TEMASEK JUNIOR COLLEGE

PRELIMINARY EXAMINATION 2018

JC 2

ENGLISH LITERATURE 9509/03

Higher 2 12 September 2018

Paper 3: The Mind and Self in Literature 3 hours

READ THESE INSTRUCTIONS FIRST

Write your name and class on all the work that you hand in.
Write in dark blue or black pen on both sides of the paper.
Begin each question on a fresh piece of paper and submit your answer to each question
separately.
Do not use staples, paper clips, highlighters, glue, correction fluid or correction tape.

Answer one question from each section.

All questions in this paper carry equal marks.

You are reminded of the need for good English and clear presentation in your answers.
You are advised to spend an hour on each question.

This paper consists of 6 printed pages.

 SECTION A
Answer one question in this section.
1.
Either (a) The poem which follows (published in 1972) was written by R.S.
Thomas.

Write a critical appreciation of the poem, considering ways in which the

poet uses form, structure and language to present the mind and self.

Acting

Being unwise enough to have married her

I never knew when she was not acting.
‘I love you’ she would say; I heard the audiences
Sigh. ‘I hate you’; I could never be sure
They were still there. She was lovely. I 5
Was only the looking-glass she made up in.
I husbanded the rippling meadow
Of her body. Their eyes grazed nightly upon it.

Alone now on the brittle platform

Of herself she is playing her last role. 10
It is perfect. Never in all her career
Was she so good. And yet the curtain
Has fallen. My charmer, come out from behind
It to take the applause. Look, I am clapping too.

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Or (b) In the following passage is an extract from The Hours, a novel by Michael
Cunningham published in 1998.

Write a critical appreciation of the passage, commenting on ways in which the

author uses form, structure and language to present the mind and self.

She hurries from the house, wearing a coat too heavy for the weather. It
is 1941. Another war has begun. She has left a note for Leonard, and
another for Vanessa. She walks purposefully toward the river, certain of
what she'll do, but even now she is almost distracted by the sight of the
downs, the church, and a scattering of sheep, incandescent, tinged with 5
a faint hint of sulphur, grazing under a darkening sky. She pauses,
watching the sheep and the sky, then walks on. The voices murmur
behind her; bombers drone in the sky, though she looks for the planes
and can't see them. She walks past one of the farm workers (is his name
John?), a robust, small-headed man wearing a potato-coloured vest, 10
cleaning the ditch that runs through the osier bed1. He looks up at her,
nods, looks down again into the brown water. As she passes him on her
way to the river she thinks of how successful he is, how fortunate, to be
cleaning a ditch in an osier bed. She herself has failed. She is not a
writer at all, really; she is merely a gifted eccentric. 15

Patches of sky shine in puddles left over from last night's rain. Her shoes
sink slightly into the soft earth. She has failed, and now the voices are
back, muttering indistinctly just beyond the range of her vision, behind
her, here, no, turn and they've gone somewhere else. The voices are
back and the headache is approaching as surely as rain, the headache 20
that will crush whatever is she and replace her with itself. The headache
is approaching and it seems (is she or is she not conjuring them
herself?) that the bombers have appeared again in the sky. She reaches
the embankment, climbs over and down again to the river. There's a
fisherman upriver, far away, he won't notice her, will he? She begins 25
searching for a stone. She works quickly but methodically, as if she were
following a recipe that must be obeyed scrupulously if it's to succeed at
all. She selects one roughly the size and shape of a pig's skull. Even as
she lifts it and forces it into one of the pockets of her coat (the fur collar
tickles her neck), she can't help noticing the stone's cold chalkiness and 30
its colour, a milky brown with spots of green. She stands close to the
edge of the river, which laps against the bank, filling the small
irregularities in the mud with clear water that might be a different
substance altogether from the yellow-brown, dappled stuff, solid-looking
as a road, that extends so steadily from bank to bank. She steps 35
forward. She does not remove her shoes. The water is cold, but not
unbearably so. She pauses, standing in cold water up to her knees. She

1
A place where willow trees are grown.
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thinks of Leonard. She thinks of his hands and his beard, the deep lines
around his mouth. She thinks of Vanessa, of the children, of Vita and
Ethel. They have all failed, haven't they? She is suddenly, immensely 40
sorry for them. She imagines turning around, taking the stone out of her
pocket, going back to the house. She could probably return in time to
destroy the notes. She could live on; she could perform that final
kindness. Standing knee-deep in the moving water, she decides against
it. The voices are here, the headache is coming, and if she restores 45
herself to the care of Leonard and Vanessa they won't let her go again,
will they? She decides to insist that they let her go. She wades
awkwardly (the bottom is mucky) out until she is up to her waist. She
glances upriver at the fisherman, who is wearing a red jacket and who
does not see her. The yellow surface of the river (more yellow than 50
brown when seen this close) murkily reflects the sky. Here, then, is the
last moment of true perception, a man fishing in a red jacket and a
cloudy sky reflected on opaque water. Almost involuntarily (it feels
involuntary, to her) she steps or stumbles forward, and the stone pulls
her in. For a moment, still, it seems like nothing; it seems like another 55
failure; just chill water she can easily swim back out of; but then the
current wraps itself around her and takes her with such sudden,
muscular force it feels as if a strong man has risen from the bottom,
grabbed her legs and held them to his chest. It feels personal.

More than an hour later, her husband returns from the garden. "Madame 60
went out," the maid says, plumping a shabby pillow that releases a
miniature storm of down. "She said she'd be back soon."

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 SECTION B
Answer one question in this section using two texts that you have studied.
The texts used in this section cannot be used in Section C.

2.

Either (a) Compare the ways in which two texts you have studied show how
the self changes in response to difficult circumstances.

Or (b) With reference to two texts you have studied, compare how the
writers present the mind and self in a state of disempowerment.

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 SECTION C
Answer one question in this section, using one text that you have studied.
The text used in this section cannot be used in Section B.

PAT BARKER: Regeneration

3.

Either (a) Discuss how Barker uses intertextuality to present the soldiers’
experiences of the war.

Or (b) Explore the ways in which Barker presents self-discovery in the novel.

ALAN AYCKBOURN: Woman in Mind

4.

Either (a) Consider the ways in which Ayckbourn dramatises Susan’s mental turmoil
throughout the play.

Or (b) “Ayckbourn sensitively balances the comically ludicrous and the

sympathetically pathetic.”

Discuss how, and to what effects, Ayckbourn achieves this in Woman in

Mind.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE: Hamlet

5.

Either (a) How, and to what effect, does the play dramatise the effects of death and
loss on characters’ minds?

Or (b) Discuss Shakespeare’s use of soliloquies to present Hamlet’s mental

state.

END OF PAPER