CATHOLIC JUNIOR COLLEGEJC 2 Preliminary Examination 2011Higher 2 15 September 2011

LITERATURE IN ENGLISH 9725/05

Paper 5 Women in Literature3 hours

Additional Materials: Answer Paper

Set texts may be taken into the examination room. They may bear underlining or highlighting.Any kind of folding or flagging of pages in text (e.g. use of post-its, tape flags or paper clips) is not permitted.

READ THESE INSTRUCTIONS FIRST

Write your name, class and question number on all the work you hand in.Write in dark blue or black pen on both sides of the paper.Do not use paper clips, highlighters, glue or correction fluid on your work.

Answer three questions, one from each of Sections A, B and C.You are reminded of the need for good English and clear presentation in your answers.

At the end of the examination, fasten all your work securely together.All questions in this paper carry equal marks.

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This document consists of 8 printed pages including this cover page.

Section A

Answer one question in this section.

1 Either

(a) The following extract is from the play Oleanna, by David Mamet (1993). John is a college professor and Carol is his student. Here, they are presented in a moment of confrontation in his office.

Comment critically and closely on the portrayal of their relationship in this scene, and relate it more generally to your reading on the theme of women in literature.

JOHN And, and, I owe you a debt, I see that now. (Pause) You’re dangerous, you’re wrong and it’s my job … to say no to you. That’s my job. You are absolutely right. You want to ban my book? Go to hell, and they can do whatever they want to me.

CAROL …you haven’t been home in two days… 5

JOHN I think I told you that.

CAROL …you’d better get that phone. (Pause) I think that you should pick up the phone. (Pause)

(JOHN picks up the phone.)

JOHN (on phone): Yes. (Pause) Yes. Wh … I. I. I had to be away. All ri … did they wor … did they worry ab … No. I’m all right, now, Jerry. I’m f … I got a little turned around, but I’m sitting here and … I’ve got it figured out. I’m fine. I’m fine don’t worry about me. I got a little bit mixed up. But I am not sure that it’s not a blessing. It cost me my job? Fine. Then the job was not worth having. Tell Grace that I’m coming home and everything is fff… (Pause) What? (Pause) What? (Pause) What do you mean? WHAT? Jerry … Jerry. They … Who, who, what can they do…? (Pause) NO. (Pause) NO. They can’t do th… What do you mean? (Pause) But how… (Pause) She’s, she’s, she’s here with me. To … Jerry. I don’t underst… (Pause) (He hangs up.) (To CAROL:) What does this mean?

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CAROL I thought you knew.

JOHN What. (Pause) What does it mean. (Pause)

CAROL You tried to rape me. (Pause) According to the law. (Pause)

JOHN …what…? 25

CAROL You tried to rape me. I was leaving this office, you “pressed” yourself into me. You “pressed” your body into me.

JOHN …I…

CAROL My Group has told your lawyer that we may pursue criminal charges. 30

JOHN …no…

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CAROL …under the statute. I am told. It was battery.

JOHN …no…

CAROL Yes. And attempted rape. That’s right. (Pause)

JOHN I think that you should go. 35

CAROL Of course. I thought you knew.

JOHN I have to talk to my lawyer.

CAROL Yes. Perhaps you should. 

(The phone rings again.) (Pause)

JOHN (Picks up phone. Into phone:) Hello? I … Hello…? I … Yes, he just called. No … I. I can’t talk to you now, Baby. (To CAROL:) Get out.

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CAROL …your wife…?

JOHN …who it is is no concern of yours. Get out. (To phone:) No, no, it’s going to be all right. I. I can’t talk now, Baby. (To CAROL:) Get out of here.

CAROL I’m going.

JOHN Good. 45

CAROL (exiting): …and don’t call your wife “baby.”

JOHN What?

CAROL Don’t call your wife baby. You heard what I said.

(CAROL starts to leave the room. JOHN grabs her and begins to beat her.) 50

JOHN You vicious little bitch. You think you can come in here with your political correctness and destroy my life?

  (He knocks her to the floor.)

  After how I treated you…? You should be … Rape you …? Are you kidding me…? 55

  (He picks up a chair, raises it above his head, and advances on her.)

  I wouldn’t touch you with a ten-foot pole. You little cunt…

  (She cowers on the floor below him. Pause. He looks down at her. He lowers the chair. He moves to his desk, and arranges the papers on it. Pause. He looks over at her.)

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  …well…

  (Pause. She looks at him.)

CAROL Yes. That’s right.

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 (She looks away from him, and lowers her head. To herself:) …yes. That’s right.

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Or

(b) Write a detailed critical commentary of the following passage from Marilyn French’s novel, ‘The Women’s Room’ (1977), discussing the ways in which it presents the narrator’s concerns relating it more generally to your reading on the theme of women in literature.

I love Virginia Woolf. She understood the need for five hundred pounds a year; and a room of one’s own. She could envision Shakespeare’s sister. But she imagined a violent, an apocalyptic end for Shakespeare’s sister, whereas I know that isn’t what happened. You see, it isn’t necessary. I know that lots of Chinese women, given in marriage to men they abhorred and lives they despised, killed themselves by throwing themselves down the family well. I’m not saying it doesn't happen. I’m only saying that isn’t what usually happens. If it were, we wouldn't be having a population problem. And there are so much easier ways to destroy a woman. You don’t have to rape or kill her; you don’t even have to beat her. You can just marry her. You don't even have to do that. You can just let her work in your office for thirty-five dollars a week. Shakespeare’s sister did, as Woolf thought, follow her brother to London, but she never got there. She was raped the first night out, and bleeding and inwardly wounded, she stumbled for shelter into the next village she found. Realizing before too long that she was pregnant, she sought a way to keep herself and her child safe. She found some guy with the hots for her, realized he was credulous, and screwed him. When she announced her pregnancy to him, a couple of months later, he dutifully married her. The child, born a bit early, makes him suspicious: they fight, he beats her, but in the end he submits. Because there is something in the situation that pleases him: he has all the comforts of home including something Mother doesn’t provide, and he feels now like one of the boys down at the village pub, none of whom is sure they are the children of their fathers or the father of their children. But Shakespeare’s sister has learned the lesson all women learn: men are the ultimate enemy. At the same time she knows she cannot get along without one. So she uses her genius, the genius she might have used to make plays and poems with, in speaking, not writing. She handles the man with language: she carps, cajoles, teases, seduces, calculates, and controls this creature to whom God saw fit to give power over her, this hulking idiot whom she despises because he is dense and fears because he can do her harm. So much for the natural relation between the sexes.

But you see, he doesn’t have to beat her much, he surely doesn't have to kill her: if he did, he’d lose his maidservant. The pounds and pence by themselves are a great weapon. They matter to men, of course, but they matter more to women, although their labor is generally unpaid. Because women, even unmarried ones, are required to do the same kind of labour regardless of their training or inclinations, and they can't get away from it without those glittering pounds and pence. Years spent scraping shit out of diapers with a kitchen knife, finding places where string beans are two cents less a pound, learning to wake at the sound of a cough, spending one’s intelligence in figuring the most efficient, least time-consuming way to iron men’s white shirts or to wash and wax the kitchen floor or take care of the house and kids and work at the same time and save money, hiding it from the boozer so the kid can go to college – these not only take energy and courage and mind, but they may constitute the very essence of a life.

They may, you say wearily, but who’s interested? Truthfully, I hate these grimy details as much as you do. I love Dostoevsky, who doesn’t harp on them but suggests them. They are always there in the background, like Time’s winged chariot. But grimy details are not in the background of the lives of most women; they are the entire surface.

Our culture believes strong individuals can transcend their circumstances. I myself

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don’t much enjoy books by Hardy or Dreiser or Wharton, where the outside world is so strong, so overwhelming, that the individual hasn’t a chance. I get impatient, I keep feeling that somehow the deck is stacked unfairly. That is the point, of course, but my feeling is that if that's true, I don’t want to play. I prefer to move to another table where I can retain my illusion, if illusion it be, that I’m working against only probabilities, and have a chance to win. Then if you lose, you can blame it on your own poor playing. That is called a tragic flaw, and like guilt, it’s very comforting. You can go on believing that there is really a right way, and you just didn’t find it.

People I respect most insist that the inside remains untouched by the exterior. Is this true, do you suppose? All my life I’ve read that the life of the mind is preeminent, and that it can transcend all bodily degradation. But that’s just not my experience. When your body has to deal all day with shit and string beans, your mind does too.

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Section B

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

2 Either

(a) “Novels, plays, poems all tend to make women the creatures of emotion and their character is thus formed in the mould of folly.”

With detailed reference to any two of the texts you have studied, compare ways through which they reflect or challenge these representations of women.

Or

(b) With detailed reference to any two of the texts you have studied, compare ways and the extent to which the writers present women characters as rebels.

With detailed reference to any two of the texts you have studied, compare the means by which they present challenges in the lives of women.

Section C

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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.

THOMAS HARDY: Tess of the D’Urbervilles

3 Either

(a) “Tess was now carried along upon the wings of the hours, without the sense of a will.” Chapter 32

To what extent is Tess presented as a victim of fate?

Or

(b) Examine the ways through which Tess's oscillation between joy and sorrow is presented in the novel.

CARYL CHURCHILL: Top Girls

4 Either

(a) Examine the ways through which the play explores the price of success of its central character, Marlene.       

Or

(b) How far are traditional gender roles challenged in 'Top Girls’?

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE: The Taming of the Shrew

5 Either

(a) “For Katherina and Petruchio, the direction of the play is towards marriage as a rich, shared sanity.” 

How far do you agree with this comment on the play's central relationship?

Or

(b) To what extent are the female characters in 'Taming of the Shrew' presented as being independent? 

END OF PAPER

Copyright Acknowledgements:Question 1 (a) © David MametQuestion 1 (b) © Marilyn French

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