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UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE INTERNATIONAL EXAMINATIONS
International General Certificate of Secondary Education
LITERATURE (ENGLISH)
0427/01
For Examination from 2012
Paper 1
SPECIMEN PAPER
2 hours 15 minutes
Additional Materials:
Answer Booklet/Paper
READ THESE INSTRUCTIONS FIRST
If you have been given an Answer Booklet, follow the instructions on the front cover of the Booklet.
Write your Centre number, candidate number and name on all the work you hand in.
Write in dark blue or black pen.
Do not use staples, paper clips, highlighters, glue or correction fluid.
Answer three questions: one question for Section A, one question for Section B, and one question for
Section C.
Answer at least one passage-based question (marked *) and at least one essay question (marked †).
At the end of the examination, fasten all your work securely together.
All questions in this paper carry equal marks.
This document consists of 20 printed pages and 2 blank pages.
© UCLES 2011
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BLANK PAGE
© UCLES 2011
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CONTENTS
Section A: Drama
text
Lorraine Hansberry: A Raisin in the Sun
William Shakespeare: Macbeth
Thornton Wilder: Our Town
question
numbers
page[s]
*1, 2, 3
*4, 5, 6
*7, 8, 9
pages 4–5
pages 6–7
pages 8–9
question
numbers
page[s]
*10, 11, 12
*13, 14, 15
page 10
page 11
question
numbers
page[s]
*16, 17, 18
*19, 20, 21
*22, 23, 24
*25, 26, 27
*28, 29, 30
pages 12–13
pages 14–15
pages 16–17
pages 18–19
pages 20–21
Section B: POETRY
text
Billy Collins: from Sailing Around the Room
from Songs of Ourselves
Section C: PROSE
text
Harper Lee: To Kill a Mockingbird
Carson McCullers: The Member of the Wedding
Amy Tan: The Joy Luck Club
Alice Walker: The Color Purple
from Stories of Ourselves
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SECTION A: DRAMA
LORRAINE HANSBERRY: A Raisin in the Sun
Either
*1 Read this extract, and then answer the question that follows it.
Walter enters. We feel the edge of unreality is still with him
New York ain’t got nothing Chicago ain’t. Just a bunch of
hustling people all squeezed up together – being ‘Eastern’.
(He turns his face into a screw of displeasure.)
George:
Oh – you’ve been?
Walter:
Plenty of times.
Ruth (shocked at the lie): Walter Lee Younger!
Walter (staring her down): Plenty! (Pause.) What we got to drink in this
house? Why don’t you offer this man some refreshment.
(To George.) They don’t know how to entertain people in this
house, man.
George:
Thank you – I don’t really care for anything.
Walter (feeling his head, sobriety coming): Where’s Mama?
Ruth:
She ain’t come back yet.
Walter (Looking George over from head to toe, scrutinising his carefully
casual tweed sports jacket over cashmere V-neck sweater
over soft eyelet shirt and tie, and soft slacks, finished off with
white buckskin shoes): Why all you college boys wear them
faggoty-looking white shoes?
Ruth:
Walter Lee!
George ignores this remark.
Walter (to Ruth): Well, they look crazy as hell – white shoes, cold as it is.
Ruth (crushed ): You have to excuse him –
Walter:
No, he don’t! Excuse me for what? What you always
excusing me for! I’ll excuse myself when I needs to be
excused! (Pause) They look as funny as them black knee
socks Beneatha wears out of here all the time.
Ruth:
It’s the college style, Walter.
Walter:
Style, hell. She looks like she got burnt legs or something!
Ruth:
Oh, Walter –
Walter (an irritable mimic): Oh, Walter! Oh, Walter! (to George.) How’s
your old man making out? I understand you all going to buy
that big hotel on the Drive? (He finds a beer in the
refrigerator, wanders over to George, sipping and wiping his
lips with the back of his hand and straddling a chair
backwards to talk to the other man.) Shrewd move. Your old
man is all right, man. (Tapping his head and half winking for
emphasis.) I mean he knows how to operate. I mean he
thinks big, you know what I mean, I mean for a home, you
know? But I think he’s kind of running out of ideas now. I’d
like to talk to him. Listen, man, I got some plans that could
turn this city upside down. I mean I think like he does. Big.
Invest big, gamble big, hell, lose big if you have to, you know
what I mean. It’s hard to find a man on this whole Southside
who understands my kind of thinking – you dig? (He
scrutinises George again, drinks his beer, squints his eyes
and leans in close, confidential, man to man.) Me and you
ought to sit down and talk sometimes, man. Man, I got me
some ideas …
George (with boredom): Yeah – sometimes we’ll have to do that, Walter.
Walter:
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Walter: (understanding the indifference, and offended): Yeah – well, when
you get the time, man. I know you a busy little boy.
Ruth:
Walter, please –
Walter (bitterly, hurt): I know ain’t nothing in this world as busy as you
coloured college boys with your fraternity pins and white
shoes…
Ruth (covering her face with humiliation): Oh, Walter Lee –
Walter:
I see you all all the time – with the books tucked under your
arms – going to your – (He mimics the British ‘a’.) ‘clahsses’.
And for what? What the hell you learning over there? Filling
up your heads – (Counting off on his fingers.) – with the
sociology and the psychology. But they teaching you how to
be a man? How to take over and run the world? They
teaching you how to run a rubber plantation or a steel mill?
Naw – just to talk proper and read books and wear them
faggoty-looking white shoes…
George (looking at him with distaste, a little above it all): You’re all
whacked up with bitterness, man.
Walter (intently, almost quietly, between the teeth, glaring at the boy): And
you – ain’t you bitter, man? Ain’t you just about had it yet?
Don’t you see no stars gleaming that you can’t reach out and
grab? You happy? – you contented son-of-a-bitch – you
happy? You got it made? Bitter? Man, I’m a volcano. Bitter?
Here I am a giant – surrounded by ants! Ants who can’t even
understand what it is the giant is talking about.
Ruth (passionately and suddenly): Oh, Walter – ain’t you with nobody?
Walter (violently): No! ’Cause ain’t nobody with me! Not even my own
mother!
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70
75
How does Hansberry powerfully convey Walter’s feelings to you in this extract?
Or
†
Which character in the play does Hansberry make you particularly admire, and for what
reasons? Support your answer by close reference to the play.
Or
3
You are Lindner at the end of the play.
2
Write your thoughts.
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WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE: Macbeth
Either
*4 Read this extract, and then answer the question that follows it.
Macbeth:
Lady Macbeth:
Macbeth:
Lady Macbeth:
Macbeth:
Lady Macbeth:
Macbeth:
Lady Macbeth:
Macbeth:
Lady Macbeth:
Macbeth:
Lady Macbeth:
Macbeth:
Lady Macbeth:
Macbeth:
Lady Macbeth:
Macbeth:
Lady Macbeth:
Macbeth
Lady Macbeth:
Macbeth:
Lady Macbeth:
© UCLES 2011
I have done the deed. Didst thou not hear a noise?
I heard the owl scream and the cricket’s cry.
Did not you speak?
When?
Now.
As I descended?
Ay.
Hark!
Who lies i’the second chamber?
Donalbain.
This is a sorry sight. [Looking on his hands]
A foolish thought to say a sorry sight.
There’s one did laugh in’s sleep, and one cried ‘Murder!’
That they did wake each other. I stood and heard them;
But they did say their prayers, and address’d them
Again to sleep.
There are two lodg’d together.
One cried ‘God bless us’, and ‘Amen’ the other,
As they had seen me with these hangman’s hands.
List’ning their fear, I could not say ‘Amen’
When they did say ‘God bless us.’
Consider it not so deeply.
But wherefore could not I pronounce ‘Amen’?
I had most need of blessing, and ‘Amen’
Stuck in my throat.
These deeds must not be thought
After these ways: so, it will make us mad.
Methought I heard a voice cry ‘Sleep no more;
Macbeth does murder sleep’ – the innocent sleep,
Sleep that knits up the ravell’d sleave of care,
The death of each day’s life, sore labour’s bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great nature’s second course,
Chief nourisher in life’s feast.
What do you mean?
Still it cried ‘Sleep no more’ to all the house;
‘Glamis hath murder’d sleep, and therefore Cawdor
Shall sleep no more – Macbeth shall sleep no more.’
Who was it that thus cried? Why, worthy Thane,
You do unbend your noble strength, to think
So brainsickly of things. Go, get some water,
And wash this filthy witness from your hand.
Why did you bring these daggers from the place?
They must lie there. Go carry them, and smear
The sleepy grooms with blood.
I’ll go no more:
I am afraid to think what I have done;
Look on’t again I dare not.
Infirm of purpose!
Give me the daggers. The sleeping and the dead
Are but as pictures; ’tis the eye of childhood
That fears a painted devil. If he do bleed,
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Macbeth:
Lady Macbeth:
Macbeth:
I’ll gild the faces of the grooms withal,
For it must seem their guilt.
[Exit. Knocking within
Whence is that knocking?
How is’t with me, when every noise appals me?
What hands are here! Ha! they pluck out mine eyes!
Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood
Clean from my hand? No; this my hand will rather
The multitudinous seas incarnadine,
Making the green one red.
[Re-enter Lady Macbeth.]
My hands are of your colour; but I shame
To wear a heart so white. [Knock] I hear a knocking
At the south entry; retire we to our chamber.
A little water clears us of this deed.
How easy is it then! Your constancy
Hath left you unattended. [Knock] Hark! more knocking.
Get on your nightgown, lest occasion call us
And show us to be watchers. Be not lost
So poorly in your thoughts.
To know my deed ’twere best not know myself. [Knock.
Wake Duncan with thy knocking! I would thou couldst!
[Exeunt.
55
60
65
70
How does Shakespeare make the horror in this extract memorable for you?
Or
†
Explore the ways in which Shakespeare makes Macbeth’s brutality as a king so
terrifying.
Or
6
You are Lady Macbeth just after the banquet has come to such a disastrous end. You
are now alone.
5
Write your thoughts.
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THORNTON WILDER: Our Town
Either
*7 Read this extract, and then answer the question that follows it.
Dr Gibbs:
Mrs Gibbs:
Dr Gibbs:
Mrs Gibbs:
Dr Gibbs:
Mrs Gibbs:
Dr Gibbs:
Mrs Gibbs:
Dr Gibbs:
Mrs Gibbs:
Dr Gibbs:
Mrs Gibbs:
Dr Gibbs:
Mrs Gibbs:
Dr Gibbs:
Mrs Gibbs
Dr Gibbs:
Mrs Gibbs:
Dr Gibbs:
Mrs Gibbs:
© UCLES 2011
Well, ma, the day has come. You’re losin’ one of your
chicks.
Frank Gibbs, don’t you say another word. I feel like crying
every minute. Sit down and drink your coffee.
The groom’s up shaving himself – only there ain’t an awful lot
to shave. Whistling and singing, like he’s glad to leave us –
Every now and then he says ‘I do’ to the mirror, but it don’t
sound convincing to me.
I declare, Frank, I don’t know how he’ll get along. I’ve
arranged his clothes and seen to it he’s put warm things on –
Frank! they’re too young. Emily won’t think of such things.
He’ll catch his death of cold within a week.
I was remembering my wedding morning, Julia.
Now don’t start that, Frank Gibbs.
I was the scardest young fella in the State of New
Hampshire. I thought I’d make a mistake for sure. And
when I saw you comin’ down the aisle I thought you were the
prettiest girl I’d ever seen, but the only trouble was that I’d
never seen you before. There I was in the Congregational
Church marryin’ a total stranger.
And how do you think I felt! – Frank, weddings are perfectly
awful things. Farces – that’s what they are!
[She puts a plate before him.]
Here, I’ve made something for you.
Why, Julia Hersey – French toast!
‘Taint hard to make and I had to do something.
[Pause. Dr Gibbs pours on the syrup.]
How’d you sleep last night, Julia?
Well, I heard a lot of the hours struck off.
Ye-e-s! I get a shock every time I think of George setting out
to be a family man – that great gangling thing! – I tell you
Julia, there’s nothing so terrifying in the world as a son. The
relation of father and son is the darndest, awkwardest –
Well, mother and daughter’s no picnic, let me tell you.
They’ll have a lot of troubles, I suppose, but that’s none of
our business. Everybody has a right to their own troubles.
[at the table, drinking her coffee, meditatively]: Yes…people
are meant to go through life two by two. ‘Tain’t natural to be
lonesome.
[Pause. Dr Gibbs starts laughing.]
Julia, do you know one of the things I was scared of when I
married you?
Oh, go along with you!
I was afraid we wouldn’t have material for conversation
more’n’d last us a few weeks.
[Both laugh.]
I was afraid we’d run out and eat our meals in silence, that’s
a fact – Well, you and I been conversing for twenty years
now without any noticeable barren spells.
Well – good weather, bad weather – ‘tain’t very choice, but I
always find something to say.
[She goes to the foot of the stairs.]
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Did you hear Rebecca stirring around upstairs?
No. Only day of the year Rebecca hasn’t been managing
everybody’s business up there. She’s hiding in her room – I
got the impression she’s crying.
Mrs Gibbs: Lord’s sakes! – This has got to stop – Rebecca! Rebecca!
Come and get your breakfast.
[George comes rattling down the stairs, very brisk.]
George:
Good morning, everybody. Only five more hours to live.
Dr Gibbs:
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In this extract, how does Wilder vividly portray the relationship between Dr and Mrs
Gibbs and their attitudes towards their children?
Or
†
Explore two moments in the play which you find particularly sad, showing how Wilder
makes them so sad.
Or
9
You are Mr Webb. You have just said goodnight to Emily as she sits down at her
window (at the end of Act 1).
8
Write your thoughts.
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SECTION B: POETRY
BILLY COLLINS: from Sailing Around the Room: New and Selected Poems
Either
*10 Read this poem, and then answer the question that follows it:
Monday Morning
The complacency of this student, late
for the final, who chews her pen for an hour,
who sits in her sunny chair,
with a container of coffee and an orange,
a cockatoo swinging freely in her green mind
as if on some drug dissolved,
mingling to give her a wholly ancient rush.
She dreams a little and she fears the mark
she might well get –– a catastrophe ––
as a frown darkens the hauteur of her light brow.
The orange peels and her bright senior ring
make her think of some procession of classmates,
walking across the wide campus, without a sound,
stalled for the passing of her sneakered feet
over the lawn, to silent pals and stein,
dorm of nobody who would bother to pull an A or care.
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15
Explore the ways in which Collins vividly portrays the student in this poem.
Or
†
Or
†
11 What do you find striking and unusual about the ways in which Collins expresses his
ideas in either The Man in the Moon or Advice to Writers?
12 Explore one poem in this selection which you think memorably conveys Collin’s feelings
about teaching. Support your answer by close reference to the poem.
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from Songs of Ourselves: The University of Cambridge International Examinations Anthology
of Poetry in English
Either
*13 Read this poem, and then answer the question that follows it:
The Bay
On the road to the bay was a lake of rushes
Where we bathed at times and changed in the bamboos.
Now it is rather to stand and say:
How many roads we take that lead to Nowhere.
The alley overgrown, no meaning now but a loss:
Not that veritable garden where everything comes easy.
And by the bay itself were cliffs with carved names
And a hut on the shore beside the Maori ovens.
We raced boats from the banks of the pumice creek
Or swam in those autumnal shallows
Growing cold in amber water, riding the logs
Upstream, and waiting for the taniwha.
So now I remember the bay and the little spiders
On driftwood, so poisonous and quick.
The carved cliffs and the great outcrying surf
With currents round the rocks and the birds rising.
A thousand times an hour is torn across
And burned for the sake of going on living.
But I remember the bay that never was
And stand like stone and cannot turn away.
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20
(by James K. Baxter)
Explore the ways in which the speaker vividly recalls memories.
Or
†
Or
†
14 In what ways does the poet powerfully convey ideas about life and death in one of the
following poems:
On Finding a Small Fly Crushed in a Book (by Charles Tennyson Turner)
Ozymandis (by Percy Bysshe Shelley)
15 Explore the ways in which poets make vivid use of words which appeal to the senses in
two of the poems you have studied from Songs of Ourselves.
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SECTION C: PROSE
HARPER LEE: To Kill a Mockingbird
Either
*16 Read this extract, and then answer the question that follows it:
‘All right, Mr Finch, get ‘em outa here’, someone growled. ‘You got
fifteen seconds to get ‘em outa here.’
In the midst of this strange assembly, Atticus stood trying to make
Jem mind him. ‘I ain’t going,’ was his steady answer to Atticus’s threats,
requests, and finally, ‘Please Jem, take them home.’
I was getting a bit tired of that, but felt Jem had his own reasons for
doing as he did, in view of his prospects once Atticus did get home. I
looked around the crowd. It was a Summer’s night, but the men were
dressed, most of them, in overalls and denim shirts buttoned up to the
collars. I thought they must be cold-natured, as their sleeves were
unrolled and buttoned at the cuffs. Some wore hats pulled firmly down
over their ears. They were sullen-looking, sleepy-eyed men who seemed
unused to late hours. I sought once more for a familiar face, and at the
centre of the semi-circle I found one.
‘Hey, Mr Cunningham.’
The man did not hear me, it seemed.
‘Hey, Mr Cunningham. How’s your entailment gettin’ along?’
Mr Walter Cunningham’s legal affairs were well known to me; Atticus
had once described them at length. The big man blinked and hooked his
thumbs in his overall straps. He seemed uncomfortable; he cleared his
throat and looked away. My friendly overture had fallen flat.
Mr Cunningham wore no hat, and the top half of his forehead was
white in contrast to his sun-scorched face, which led me to believe that he
wore one most days. He shifted his feet, clad in heavy work shoes.
‘Don’t you remember me, Mr Cunningham? I’m Jean Louise Finch.
You brought us some hickory nuts one time, remember?’ I began to sense
the futility one feels when unacknowledged by a chance acquaintance.
‘I go to school with Walter,’ I began again. ‘He’s your boy, ain’t he?
Ain’t he, sir?’
Mr Cunningham was moved to a faint nod. He did know me, after all.
‘He’s in my grade,’ I said ‘and he does right well. He’s a good boy,’ I
added, ‘a real nice boy. We brought him home for dinner one time. Maybe
he told you about me, I beat him up one time but he was real nice about it.
Tell him hey for me, won’t you?’
Atticus had said it was the polite thing to talk to people about what
they were interested in, not about what you were interested in. Mr
Cunningham displayed no interest in his son, so I tackled his entailment
once more in a last-ditch effort to make him feel at home.
‘Entailments are bad,’ I was advising him, when I slowly awoke to the
fact that I was addressing the entire aggregation. The men were all
looking at me, some had their mouths half-open. Atticus had stopped
poking at Jem: they were standing together beside Dill. Their attention
amounted to fascination. Atticus’s mouth, even, was half-open, an attitude
he had once described as uncouth. Our eyes met and he shut it.
‘Well, Atticus, I was just sayin’ to Mr Cunningham that entailments are
bad an’ all that, but you said not to worry, it takes a long time
sometimes…that you all’d ride it out together…’ I was slowly drying up,
wondering what idiocy I had committed. Entailments seemed all right
enough for living-room talk.
I began to feel sweat gathering at the edges of my hair; I could stand
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anything but a bunch of people looking at me. They were quite still.
‘What’s the matter?’ I asked.
Atticus said nothing. I looked around and up at Mr Cunningham,
whose face was equally impassive. Then he did a peculiar thing. He
squatted down and took me by both shoulders.
‘I’ll tell him you said hey, little lady,’ he said.
Then he straightened up and waved a big paw. ‘Let’s clear out,’ he
called. ‘Let’s get going, boys.’
55
What makes this such a powerfully dramatic moment in the novel?
Or
†
Or
18 You are Bob Ewell as you make your way to the courthouse at the beginning of the trial
of Tom Robinson.
17 To what extent do you think the relationship between Scout and Jem changes during the
course of the novel? Support your ideas with details from the novel.
Write your thoughts.
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CARSON McCULLERS: The Member of the Wedding
Either
*19 Read this extract, and then answer the question that follows it:
She could hear the broken-sounding organ plainly, although they
were not on the main street, but up farther and probably just around the
corner of the next block. So F. Jasmine hurried towards them. As she
neared the corner, she heard other sounds that puzzled her curiosity so
that she listened and stopped. Above the music of the organ there was the
sound of a man’s voice quarrelling and the excited higher fussing of the
monkey-man. She could hear the monkey chattering also. Then suddenly
the organ stopped and the two different voices were loud and mad. F.
Jasmine had reached the corner, and it was the corner by the Sears and
Roebuck store; she passed the store slowly, then turned and faced a
curious sight.
It was a narrow street that went downhill towards Front Avenue,
blinding bright in the wild glare. There on the sidewalk was the monkey,
the monkey-man, and a soldier holding out a whole fistful of dollar bills – it
looked at the first glance like a hundred dollars. The soldier looked angry,
and the monkey-man was pale and excited also. Their voices were
quarrelling and F. Jasmine gathered that the soldier was trying to buy the
monkey. The monkey himself was crouched and shivering down on the
sidewalk close to the brick wall of the Sears and Roebuck store. In spite of
the hot day, he had on his little red coat with silver buttons and his little
face, scared and desperate, had the look of someone who is just about to
sneeze. Shivering and pitiful, he kept bowing at nobody and offering his
cap into the air. He knew the furious voices were about him and he felt
blamed.
F. Jasmine was standing nearby, trying to take in the commotion,
listening and still. Then suddenly the soldier grabbed at the monkey’s
chain, but the monkey screamed, and before she knew what it was all
about, the monkey had skittered up her leg and body and was huddled on
her soldier with his little monkey hands around her head. It happened in a
flash, and she was so shocked she could not move. The voices stopped
and, except for the monkey’s jibbered scream, the street was silent. The
soldier stood slack-jawed, surprised, still holding out the handful of dollar
bills.
The monkey-man was the first to recover; he spoke to the monkey in
a gentle voice, and in another second the monkey sprang from off her
shoulder and landed on the organ which the monkey-man was carrying on
his back. The two of them went away. They quickly hurried around the
corner and at the last second, just as they turned, they both looked back
with the same expression – reproaching and sly. F. Jasmine leaned
against the brick wall, and she still felt the monkey on her shoulder and
smelt his dusty, sour smell; she shivered. The soldier muttered until the
pair of them were out of sight, and F. Jasmine noticed then that he was
red-haired and the same soldier who had been in the Blue Moon. He
stuffed the bills in his side pocket.
‘He certainly is a darling monkey,’ F. Jasmine said. ‘But it gave me a
mighty funny feeling to have him run up me like that.’
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How does McCullers make this such a memorable moment in the novel?
Or
†
Or
21 You are John Henry. You have just got on the bus to go home after the wedding.
20 In what ways does McCullers make you sympathise with Frankie? Support your ideas
with details from the novel.
Write your thoughts.
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AMY TAN: The Joy Luck Club
Either
*22 Read this passage carefully, and then answer the question that follows it:
I no longer played in the alley of the Waverly Place. I never visited the
playground where the pigeons and old men gathered. I went to school,
then directly home to learn new chess secrets, cleverly concealed
advantages, more escape routes.
But I found it difficult to concentrate at home. My mother had a habit
of standing over me while I plotted out my games. I think she thought of
herself as my protective ally. Her lips would be sealed tight, and after each
move I made, a soft “Hmmmmph” would escape from her nose.
“Ma, I can’t practice when you stand there like that,” I said one day.
She retreated to the kitchen and made loud noises with the pots and pans.
When the crashing stopped, I could see out of the corner of my eye that
she was standing in the doorway. “Hmmmmph!” Only this one came out of
her tight throat.
My parents made many concessions to allow me to practice. One
time I complained that the bedroom I shared was so noisy that I couldn’t
think. Thereafter, my brothers slept in a bed in the living room facing the
street. I said I couldn’t finish my rice; my head didn’t work right when my
stomach was too full. I left the table with half-finished bowls and nobody
complained. But there was one duty I couldn’t avoid. I had to accompany
my mother on Saturday market days when I had no tournament to play.
My mother would proudly walk with me, visiting many shops, buying very
little. “This my daughter Wave-ly Jong,” she said to whoever looked her
way.
One day, after we left the shop I said under my breath, “I wish you
wouldn’t do that, telling everybody I’m your daughter.” My mother stopped
walking. Crowds of people with heavy bags pushed past us on the
sidewalk, bumping into first one shoulder, then another.
“Aiii-ya. So shame be with mother?” She grasped my hand even
tighter as she glared at me.
I looked down. “It’s not that, it’s just so obvious. It’s just
embarrassing.”
“Embarrass you be my daughter?” Her voice was cracking with anger.
“That’s not what I meant. That’s not what I said.”
“What you say?”
I knew it was a mistake to say anything more, but I heard my voice
speaking. “Why do you have to use me to show off? If you want to show
off, then why don’t you learn to play chess.”
My mother’s eyes turned into dangerous black slits. She had no
words for me, just sharp silence.
I felt the wind rushing around my hot ears. I jerked my hand out of my
mother’s tight grasp and spun around, knocking into an old woman. Her
bag or groceries spilled to the ground.
“Aii-ya! Stupid girl! my mother and the woman cried. Oranges and tin
cans careened down the sidewalk. As my mother stooped to help the old
woman pick up the escaping food, I took off.
I raced down the street, dashing between people, not looking back as
my mother screamed shrilly, “Meimei! Meimei!” I fled down an alley, past
dark curtained shops and merchants washing the grime off their windows.
I sped into the sunlight, into a large street crowded with tourists examining
trinkets and souvenirs. I ducked into another dark alley, down another
street, up another alley, I ran until it hurt and I realized I had nowhere to
go, that I was not running from anything. The alleys contained no escape
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routes.
My breath came out like angry smoke. It was cold. I sat down on an
upturned plastic pail next to a stack of empty boxes, cupping my chin with
my hands, thinking hard. I imagined my mother, first walking briskly down
one street or another looking for me, then giving up and returning home to
await my arrival. After two hours, I stood up on creaking legs and slowly
walked home.
The alley was quiet and I could see the yellow lights shining from our
flat like two tiger’s eyes in the night. I climbed the sixteen steps to the
door, advancing quietly up each so as not to make any warning sounds. I
turned the knob; the door was locked. I heard a chair moving, quick steps,
the locks turning – click! click! click! – and then the door opened.
“About time you got home,” said Vincent. “Boy, are you in trouble.”
He slid back to the dinner table. On a platter were the remains of a
large fish, its fleshy head still connected to bones swimming upstream in
vain escape. Standing there waiting for my punishment, I heard my
mother speak in a dry voice.
“We are not concerning this girl. This girl not have concerning for us.”
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How does Tan powerfully convey the conflict between Waverly and her mother Lindo in
this passage?
Or
†
Or
24 You are Rich Shields (in ‘Four Directions’) on the morning after what Waverly thinks has
been the disastrous dinner at her mother’s. Waverly has just left to see her mother
again.
23 What aspect of Chinese-American women do you find most memorably portrayed in the
stories of An-Mei Hsu and her daughter Rose Hsu Jordan (‘Scar’, ‘Half and Half’,
‘Without Wood’, ‘Magpies’)? Show how Tan’s writing makes them memorable.
Write your thoughts.
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18
ALICE WALKER: The Colour Purple
Either
*25 Read this extract, and then answer the question which follows it:
Mr –––– daddy show up this evening. He a little short shrunk up man
with a bald head and gold spectacles. He clear his throat a lot, like
everything he say need announcement. Talk with his head leant to the
side.
He come right to the point.
Just couldn’t rest till you got her in your house, could you? he say,
coming up the step.
Mr –––– don’t say nothing. Look out cross the railing at the trees, over
the top of the well. Eyes rest on the top of Harpo and Sofia house.
Won’t you have a seat? I ast, pushing him up a chair. How bout a cool
drink of water?
Through the window I hear Shug humming and humming, practicing
her little song. I sneak back to her room and shet the window.
Old Mr –––– say to Mr ––––, Just what is it bout this Shug Avery
anyway, he say. She black as tar, she nappy headed. She got legs like
baseball bats.
Mr –––– don’t say nothing. I drop a little spit in Old Mr –––– water.
Why, say Old Mr ––––, she ain’t even clean. I hear she got the nasty
woman disease.
I twirl the spit round with my finger. I think bout ground glass, wonder
how you grind it. But I don’t feel mad at all. Just interest.
Mr –––– turn his head slow, watch his daddy drink. Then say, real
sad, You ain’t got it in you to understand, he say. I love Shug Avery.
Always have, always will. I should have married her when I had the
chance.
Yeah, say Old Mr ––––. And throwed your life away. (Mr–––– grunt
right there.) And a right smart of my money with it. Old Mr –––– clear his
throat. Nobody even sure exactly who her daddy is.
I never care who her daddy is, say Mr––––.
And her mammy take in white people dirty clothes to this day. Plus all
her children got different daddys. It all just too trifling and confuse.
Well, say Mr –––– and turn full face on his daddy, All Shug Avery
children got the same daddy. I vouch for that.
Old Mr –––– clear his throat. Well, this my house. This my land. Your
boy Harpo in one of my houses, on my land. Weeds come up on my land,
I chop ‘em up. Trash blow over it I burn it. He rise to go. Hand me his
glass. Next time he come I put a little Shug Avery pee in his glass. See
how he like that.
Celie, he say, you have my sympathy. Not many women let they
husband whore lay up in they house.
But he not saying this to me, he saying it to Mr––––.
Mr –––– look up at me, our eyes meet. This the closest us ever felt.
He say Hand Pa his hat, Celie.
And I do. Mr –––– don’t move from his chair by the railing. I stand in
the door. Us watch Old Mr –––– begin harrumping and harrumping down
the road home.
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How does Walker make this such a memorable moment in the novel?
Or
†
Or
27 You are Sofia on the morning after your arrest for punching the mayor.
26 Explore the ways in which Walker makes Shug such a compelling character.
Write your thoughts.
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20
from Songs of Ourselves: The University of Cambridge International Examinations Anthology
of Poetry in English
Either
*28 Read this extract from The Prison (by Bernard Malamud), and then answer the question
which follows it:
Though he tried not to think of it, at twenty-nine Tommy Castelli’s life was
a screaming bore. It wasn’t just Rosa or the store they tended for profits
counted in pennies, or the unendurably slow hours and endless drivel that
went with selling candy, cigarettes, and soda water; it was this sick-in-thestomach feeling of being trapped in old mistakes, even some he had
made before Rosa changed Tony into Tommy. He had been as Tony a kid
of many dreams and schemes, especially getting out of this tenementcrowded, kid-squawking neighbourhood, with its lousy poverty, but
everything had fouled up against him before he could. When he was
sixteen he quit the vocational school where they were making him into a
shoemaker, and began to hang out with the gray-hatted, thick-soled-shoe
boys, who had the spare time and the mazuma and showed it in fat
wonderful rolls down in the cellar of clubs to all who would look, and
everybody did, popeyed. They were the ones who had bought the silver
caffe espresso urn and later the television, and they arranged the pizza
parties and had the girls down; but it was getting in with them and their
cars, leading to the holdup of a liquor store, that had started all the
present trouble. Lucky for him the coal-and-ice man who was their
landlord knew the leader in the district, and they arranged something so
nobody bothered him after that. Then before he knew what was going on
– he had been frightened sick by the whole mess – there was his father
cooking up a deal with Rosa Agnello’s old man that Tony would marry her
and the father-in-law would, out of his savings, open a candy store for him
to make an honest living. He wouldn’t spit on a candy store, and Rosa
was too plain and lank a chick for his personal taste, so he beat it off to
Texas and bummed around in too much space, and when he came back
everybody said it was for Rosa and the candy store, and it was all
arranged again and he, without saying no, was in it.
That was how he had landed on Prince Street in the Village, working
from eight in the morning to almost midnight every day, except for an hour
off each afternoon when he went upstairs to sleep, and on Tuesdays,
when the store was closed and he slept some more and went at night
alone to the movies. He was too tired for schemes now, but once he tried
to make a little cash on the side by secretly taking in punch-boards some
syndicate was distributing in the neighbourhood, on which he collected a
nice cut and in this way saved fifty-five bucks that Rosa didn’t know about;
but then the syndicate was written up by a newspaper, and the
punchboards all disappeared. Another time, when Rosa was at her
mother’s house, he took a chance and let them put in a slot machine that
could guarantee a nice piece of change if he kept it long enough. He knew
of course he couldn’t hide it from her, so when she came and screamed
when she saw it, he was ready and patient, for once not yelling back when
she yelled, and he explained it was not the same as gambling because
anybody who played it got a roll of mints every time he put in a nickel.
Also the machine would supply them a few extra dollars cash they could
use to buy television so he could see the fights without going to a bar; but
Rosa wouldn’t let up screaming, and later her father came in shouting that
he was a criminal and chopped the machine apart with a plumber’s
hammer. The next day the cops raided for slot machines and gave out
summonses wherever they found them, and though Tommy’s place was
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practically the only candy store in the in the neighbourhood that didn’t
have one he felt bad about the machine for a long time.
Mornings had been his best time of the day because Rosa stayed
upstairs cleaning, and since few people came into the store till noon, he
could sit around alone, a toothpick in his teeth, looking over the News and
Mirror on the fountain counter, or maybe gab with one of the old cellarclub guys who had happened to come by for a pack of butts, about a
horse that was running that day or how the numbers were playing lately;
or just sit there, drinking coffee and thinking how far he could get on the
fifty-five he had stashed away in the cellar. Generally the mornings were
this way, but after the slot machine, usually the whole day stank and he
along with it. Time rotted in him, and all he could think of the whole
morning, was going to sleep in the afternoon, and he would wake up with
the sour remembrance of the long night in the store ahead of him, while
everybody else was doing as he damn pleased. He cursed the candy
store and Rosa, and cursed from its beginning, his unhappy life.
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In what ways does Malamud make this such a striking introduction to the character of
Tommy Castelli?
Or
†
Or
30 You are Da-duh (in To Da-duh, In Memoriam). You have just said goodbye to your
daughter and granddaughters as they return to New York.
29 How does the writer memorably portray the experience of being a child in either Games
at Twilight (by Anita Desai) or Sredni Vashtar (by Saki)?
Write your thoughts.
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University of Cambridge International Examinations is part of the Cambridge Assessment Group. Cambridge Assessment is the brand name of University of
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