with this view.

‘Female characters are often shown taking a journey of self-discovery.’

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 Sense and Sensibility and/or

Mrs Dalloway.

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

Henry Roth: Call it Sleep

‘The immigrant experience is one of social and cultural displacement.’

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

‘Romantic relationships are shown to be especially difficult for immigrants.’

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

topic, discuss how far you agree with this view.

‘At its best, the immigrant experience is shown to be one of freedom and opportunity.’

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.