Delhi University
English Anglo American Writing Previous Year Question Paper Year 2006 : IsT Year
Q. 1. (a) identify and comment critically on the following:
(i) Sigh no more ladies
Time is male
and in his cups drinks to the fair.
Bemused by gallantry, we hear
Our mediocrities over-praised
Indolence read as abnegation
Slattern thought styled intuition,
Every lapse forgiven, our crime
Only to cast too bold a shadow
Or smash the mold straight off.
For that, solitary confinement,
Tear gas, attrition shelling.
Few applicants for that honor.
(ii) Why should I let the toad work
Squat on my life ?
Can’t I use my wit as pitchfork
And drive the brute off?
Six days of the week it soils
With its sickening poison -
Just for paying a few bills!
That’s out of proportion.
Lots of folks live on their wits:
Lecturers, lispers,
Losers, loblolly-men louts-
They don’t end as paupers;
Lots of folk live up lanes
With fires in a bucket,
Eat windfalls and tinned sardines-
They seem to like it.
(b) (i) “You have youth, confidence, and a job,” the older waiter said,'’ You have everything.'’
“And what do you lack ?”
“Everything but work1′
What is the difference between the attitude of the older waiter and the younger waiter? Do you think Hemingway privileges youth in the story ?
(ii) “The next pool on his list, the last but two, belonged to his old mistress Shirley Adams. If he had suffered any injuries at the Biswanger’s they would be cured here.
Love-sexual roughhouse in fact-was the supreme elixir, the pain killer, the brightly coloured pill that would put the spring back into his step, the joy of life in his heart.”
How does Shirley respond to Need? Discuss the critique of suburban life in “The Swimmer’.
© (i) Discuss the friendship between Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Do you think it expresses a positive value in the play? Give reasons.
(ii) “Miller creates an atmosphere of guilt within the Proctor household that mirrors similar conditions within the larger Puritan society.” Discuss the relationship between John and Elizabeth Proctor.
Answer :
Q. 2. (a) (I) Do you agree with the view that social realism often sinks into bleakness ? Illustrate your answer with examples.
(ii) Focussing on the work of one poet prescribed in your course, discuss, a poet’s engagement with political issues in order to shape poetic identity.
(b) (i) ‘For God’s sake, open the universe a little more !” What is Rushdie protesting against in his essay ‘Imaginary Homelands’ ?
(ii) Discuss Seamus Heaney’s interpretation of George Herbert’s work as ‘fully realised poetry’.
Answer :
Q. 3. (i) Discuss The Power and the Glory as a theologi¬cal thriller that has more mysteries than certainties.
(ii) The tension in The Power and the Glory is generated by the ideological conflict between the whisky priest and the atheistic lieutenant. Discuss.
Answer :
Q. 4. (i) Beloved according to Stanley Crouch, one of its harshest reviewers ‘means to prove that Afro-Americans are the result of a cruel determinism.’ Do you agree that Toni Morrison is telling the story of helpless victims in her novel ? Support your view with examples from the text.
(ii) ‘Women are the bearers of continuity in Morrison’s fiction.” Discuss the characters of Baby Suggs, Sethe, and Denver as describing the unbroken continuity of nurturing in Beloved.
Answer :