A319 Semester I Final Exam – March 2006 Page 1 of 13

Arab Open University

Faculty of Language Studies
A319 Literature in the Modern World
First Semester (2005-2006)

End-of-Semester
Examination
Tuesday, March 7th, 2006
Time: 3:00 – 6:00 p.m.

Questions and Answer Guide

(Read the Notes on page 2 carefully as they contain significant

information on how to proceed with this Examination)

Student’s Full Name

In Arabic:_________________________
In English:________________________

Student’s ID (Registration number):

Section Number:_______________

Tutor’s Name:_________________

EXAM COMPONENTS, GRADES AND TIME YOU ARE ADVISED TO SPEND ON EACH COMPONENT

QUESTION MINUTES TOTAL POINTS EARNED

POINTS*
First question 45 16
Second question 55 17
Third question 55 17
Reading questions & proof 25 -- --
reading
Total 180 (3 hrs) 50

*To be filled by tutor

A319 Semester I Final Exam – March 2006 Page 2 of 13

NOTES
Before you write:

1. Make sure that you have written your full name in Arabic & English, your
registration number, your section number and your tutor’s name on the
cover page. You are also advised to write your name on every page.
2. Write only on the examination paper provided.
3. You may write on both sides of the sheet.
4. The Exam is in 3 parts. Part One has one question. You should answer
either A or B. Parts Two and Three contain two questions each. You must
answer one question from each Part. Please note that if you answer two
questions in the same Part, only one answer will be marked.
5. The questions may be answered in any order.
6. Before starting to write your answer, write the full text of the question you
have chosen. Notice the length of answer required which is mentioned at
the beginning of each Part. You should keep well within the required
length.
7. Answers must be written in essay form.
8. Also remember to start your essay with a short introduction then proceed
to the main body and end it with a short conclusion. All parts of your
answer should be fairly concise, and relevant to the question you have
chosen.
9. Clearly mark your quotations. Insert them in inverted commas and
mention the source and page number of each quotation.
10. Cross out any rough notes which you write and which you do not want to
be marked.
11. Make sure all the examination sheets are well collated and fixed together
firmly so that you avoid the risk of losing any part your answer.

When you have finished writing

• Proofread your answers twice: once to check content and a second
time to correct any English language mistakes you may have made.

• Remember that your tutor will mark the essay in terms of both
content and language.

Good Luck!
A319 Semester I Final Exam – March 2006 Page 3 of 13

PART I : Answer with reference to one

extract only from this part.

Question 1
Samuel Beckett’s ‘Endgame’ is a play with very little action and too many
verbal expressions. Demonstrate how one of the following extracts may make
a lively stage production through a multitude of sign-systems and other means
of theatrical performance such as costumes, lighting, and gestures.
Remember to include references to attitudes governing the human
relationships between the characters of the play.

Your answer should be approximately 400-450 words excluding quotations

and extract/s.

Extract A

HAMM Me – [he yawns] – to play. [He holds the handkerchief spread out before
him.] Old stancher! [He takes off his glasses, wipes his eyes, his face, the
glasses, puts them on again, folds the handkerchief and puts it neatly in the
breast-pocket of his dressing-gown. He clears his throat, joins the tips of his
fingers.] Can there be misery – [he yawns] – loftier than mine? No doubt. 5
Formerly. But now? [Pause.] My father? [Pause.] My mother? [Pause.]
My … dog? [Pause.] Oh I am willing to believe they suffer as much as
such creatures can suffer. But does that mean their sufferings equal mine?
No doubt. [Pause.] No, all is – [he yawns] – absolute, [proudly] the bigger a
man is the fuller he is. [Pause. Gloomily.] And the emptier. [He sniffs.] 10
CLOV! [Pause.] No, alone. [Pause.] What dreams! Those forests!
[Pause.] Enough, it’s time it ended, in the refuge too. [Pause.] And yet I
hesitate, I hesitate to … to end. Yes, there it is, it’s time it ended and yet I
hesitate to – [he yawns] – to end. [Yawns.] God, I’m tired, I’d be better off in
bed. [He whistles. Enter CLOV immediately. He halts beside the chair.] 15
You pollute the air! [Pause.] Get me ready, I’m going to bed.
CLOV I’ve just got you up.
HAMM And what of it?
CLOV I can’t be getting you up and putting you to bed every five minutes, I have
things to do. [Pause.] 20
HAMM Did you ever see my eyes?
CLOV No.
HAMM Did you never have the curiosity, while I was sleeping, to take off my glasses
and look at my eyes?
CLOV Pulling back the lids? [Pause.] No. 25
HAMM One of these days I’ll show them to you. [Pause.] It seems they’ve gone all
white. [Pause.] What time is it?
CLOV The same as usual.
HAMM [Gesture towards window right.] Have you looked?
CLOV Yes. 30
HAMM Well?
CLOV Zero.
A319 Semester I Final Exam – March 2006 Page 4 of 13

HAMM It’d need to rain.

CLOV It won’t rain. [Pause.]
HAMM Apart from that, how do you feel? 35
CLOV I don’t complain.
HAMM You feel normal?
CLOV [Irritably.] I tell you I don’t complain!
HAMM I feel a little queer. [Pause.] CLOV!
CLOV Yes. 40
HAMM Have you not had enough?
CLOV Yes! [Pause.] Of what?
HAMM Of this … this … thing.
CLOV I always had. [Pause.] Not you?
HAMM [Gloomily.] Then there’s no reason for it to change. 45
CLOV It may end. [Pause.] All life long the same questions, the same answers.
HAMM Get me ready. [CLOV does not move]. Go and get the sheet. [CLOV does
not move.] CLOV!
CLOV Yes.
HAMM I’ll give you nothing more to eat. 50
CLOV Then we’ll die.
HAMM I’ll give you just enough to keep you from dying. You’ll be hungry all the
time.
CLOV Then we shan’t die. [Pause.] I’ll go and get the sheet. [He goes towards
the door.] 55
HAMM No! [CLOV halts.] I’ll give you one biscuit per day. [Pause.] One and a
half. [Pause]. Why do you stay with me?
CLOV Why do you keep me?
HAMM There’s no one else.
CLOV There’s nowhere else. [Pause.] 60
HAMM You’re leaving me all the same.
CLOV I’m trying.
HAMM You don’t love me.
CLOV No.
HAMM You loved me once. 65
CLOV Once!
HAMM I’ve made you suffer too much. [Pause.] Haven’t I?
CLOV It’s not that.
HAMM [Shocked.] I haven’t made you suffer too much?
CLOV Yes! 70
HAMM [Relieved.] Ah you gave me a fright! [Pause. Coldly.] Forgive me.
[Pause. Louder.] I said, Forgive me.

Extract B

HAMM All right, be off. [He leans back in his chair, remains motionless. CLOV 1
does not move, heaves a great groaning sigh. HAMM sits up.] I thought I
told you to be off.
CLOV I’m trying. [He goes to door, halts.] Ever since I was whelped. [Exit
CLOV.] 5
HAMM We’re getting on.
[He leans back in his chair, remains motionless. NAGG knocks on the lid of the other bin.
Pause. He knocks harder. The lid lifts and the hands of NELL appear, gripping the rim.
Then her head emerges. Lace cap. Very white face.]
NELL What is it, my pet? [Pause.] Time for love? 10
A319 Semester I Final Exam – March 2006 Page 5 of 13

NAGG Were you asleep?

NELL Oh no!
NAGG Kiss me.
NELL We can’t.
NAGG Try. 15
[Their heads strain towards each other, fail to meet, fall apart again.]
NELL Why this farce, day after day? [Pause.]
NAGG I’ve lost me tooth.
NELL When?
NAGG I had it yesterday. 20
NELL [Elegiac.] Ah yesterday!
[They turn painfully towards each other.]
NAGG Can you see me?
NELL Hardly. And you?
NAGG What? 25
NELL Can you see me?
NAGG Hardly.
NAGG Don’t say that. [Pause.] Our sight has failed.
NELL So much the better, so much the better.
NELL Yes. 30
[Pause. They turn away from each other.]
NAGG Can you hear me?
NELL Yes. And you?
NAGG Yes. [Pause.] Our hearing hasn’t failed.
NELL Our what? 35
NAGG Our hearing.
NELL No. [Pause.] Have you anything else to say to me?
NAGG Do you remember –
NELL No.
NAGG When we crashed on our tandem and lost our shanks. 40
[They laugh heartily.]
NELL It was in the Ardennes.
[They laugh less heartily.]
NAGG On the road to Sedan. [They laugh still less heartily.] Are you cold?
NELL Yes, perished. And you? 45
NAGG I’m freezing. [Pause.] Do you want to go in?
NELL Yes.
NAGG Then go in. [NELL does not move.] Why don’t you go in?
NELL I don’t know. [Pause.]
NAGG Has he changed your sawdust? 50
NELL It isn’t sawdust. [Pause. Wearily.] Can you not be a little accurate, NAGG?
NAGG Your sand then. It’s not important.
NELL It is important.

NAGG It was sawdust once. 55

NELL Once!
NAGG And now it’s sand. [Pause.] From the shore. [Pause. Impatiently.] Now
it’s sand he fetches from the shore.
NELL Now it’s sand.
NAGG Has he changed yours? 60
NELL No.
NAGG Nor mine. [Pause.] I won’t have it! [Pause. Holding up the biscuit.] Do
you want a bit?
NELL No. [Pause.] Of what?
NAGG Biscuit. I’ve kept you half. [He looks at the biscuit. Proudly.] Three 65
A319 Semester I Final Exam – March 2006 Page 6 of 13

quarters. For you. Here. [He proffers the biscuit.] No? [Pause.] Do you
not feel well?
Answer Guide:

PART 1

The answer to this question resides in a number of commentaries and essays

in books already given to students. Samuel Beckett’s ‘Endgame’, provides
vivid images of a set of recognizable human relationships. The discussion
should give detailed references to how the expression of such relationships is
characterized in a theatrical performance by using semiotics and stage
techniques including gestures, props and lighting which would enhance the
written text. The set of recognizable human/social relationships (master –
servant and old parents) is referred to in Block 1, in ‘Ideology and
Modernism’ (pp. 42-43) and ‘Performance, ‘play’ and Ideology’ (pp. 43-44).
The semiotics as related to dramatic performance are ably covered in the
Reader (Part Two) in two articles: ‘Semiotics of Theatrical Performance’ by
Umberto Eco (pp. 114-121) and ‘The Signs of Drama’ by Martin Esslin (pp.
121-131). These two essays are discussed in Block 1 (Part 4 Drama), under
‘The semiotics of drama’ (pp. 37-38). The Endgame as a ‘Modernist’ play is
discussed in the same block (pp. 39-42), touching in parts on the stage setting
and the gestures of the characters.

A video performance of the Endgame is available with the course tutor, and if
students have seen it, they would have easily visualized how the written word
comes to life on the stage. Thus, combining the Reader’s essay, Block 1
commentaries and discussions, the video tape in addition to the play itself, of
course, would provide ample guidance in discussing either extract (A) or (B).

In extract (A) the body gestures of Hamm (when he yawns, holds the
handkerchief spread out before him, takes off his glasses, wipes his eyes, his
face, etc. ) as well as the pauses, movements and change in Clov’s voice
serve to highlight the theatrical performance and attract the spectator to follow
the illogical line of the dialogue. Similarly, in extract (B), we find that the text
provides equal signs and gestures: Hamm leans back in his chair, remains
motionless which invites a motionless pose from Clov, the latter’s subsequent
movement towards the door, Nagg’s knocking the bin’s lid, Nell’s hands
gripping the bin’s rim and her head emerging etc. provide suspense of a
unique type especially when seen in actual performance with the lighting and
stage setting cleverly employed.

The Endgame is performed in a claustrophobic room isolated from the exterior

world; a one-act play whose actors succeed in mesmerizing the audience
through powerful delivery complemented by the unusually mundane yet
curious stage setting. The symmetrical presence of its characters is the only
noticeable co-ordinated element of the play and it gives it a strange
attractiveness.

Passages are quoted from: The Poetry and Drama Anthology

A319 Semester I Final Exam – March 2006 Page 7 of 13

Extract A (pp. 219-221)

Extract B (pp. 225-227)
PART II : Answer one question from
this part. (The answer should be within
600 words excluding the quotations).

Question 2
The early twentieth century witnessed the advent of Modernism in literary
works with pioneer authors such as T.S. Eliot, Virginia Woolf, and W.H. Auden.
Discuss the main features of literary modernism with close reference to two
major texts: one modernist novel and one major modernist poem you studied
in Block Two.

Answer Guide:

The Prose Anthology

The Poetry and Drama Anthology
Set Books: T.S. Eliot: The Waste Land and Other Poems and Virginia
Woolf: Mrs. Dalloway.

Discussion in Reader: ‘Freud and Literature’ by Lionel Trilling (pp. 38-44),

‘The Ideology of Modernism’ (pp. 161-167), ‘Modernism and the Metropolis’ by
Raymond Williams (pp. 168-174), and ‘Memorable Speech’ by W.H. Auden
(pp. 222-225).

Discussion in Block One: ‘Narrative now - structuralism in perspective’ (pp.

16-17) where the narrative quality of Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway is touched
upon.

Block Two: ‘What was Modernism?’ (pp. 1-16), ‘A study guide to Mrs.
Dalloway’ (pp. 17-31), and ‘A study guide to The Waste Land’ (pp. 50-66).

Block Three (Part One): ‘Auden and Modernism’ (pp. 87-93).

Answer may be constructed with reference to Auden’s poetic language.

The answer to this question must elaborate how the principles of

fragmentation and discontinuity in modern literary works were successfully
employed to reflect the consciousness of the modern world. The answer must
deliberate on two major texts, each from a different genre. The texts must
feature fragmentation and discontinuity which refer to the apparent absence of
coherence and logical development in the literary work as viewed from a
traditional perspective. These modern principles are influenced by modern
psychoanalysis findings such as the stream of consciousness. The ideas are
A319 Semester I Final Exam – March 2006 Page 8 of 13

presented through a discontinuous succession of images and ideas,

connected by association rather than logical sequential thought.

PART II : (continued)

Question 3
Discuss the narrative structures of two short stories or one novel with
reference to Blocks One or Two.

Answer Guide:
Answer to this question may be found in the Reader: ‘Story and Narrative’ by
Seymour Chatman (pp. 103-113), ‘Order in Narrative’ by Gérard Genette (pp.
144-152), and ‘The Death of the Author’ (pp. 205-209). Block One: ‘Prose
fiction’ (pp. 7-14), ‘Narrative Structure’ (pp. 14-16), ‘Narrative now –
structuralism in perspective’ (pp. 16-17) where the narrative quality of Virginia
Woolf’s ‘Kew Gardens’ and ‘Mrs. Dalloway’ is discussed.

Discussions in Block Two: Chapter 2 entitled ‘A study guide to Mrs.

Dalloway’, section on ‘Narrative structure’ (pp. 21-26); and Chapter 3 entitled
‘Mrs. Dalloway and narrative time’ (pp. 32-39). In answering this question, the
student may focus on Virginia Woolf’s novel ‘Mrs. Dalloway’ or any two of the
following short stories: Virginia Woolf: ‘Kew Gardens’, D.H. Lawrence:
‘Odour of Chrysanthemums’, and Doris Lessing: ‘The Old Chief of Mshlanga’.

Literary texts are cited in

1. The Prose Anthology
2. The Poetry and Drama Anthology
3. Set text: Virginia Woolf: Mrs. Dalloway
A319 Semester I Final Exam – March 2006 Page 9 of 13

PART III : Answer one of the following

questions. (The answer should be
within 600 words excluding the
quotations).

Question 4
Literary texts vividly represent England and affirm the idea of Englishness
through constructing both natural and social landscapes with an emphasis on
national identity as such. Discuss this notion with reference to two different
authors, each from a different period including the Georgian Poets (covered in
Block Three Part One).

Answer Guide:

Block 3 – Part One: ‘Ideology and ‘Englishness’

Discussion: Kipling belongs in that very English tradition of angry

conservatives (p. 33). See also: Chapter 3 ‘What is ‘Englishness’’ (pp. 38-51)
which describes how English Literature was also thought important as a
means of promoting national unity (p. 39). This chapter also gives an exposé
on the development of the notion of ‘Englishness’ in the works of various
intellectual figures in England.

Literary texts: (The Prose Anthology and The Poetry and Drama
Anthology)

1. Georgian poetry – (Discussions from Block Three Part One)

• John Drinkwater: ‘Of Greatham’. ‘Englishness’ here centers round

the southern English social and physical landscapes (pp. 54-57).
• Edmund Blunden: ‘The Barn’. At the time of the Great war, the poet
reaffirms the continuity of English country practices (pp. 57-59).
• Edward Thomas: ‘The Penny Whistle’, ‘The Old Man’, ‘Adlestrop’,
and ‘As the Team’s Head Brass’. Being Welsh, this poet developed
an acute awareness about the English countryside which he thought
had been stolen from its people. His poems emphasize the depth of
tradition in the English landscape and celebrate archetypal,
immemorial, common-man Englishness. Thomas’s portrayal of
A319 Semester I Final Exam – March 2006 Page 10 of 13

‘England’ at times gives rise to pessimism and at others reveals

devoted patriotism (pp. 55-57, 59-65).

2. P.G. Wodehouse: ‘Indian Summer of an Uncle’. Conveys archetypal

characterization of England of the pre-First World War through ‘the living
image … of the English character in action’, use of different nuances of
slang and various class-related discourses (pp. 71-79).
3. W.H. Auden: His poetry expresses his anti-capitalist and anti-fascist
stance, especially in its direct relevance to ‘the condition of England’ and
the long historical process concluding in the death of the
bourgeois/entrepreneurial class which had carried through the English
industrial revolution. His poems ‘A Bride in the 30’s’ and ‘Perhaps’ have
clear points of contact with ‘A Summer Night’, while ‘The Malverns’ is
largely the speaker’s debate with himself about his responsibilities towards
the ‘Condition of England’. This poem can be seen to have certain points
of contact with Auden’s ‘Paysage Moralisé’ whose metaphorical links
establish it as a companion piece to other poems, revealing the poet’s
feeling about his surrounding world (pp. 80-93).

4. John Betjeman: His works give impetus to interesting questions about

the notion of Englishness. His poem ‘Death in Leamington’ (the place
being suburbian England) contains a number of qualities that establish an
English sense of identity where the language of a certain section of society
is employed to denote nostalgia and affection. ‘Slough’ carries the
continuation of the theme of English suburbia whose natural beauty is
ruined by developers. On the other hand, the English obsession with
social class resounds in his poem entitled ‘How to Get on in Society’, while
‘Hunter Trials’ vividly describes the more moneyed and leisured members
of English society. Betjeman’s ‘A Subaltern’s Love-Song’ is placed very
firmly in a recognizable English context, while ‘Archibald’, partly
autobiographical, contains references to the poet’s fortunate childhood in
the context of the fine social distinctions which have been part of the
English way of life for a very long time. In ‘Mortality’, the poet appears
enraged by the over-judicious, bureaucratic character of compromise,
thought by some to be one of the better characteristics of the English.
Finally, ‘The Arrest of Oscar Wilde at the Cadagon Hotel’ reflects
Betjeman’s interest in things Victorian (as the architecture of Pont Street)
as well as his critique of the English hypocrisy over sexual behaviour (pp.
94-102).

5. Evelyn Waugh: Officers and Gentlemen, set text – (Discussion in

Block Three – Part One pp. 103-122). This novel is set in the daily life of
the army, unmistakably a British Institution and an emblem of the national
culture. In part, it exudes a strong sense of class-resentments and
misunderstandings of a peculiarly English kind. The novel also illustrates
the English obsession with the ‘social class’ issue. Throughout Officers
and Gentlemen the author constantly introduces examples of social
mobility which serve to expose the constructed nature of the hierarchical
model of Englishness.
A319 Semester I Final Exam – March 2006 Page 11 of 13

Reader: Literature in the Modern World

Critical Essays and Documents
• Neville Cardus: ‘Good Days’ (pp. 216-220)
• W.H. Auden: ‘Memorable Speech’ (pp. 222-225)
• E.M. Forster: ‘Notes on the English Character’ (pp. 220-222)
• Asa Briggs: ‘The English: How the Nation Sees Itself’ (pp. 235-242)
• George Orwell: ‘The Lion and the Unicorn’ (pp. 225-234)
PART III : (continued)

Question 5
Discuss the context within which women writers operated and expressed
feminist issues. Support your argument with quotations from literary texts in
(The Poetry and Drama Anthology and The Prose Anthology) with reference
to Block 3 Part Two.

Answer Guide:

Literary texts are cited in

1. The Prose Anthology
2. The Poetry and Drama Anthology

Discussion:

Block 3 Part Two

Answer may be found in Part Two Language and Gender: ‘Introduction:

gender and ideology’ (pp. 125-126) where the cultural construction of
concepts of femininity and masculinity and the relationship between language
and literature are introduced; ‘Freud and feminism’ (pp. 127-128) which
mentions the feminists’ sharp disagreements in their interpretations of Freud’s
thinking as regards the suppression of infantile sexuality, and its relevance to
perpetuating women’s subordination; ‘Feminist theory’ (pp. 129-130) wherein
the opposed arguments about feminine intellectual and social capabilities are
surveyed; ‘Virginia Woolf and women’s history’ (pp. 130-134) which
discusses the pivotal role of Virginia Woolf as a feminist writer; ‘Simone de
Beauvoir’s The Second Sex’ (pp. 134-137) an interesting overview of de
Beauvoir’s dominance in the history of feminine thought as she advocated
that [‘the woman question’ … lay at the heart of any form of human culture]
and that the solution to women’s problems must depend on the socialist
evolution of the society. ‘Gender and genre’ (pp. 149-153): contains an
interesting discussion on the constraints which faced feminine writers and
A319 Semester I Final Exam – March 2006 Page 12 of 13

prevented them from experimenting with certain literary genres such as

poetry.

Discussions of texts:
1. Virginia Woolf: ‘Kew Gardens’ where extracts are cited to demonstrate
the relationship between language and gender (pp. 138-141).

2. Ernest Hemingway: ‘The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber’ (pp.

142-148) which focuses on the variable qualities of both masculine and
feminine language, logic and attitudes.

3. Stevie Smith: ‘A woman poet?’ (pp. 155-156); ‘Tradition and

eccentricity’ (pp. 156-158). In these two sections Stevie Smith is
represented as a poetess whose language is least associated with gender
as ‘she distrusted the category of woman writer’, as such and viewed that
‘differences between men and women poets are better seen when the
poets are bad’. Smith’s poem ‘My Muse’ distinctly raises curiosity and
merits a comparative discussion about this poetess who has been seen in
opposing lights by her critics (pp. 154-156).

4. Sylvia Plath: ‘The disquieting muse’ (pp. 162-164); ‘Father-figures’

(pp. 164-167); ‘Making and unmaking’ (pp. 167-170). Here, the
discussion centers round how Plath’s legend developed as she rapidly
‘became a representative female victim of the patriarchal world’. In this
context, the Electra Complex is detected in her poem ‘Daddy’. In ‘Nick
and the Candlestick’, the feminist logic is described, while the construction
and deconstruction of the female identity is discussed with reference to
Plath’s poem ‘Mirror’ (pp. 166-170).

5. Elizabeth Bishop: ‘Women and madness’ (pp. 176-177) in its sum total,
‘her poetry represents a kind of gendered stereotype of the woman poet’.

6. Adrienne Rich: ‘Culture and Anarchy’ (pp. 179-182). She dreamt of a

common language ‘shared and communicated among women’. Her poem
‘Culture and Anarchy’ is teeming with references to women ‘who pioneered
the beliefs that motivate Rich’s work’. Central to the poem is concern with
’the repressed strengths of women’, and its preoccupation with cadences
of domestic life.

Reader: Literature in the Modern World

Critical Essays and Documents

• Virginia Woolf, ‘To Cambridge Women’ (pp. 73-79)

• Simone de Beauvoir, ‘Woman and the Other’ (pp. 246-251)
• Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar, ‘Women Poets’ (pp. 22-29)
• Cora Kaplan, ‘Language and Gender’ (pp. 252-257)
• Lionel Trilling, ‘Freud and Literature’ (pp. 38-44)
A319 Semester I Final Exam – March 2006 Page 13 of 13