Cambridge International Examinations

Cambridge International General Certificate of Secondary Education

LITERATURE (ENGLISH) 0486/13

Paper 1 Poetry and Prose October/November 2016
1 hour 30 minutes
No Additional Materials are required.
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An answer booklet is provided inside this question paper. You should follow the instructions on the front cover
of the answer booklet. If you need additional answer paper ask the invigilator for a continuation booklet.

Answer two questions: one question from Section A and one question from Section B.

All questions in this paper carry equal marks.

The syllabus is approved for use in England, Wales and Northern Ireland as a Cambridge International Level 1/Level 2 Certificate.

This document consists of 25 printed pages, 3 blank pages and 1 insert.

DC (RCL (JDA)) 114797/4

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CONTENTS

Section A: Poetry

text question
numbers page[s]

Thomas Hardy: from Selected Poems 1, 2 pages 5–7

from Jo Phillips ed: Poems Deep & Dangerous 3, 4 pages 8–9
Songs of Ourselves Volume 2 : from Part 1 5, 6 pages 10–11

Section B: Prose

text question
numbers page[s]

Chinua Achebe: No Longer at Ease 7, 8 pages 12–13

Jane Austen: Northanger Abbey 9, 10 pages 14–15
George Eliot: Silas Marner 11, 12 pages 16–17
Michael Frayn: Spies 13, 14 pages 18–19
Susan Hill: I’m the King of the Castle 15, 16 pages 20–21
R. K. Narayan: The English Teacher 17, 18 pages 22–23
Robert Louis Stevenson: The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde 19, 20 pages 24–25
from Stories of Ourselves 21, 22 pages 26–27

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SECTION A: POETRY

Answer one question from this section.

THOMAS HARDY: from Selected Poems

Remember to support your ideas with details from the writing.

Either 1 Read this poem, and then answer the question that follows it:

At the Word ‘Farewell’

She looked like a bird from a cloud

On the clammy lawn,
Moving alone, bare-browed
In the dim of dawn.
The candles alight in the room 5
For my parting meal
Made all things withoutdoors loom
Strange, ghostly, unreal.

The hour itself was a ghost,

And it seemed to me then 10
As of chances the chance furthermost
I should see her again.
I beheld not where all was so fleet
That a Plan of the past
Which had ruled us from birthtime to meet 15
Was in working at last:

No prelude did I there perceive

To a drama at all,
Or foreshadow what fortune might weave
From beginnings so small; 20
But I rose as if quicked by a spur
I was bound to obey,
And stepped through the casement to her
Still alone in the gray.

‘I am leaving you … Farewell!’ I said 25

As I followed her on
By an alley bare boughs overspread;
‘I soon must be gone!’
Even then the scale might have been turned
Against love by a feather, 30
– But crimson one cheek of hers burned
When we came in together.

How does Hardy vividly convey powerful emotions in At the Word ‘Farewell ’ ?

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Or 2 Explore the ways in which Hardy uses language to create striking effects in The
Convergence of the Twain.

The Convergence of the Twain

(Lines on the loss of the ‘Titanic’ )

I
In a solitude of the sea
Deep from human vanity,
And the Pride of Life that planned her, stilly couches she.

II
Steel chambers, late the pyres
Of her salamandrine fires, 5
Cold currents thrid, and turn to rhythmic tidal lyres.

III
Over the mirrors meant
To glass the opulent
The sea-worm crawls – grotesque, slimed, dumb, indifferent.

IV
Jewels in joy designed 10
To ravish the sensuous mind
Lie lightless, all their sparkles bleared and black and blind.

V
Dim moon-eyed fishes near
Gaze at the gilded gear
And query: ‘What does this vaingloriousness down here?’ … 15

VI
Well: while was fashioning
This creature of cleaving wing,
The Immanent Will that stirs and urges everything

VII
Prepared a sinister mate
For her – so gaily great – 20
A Shape of Ice, for the time far and dissociate.

VIII
And as the smart ship grew
In stature, grace, and hue,
In shadowy silent distance grew the Iceberg too.

IX
Alien they seemed to be: 25
No mortal eye could see
The intimate welding of their later history,

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X
Or sign that they were bent
By paths coincident
On being anon twin halves of one august event, 30

XI
Till the Spinner of the Years
Said ‘Now!’ And each one hears,
And consummation comes, and jars two hemispheres.

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from JO PHILLIPS ed: Poems Deep & Dangerous

Remember to support your ideas with details from the writing.

Either 3 Read this poem, and then answer the question that follows it:

Shall I Compare Thee…?

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, 5
And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or Nature’s changing course, untrimm’d;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest; 10
Nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest;
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

(William Shakespeare)

How does Shakespeare make the sonnet Shall I Compare Thee…? such a moving
expression of love?

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Or 4 Explore the ways in which Clare vividly conveys the strength of the speaker’s feelings in
First Love.

First Love

I ne’er was struck before that hour

With love so sudden and so sweet.
Her face it bloomed like a sweet flower
And stole my heart away complete.
My face turned pale as deadly pale, 5
My legs refused to walk away,
And when she looked ‘what could I ail?’
My life and all seemed turned to clay.

And then my blood rushed to my face

And took my sight away. 10
The trees and bushes round the place
Seemed midnight at noonday.
I could not see a single thing,
Words from my eyes did start;
They spoke as chords do from the string 15
And blood burnt round my heart.

Are flowers the winter’s choice?

Is love’s bed always snow?
She seemed to hear my silent voice
And love’s appeal to know. 20
I never saw so sweet a face
As that I stood before:
My heart has left its dwelling-place
And can return no more.

(John Clare)

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SONGS OF OURSELVES VOLUME 2: from Part 1

Remember to support your ideas with details from the writing.

Either 5 Read this poem, and then answer the question that follows it:

Lovers’ Infiniteness

If yet I have not all thy love,

Dear, I shall never have it all,
I cannot breathe one other sigh, to move,
Nor can entreat one other tear to fall.
All my treasure, which should purchase thee, 5
Sighs, tears, and oaths, and letters I have spent,
Yet no more can be due to me,
Than at the bargain made was meant.
If then thy gift of love were partial,
That some to me, some should to others fall, 10
Dear, I shall never have thee all.

Or if then thou gavest me all,

All was but all, which thou hadst then;
But if in thy heart, since, there be or shall
New love created be, by other men, 15
Which have their stocks entire, and can in tears,
In sighs, in oaths, and letters outbid me,
This new love may beget new fears,
For, this love was not vowed by thee.
And yet it was, thy gift being general, 20
The ground, thy heart is mine; whatever shall
Grow there, dear, I should have it all.

Yet I would not have all yet,

He that hath all can have no more,
And since my love doth every day admit 25
New growth, thou shouldst have new rewards in store;
Thou canst not every day give me thy heart,
If thou canst give it, then thou never gav’st it:
Love’s riddles are, that though thy heart depart,
It stays at home, and thou with losing sav’st it: 30
But we will have a way more liberal,
Than changing hearts, to join them, so we shall
Be one, and one another’s all.

(John Donne)

How does Donne strikingly convey the thoughts and feelings of the speaker in Lovers’
Infiniteness?

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Or 6 How does Jones create a sense of menace in Tiger in the Menagerie ?

Tiger in the Menagerie

No one could say how the tiger got into the menagerie.
It was too flash, too blue,
too much like the painting of a tiger.

At night the bars of the cage and the stripes of the tiger
looked into each other so long 5
that when it was time for those eyes to rock shut

the bars were the lashes of the stripes

the stripes were the lashes of the bars

and they walked together in their dreams so long

through the long colonnade 10
that shed its fretwork to the Indian main

that when the sun rose they’d gone and the tiger was
one clear orange eye that walked into the menagerie.

No one could say how the tiger got out in the menagerie.
It was too bright, too bare. 15
If the menagerie could, it would say ‘tiger’.

If the aviary could, it would lock its door.

Its heart began to beat in rows of rising birds
when the tiger came inside to wait.

(Emma Jones )

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SECTION B: PROSE

Answer one question from this section.

CHINUA ACHEBE: No Longer at Ease

Remember to support your ideas with details from the writing.

Either 7 Read this extract, and then answer the question that follows it:

If Obi had returned by mail-boat, the Umuofia Progressive Union (Lagos

Branch) would have given him a royal welcome at the harbour. Anyhow,
it was decided at their meeting that a big reception should be arranged to
which press reporters and photographers should be invited.
An invitation was also sent to the Nigerian Broadcasting Service to cover 5
the occasion and to record the Umuofia Ladies’ Vocal Orchestra which
had been learning a number of new songs.
The reception took place on Saturday afternoon at 4 p.m. on Moloney
Street, where the President had two rooms.
Everybody was properly dressed in agbada or European suit except the 10
guest of honour, who appeared in his shirtsleeves because of the heat.
That was Obi’s mistake Number One. Everybody expected a young man
from England to be impressively turned out.
After prayers the Secretary of the Union read the Welcome Address. He
rose, cleared his throat and began to intone from an enormous sheet of 15
paper.
‘Welcome Address presented to Michael Obi Okonkwo, B.A. (Hons),
London, by the officers and members of the Umuofia Progressive Union
on the occasion of his return from the United Kingdom in quest of the
Golden Fleece. 20
‘Sir, we the officers and members of the above-named Union present with
humility and gratitude this token of our appreciation of your unprecedented
academic brilliance …’
He spoke of the great honour Obi had brought to the ancient town of
Umuofia which could now join the comity of other towns in their march 25
towards political irredentism, social equality and economic emancipation.
‘The importance of having one of our sons in the vanguard of this march
of progress is nothing short of axiomatic. Our people have a saying:
“Ours is ours, but mine is mine.” Every town and village struggles at this
momentous epoch in our political evolution to possess that of which it can 30
say: “This is mine.” We are happy that today we have such an invaluable
possession in the person of our illustrious son and guest of honour.’
He traced the history of the Umuofia Scholarship Scheme which had
made it possible for Obi to study overseas, and called it an investment
which must yield heavy dividends. He then referred (quite obliquely, of 35
course) to the arrangement whereby the beneficiary from this scheme was
expected to repay his debt over four years so that ‘an endless stream of
students will be enabled to drink deep at the Pierian Spring of knowledge’.
Needless to say, this address was repeatedly interrupted by cheers
and the clapping of hands. What a sharp young man their secretary 40
was, all said. He deserved to go to England himself. He wrote the kind
of English they admired if not understood: the kind that filled the mouth,
like the proverbial dry meat. Obi’s English, on the other hand, was most
unimpressive.
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He spoke ‘is’ and ‘was’. He told them about the value of education. 45
‘Education for service, not for white-collar jobs and comfortable salaries.
With our great country on the threshold of independence, we need men
who are prepared to serve her well and truly.’
When he sat down the audience clapped from politeness. Mistake
Number Two. 50
Cold beer, minerals, palm-wine and biscuits were then served, and the
women began to sing about Umuofia and about Obi Okonkwo nwa jelu
oyibo – Obi who had been to the land of the whites. The refrain said over
and over again that the power of the leopard resided in its claws.
‘Have they given you a job yet?’ the chairman asked Obi over the music. 55
In Nigeria the government was ‘they’. It had nothing to do with you or me.
It was an alien institution and people’s business was to get as much from it
as they could without getting into trouble.
‘Not yet. I’m attending an interview on Monday.’
‘Of course those of you who know book will not have any difficulty,’ said 60
the Vice-President on Obi’s left. ‘Otherwise I would have suggested seeing
some of the men beforehand.’
‘It would not be necessary,’ said the President, ‘since they would be
mostly white men.’
‘You think white men don’t eat bribe? Come to our department. They eat 65
more than black men nowadays.’

[from Chapter 4]

How does Achebe make this moment in the novel so memorable?

Or 8 To what extent does Achebe’s writing make you sympathise with Clara?

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JANE AUSTEN: Northanger Abbey

Remember to support your ideas with details from the writing.

Either 9 Read this extract, and then answer the question that follows it:

The two dances were scarcely concluded before Catherine found her
arm gently seized by her faithful Isabella, who in great spirits exclaimed—
‘At last I have got you. My dearest creature, I have been looking for you
this hour. What could induce you to come into this set, when you knew I
was in the other? I have been quite wretched without you.’ 5
‘My dear Isabella, how was it possible for me to get at you? I could not
even see where you were.’
‘So I told your brother all the time—but he would not believe me. Do go
and see for her, Mr. Morland, said I—but all in vain—he would not stir an
inch. Was not it so, Mr. Morland? But you men are all so immoderately 10
lazy! I have been scolding him to such a degree, my dear Catherine, you
would be quite amazed.—You know I never stand upon ceremony with
such people.’
‘Look at that young lady with the white beads round her head,’ whispered
Catherine, detaching her friend from James—‘It is Mr. Tilney’s sister.’ 15
‘Oh! heavens! You don’t say so! Let me look at her this moment. What a
delightful girl! I never saw any thing half so beautiful! But where is her all-
conquering brother? Is he in the room? Point him out to me this instant, if
he is. I die to see him. Mr. Morland, you are not to listen. We are not talking
about you.’ 20
‘But what is all this whispering about? What is going on?’
‘There now, I knew how it would be. You men have such restless
curiosity! Talk of the curiosity of women, indeed!—’tis nothing. But be
satisfied, for you are not to know any thing at all of the matter.’
‘And is that likely to satisfy me, do you think?’ 25
‘Well, I declare I never knew any thing like you. What can it signify to
you, what we are talking of? Perhaps we are talking about you, therefore I
would advise you not to listen, or you may happen to hear something not
very agreeable.’
In this common-place chatter, which lasted some time, the original 30
subject seemed entirely forgotten; and though Catherine was very well
pleased to have it dropped for a while, she could not avoid a little suspicion
at the total suspension of all Isabella’s impatient desire to see Mr. Tilney.
When the orchestra struck up a fresh dance, James would have led his
fair partner away, but she resisted. ‘I tell you, Mr. Morland,’ she cried, 35
‘I would not do such a thing for all the world. How can you be so teasing;
only conceive, my dear Catherine, what your brother wants me to do.
He wants me to dance with him again, though I tell him that it is a most
improper thing, and entirely against the rules. It would make us the talk of
the place, if we were not to change partners.’ 40
‘Upon my honour,’ said James, ‘in these public assemblies, it is as often
done as not.’
‘Nonsense, how can you say so? But when you men have a point to
carry, you never stick at any thing. My sweet Catherine, do support me,
persuade your brother how impossible it is. Tell him, that it would quite 45
shock you to see me do such a thing; now would not it?’
‘No, not at all; but if you think it wrong, you had much better change.’
‘There,’ cried Isabella, ‘you hear what your sister says, and yet you
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will not mind her. Well, remember that it is not my fault, if we set all the
old ladies in Bath in a bustle. Come along, my dearest Catherine, for 50
heaven’s sake, and stand by me.’ And off they went, to regain their former
place.

[from Chapter 8]

How does Austen’s writing give a vivid impression of Isabella at this moment in the
novel?

Or 10 Does Austen portray John Thorpe as a bad man – or just as a fool?

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GEORGE ELIOT: Silas Marner

Remember to support your ideas with details from the writing.

Either 11 Read this extract, and then answer the question that follows it:

But when Godfrey was lifting his eyes from one of those long glances,
they encountered an object as startling to him at that moment as if it had
been an apparition from the dead. It was an apparition from that hidden
life which lies, like a dark by-street, behind the goodly ornamented façade
that meets the sunlight and the gaze of respectable admirers. It was his 5
own child carried in Silas Marner’s arms. That was his instantaneous
impression, unaccompanied by doubt, though he had not seen the child
for months past; and when the hope was rising that he might possibly
be mistaken, Mr Crackenthorp and Mr Lammeter had already advanced
to Silas, in astonishment at this strange advent. Godfrey joined them 10
immediately, unable to rest without hearing every word – trying to control
himself, but conscious that if any one noticed him, they must see that he
was white-lipped and trembling.
But now all eyes at that end of the room were bent on Silas Marner; the
Squire himself had risen, and asked angrily, ‘How’s this? – what’s this? – 15
what do you do coming in here in this way?’
‘I’m come for the doctor – I want the doctor,’ Silas had said, in the first
moment, to Mr Crackenthorp.
‘Why, what’s the matter, Marner?’ said the rector. ‘The doctor’s here; but
say quietly what you want him for.’ 20
‘It’s a woman,’ said Silas, speaking low, and half-breathlessly, just as
Godfrey came up. ‘She’s dead, I think – dead in the snow at the Stone-pits
– not far from my door.’
Godfrey felt a great throb: there was one terror in his mind at that
moment: it was, that the woman might not be dead. That was an evil 25
terror – an ugly inmate to have found a nestling-place in Godfrey’s kindly
disposition; but no disposition is a security from evil wishes to a man
whose happiness hangs on duplicity.
‘Hush, hush!’ said Mr Crackenthorp. ‘Go out into the hall there. I’ll fetch
the doctor to you. Found a woman in the snow – and thinks she’s dead,’ he 30
added, speaking low, to the Squire. ‘Better say as little about it as possible:
it will shock the ladies. Just tell them a poor woman is ill from cold and
hunger. I’ll go and fetch Kimble.’
By this time, however, the ladies had pressed forward, curious to know
what could have brought the solitary linen-weaver there under such strange 35
circumstances, and interested in the pretty child, who, half alarmed and
half attracted by the brightness and the numerous company, now frowned
and hid her face, now lifted up her head again and looked round placably,
until a touch or a coaxing word brought back the frown, and made her bury
her face with new determination. 40
‘What child is it?’ said several ladies at once, and, among the rest,
Nancy Lammeter, addressing Godfrey.
‘I don’t know – some poor woman’s who has been found in the snow, I
believe,’ was the answer Godfrey wrung from himself with a terrible effort.
(‘After all, am I certain?’ he hastened to add, in anticipation of his own 45
conscience.)
‘Why, you’d better leave the child here, then, Master Marner,’ said good-
natured Mrs Kimble, hesitating, however, to take those dingy clothes into
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contact with her own ornamented satin boddice. ‘I’ll tell one o’ the girls to
fetch it.’ 50
‘No – no – I can’t part with it, I can’t let it go,’ said Silas, abruptly. ‘It’s
come to me – I’ve a right to keep it.’
The proposition to take the child from him had come to Silas quite
unexpectedly, and his speech, uttered under a strong sudden impulse,
was almost like a revelation to himself: a minute before, he had no distinct 55
intention about the child.
‘Did you ever hear the like?’ said Mrs Kimble, in mild surprise, to her
neighbour.

[from Chapter 13]

How does Eliot’s writing make this moment in the novel so dramatic?

Or 12 How far does Eliot portray Silas as heroic?

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MICHAEL FRAYN: Spies

Remember to support your ideas with details from the writing.

Either 13 Read this extract, and then answer the question that follows it:

Out of the trunk he takes our most secret and sacred possession – the
bayonet with which his father killed the five Germans.
This simple description, though, doesn’t do justice to the metaphysical
complexity of the object that Keith’s now holding. It both is and is not the
sacred bayonet, just as the wafer and the wine both are and are not the 5
body and blood of a being who both is and is not a god. In its physical
nature it’s a long straight carving knife, which we found like so much else
in the ruins of Miss Durrant’s house. Its bone handle is missing, and Keith
has sharpened the blade with the grindstone on his father’s workbench so
that it has an edge at the back as well as the front, and a point like a rapier. 10
In its inward nature, though, it possesses the identity of the bayonet that
goes off with his father to the Secret Service every weekend, with all its
sacred attributes.
Keith holds it out towards me. I place my hand on the flat of the blade,
tinglingly conscious of the sharpness on either side. He looks straight into 15
my eyes.
‘I swear,’ he says.
‘I swear,’ I repeat.
‘Never to reveal anything about all this to anyone, except as and when
allowed.’ 20
‘Never to reveal anything about all this to anyone, except as and when
allowed,’ I intone solemnly. Not solemnly enough though, evidently, to set
Keith’s mind completely at rest. He goes on holding out the blade, looking
me straight in the eye.
‘Allowed by me, Keith Hayward.’ – ‘By you, Keith Hayward.’ 25
‘So help me God, or cut my throat and hope to die.’ I recite the words
back to him as best I can, my voice subdued by their seriousness.
‘Stephen Wheatley,’ he concludes. ‘Stephen Wheatley,’ I agree.
He puts the bayonet carefully down on top of the trunk.
‘This will be our lookout,’ he announces. ‘We’ll keep watch on the house 30
from here, and when we see her go out we’ll follow her. We’ll make a map
of everywhere she goes.’
We prepare for the task by clearing discreet windows in the greenery,
through which we can see everything that goes on in the Close, and most
particularly Keith’s house, a little further up on the other side of the street. 35
A practical difficulty occurs to me. ‘What about school?’ I ask.
‘We’ll do it after school.’
‘What about when it’s tea or supper?’
‘We can take turns.’
The time we really need to follow her, of course, is in the darkness at the 40
end of the month, when she goes to her rendezvous.
‘What if it’s the night?’ I ask him. ‘We’re not allowed to go out when it’s
night.’
‘We’ll hide knotted ropes in our rooms. We’ll climb out of our bedroom
windows and meet here. We’ll get some more candles out of the air-raid 45
shelter.’
I shiver. Already I can feel the rough knots of the rope under my hands
and the eerie chill of the night air. I can see the candles flickering, and the
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deep darkness of the night outside. I can hear her soft steps ahead of us
as we follow her down towards the shops – past the station – through the 50
bushes above the quarries – out on to the open fairway …
‘But then what are we going to do?’ I ask. At some point, it seems to me,
there will come a moment when this great programme has to lead to some
action by the authorities in the grown-up world.
Keith silently picks up the bayonet and looks at me. 55
What does he mean? That we’re going to arrest her ourselves at
bayonet point? Or that we’re going to follow his father’s example and stick
it into the ribs of the courier she’s meeting?
Not, presumably, that we’re going to …? Not his own mother …!
Keith’s eyelids have come down. His face is set and pitiless. He looks 60
like his father. He looks as his father must have looked one grey dawn in
the Great War when he fixed his bayonet to the end of his revolver for the
battle that lay ahead.
I shiver again. The dark of the moon … I can feel it surrounding me,
pressing against my eyes … 65
Keith opens the trunk again. He takes out a plain white bathroom tile that
we found in the rubble of the house, and the stub of the coloured pencil.
With the red end he neatly prints a single word on the tile, and wedges it in
the fork of a bush at the entrance to the passageway.
PRIVET, it says. 70
I don’t like to query this, now that he’s written it so neatly and
authoritatively. In any case, the sense of it is plain enough – that we’re
commencing a long journey on a lonely road where no one else can follow.

[from Chapter 3]

How does Frayn amusingly convey the way in which the children think and behave at
this moment in the novel?

Or 14 How does Frayn make Keith’s mother such a memorable character?

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SUSAN HILL: I’m the King of the Castle

Remember to support your ideas with details from the writing.

Either 15 Read this extract, and then answer the question that follows it:

Kingshaw held his breath. There was a continual soughing movement

inside the wood, and the leaves rustled together like silk, directly overhead.
They were very pale green, and almost transparent where the sun shone
through, he could see all the veins. At his feet, in between the creeping
foliage, were dead leaves, rusty-coloured and dry on top, but packed to a 5
damp mould just below the surface.
Immediately ahead of him there was the trunk of a fallen tree. He sat
down on it. The bark was covered with greenish-grey moss. It felt like
moleskin under his fingers. There was fungus, too, issuing out of the
cracks, and in the groin of a branch, in weird, spongy shapes. 10
He liked it here. He had never been anywhere like it, and it was not
remotely what he had expected. He liked the smell, and the sense of being
completely hidden. Everything around him seemed innocent, and he could
see for some way ahead, it was all quite all right. The sun made even
the dense holly and hawthorn bushes on the edge of the clearing look 15
harmless.
Different birds kept on singing, though not very near to him, and
he did not see any of them, except, now and again, a darting brown
shape in the branches. There was a cooing from pigeons, right inside
the wood. He saw a rabbit. It came out of the undergrowth, not far 20
away from him, with an odd, bumping movement, and then sat down in
a shaft of sunlight, and began to wash itself like a cat. Kingshaw held
his breath.
They had rabbits at school, in cages, fat, and white, with pink, vacant
eyes. But this was different, it quivered and twitched with life. He watched 25
it for ages. But when he moved, to unhitch the satchel and get out some
food, the rabbit bumped away.
Before leaving the house, he had gone down into the kitchen, and
cut one thick slice of bread and butter, and he ate that, now, with one
of the cheese triangles. As soon as he had finished, he wanted a drink. 30
He had been stupid not to find some sort of bottle. Well, there was no
drink, it would be better to try and not think about it. Instead, he got up and
crossed to the other side of the clearing. There was a narrow path, but it
was very overgrown. Low branches and bushes were spread out on either
side, and he had to climb over and under them, lifting briars and brambles 35
out of his way. There was a holly bush, too. He stuck the pad of his thumb
accidentally on to a thorn. When he sucked up the great bead of blood, it
tasted sweet, and metallic. Then a briar scratched his face. He found he
was having to bend lower and lower. But eventually, there was another
clearing. He stood upright again. 40
It was darker here, he could tell that he had come a good way into the
wood. The leaves locked together more tightly overhead, and the sun
could not get through. He could see birds flitting away in alarm, through
the trees ahead of him. He wiped his arm across his nose and upper lip.
Then he heard the sound. At once, he knew that it had come before, 45
seconds ago, but he had taken no notice, mistaking it for a part of the
noise he was making himself. Now it came again. It was some distance
back, on the edge of the wood. He heard himself breathing. That was all.
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But the birds had gone quiet. He waited. Nothing. Still nothing. Then, a
soft, slithering noise in the bracken. 50
There was a thick holly bush just beside the path. Kingshaw bent down
low and began to creep towards it. He tried to move only on the balls of
his feet, but the leaves made sounds. He had no idea what he was hiding
from. It might be an animal. He didn’t know what there was in here, except
for the rabbit he had seen. And whatever it was had eaten away the corn. 55
He thought it could not be one of them from the house. They would have
come shouting and shouting across the fields, plunging heavily into the
wood. These sounds were stealthy. Perhaps people came shooting here,
or else there was a gamekeeper. He supposed he might be trespassing.
He crouched low down behind the holly bush. A small, rust-coloured 60
insect ran over his feet. The dark inside of the holly bush smelled bitter.
From deep in the wood, some bird made a screeching sound, and then
again, after a pause. It was like a mad person laughing. Then, nothing, not
even the crack of a twig.
Just as he was going to get up and come out from behind the bush, the 65
tree branches parted, and there was Hooper.

[from Chapter 6]

How does Hill’s writing create suspense at this moment in the novel?

Or 16 How far does Hill’s portrayal of Mrs Kingshaw make you feel angry towards her?

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 22

R. K. NARAYAN: The English Teacher

Remember to support your ideas with details from the writing.

Either 17 Read this extract, and then answer the question that follows it:

I made my way into the common room, to put away the books in my
locker, pick up my umbrella, and go out. As I was closing my locker, the
servant came up and said: “There is someone asking for you, master.”
I looked out. He was a stranger, a young boy about fifteen years old. He
was standing on the path below the veranda, a thin young man with a tuft 5
behind, and wearing a small cap—a poor boy, I felt, by the look of him; out
to ask for a donation for his school fee or something of the kind. “Father
seriously ill, money for his medicines.” One or other of the numerous sad
excuses for begging. Of late they were on the increase.… Formerly I used
to investigate and preach to them and so on, but now I felt too weary 10
to exert myself and paid out change as far as possible. I saw his hand,
bringing out an envelope, and I put my hand in my pocket for my purse.
“The usual typewritten petition addressed to all whom it may concern,”
I said to myself.
“What is it?” I asked. 15
“Are you Krishna of the English section?”
“Yes.”
“Here is a letter for you.”
“From whom?”
“My father has sent it.…” 20
“Who is your father?”
“You’ll find it all in that letter,” he replied. It was a bulky envelope. I tore
it open. There was a long sheet of paper, wrapped around which was a
small note on which was written:
“Dear Sir, 25
“I received this message last evening, while I was busy writing
something else. I didn’t understand what it meant. But the directions,
address and name given in it are clear and so I have sent my son to
find out if the address and name are of a real person, and to deliver it.
If this letter reaches you, (that is, if you are a real person) please read 30
it, and if it means anything to you keep it. Otherwise you may just tear
it up and throw it away; and forgive this intrusion.” He had given his
name and address. I opened the other large sheet. The handwriting on
it seemed to be different. It began: “This is a message for Krishna from
his wife Susila who recently passed over.… She has been seeking all 35
these months some means of expressing herself to her husband, but
the opportunity has occurred only to-day, when she found the present
gentleman a very suitable medium of expression. Through him she is
happy to communicate. She wants her husband to know that she is
quite happy in another region, and wants him also to eradicate the grief 40
in his mind. We are nearer each other than you understand. And I’m
always watching him and the child.…”
It was very baffling. I stared at the boy. I made nothing of it. “Boy, what is
this?” “I don’t know, sir. My father has been trying to send that for a week
and could do it only to-day. I was searching everywhere; and I couldn’t get 45
away from my class,…”
“Oh, stop, stop all that, boy. Why has your father sent this letter to me?”

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“I don’t know, sir.” I stood there and read it again and again and as my
head cooled I was seized with elation.
“Take me to your house,” I cried. 50
“It’s far off, sir. In the village Tayur.…” It was on the other side of the
river, a couple of miles off.
“No matter, I will come with you. What is your father?”
“He looks after his garden and lands in the village, sir. I read in the Board
High School. I had leave to-day in the last period and so could bring you 55
this letter.”
“Good boy, good boy, take me to your father.” I walked beside him. The
child would be waiting at home. “One minute, will you come with me to my
house? I will give you coffee and sweets. We will go…”

[from Chapter 5]

How does Narayan’s writing movingly convey Krishna’s thoughts and feelings at this
moment in the novel?

Or 18 In what ways does Narayan’s portrayal of Leela contribute to your enjoyment of the
novel?

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ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON: The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

Remember to support your ideas with details from the writing.

Either 19 Read this extract, and then answer the question that follows it:

There at least he was not denied admittance; but when he came in,
he was shocked at the change which had taken place in the doctor’s
appearance. He had his death-warrant written legibly upon his face. The
rosy man had grown pale; his flesh had fallen away; he was visibly balder
and older; and yet it was not so much these tokens of a swift physical 5
decay that arrested the lawyer’s notice, as a look in the eye and quality
of manner that seemed to testify to some deep-seated terror of the mind.
It was unlikely that the doctor should fear death; and yet that was what
Utterson was tempted to suspect. ‘Yes,’ he thought; ‘he is a doctor, he must
know his own state and that his days are counted; and the knowledge is 10
more than he can bear.’ And yet when Utterson remarked on his ill looks, it
was with an air of great firmness that Lanyon declared himself a doomed
man.
‘I have had a shock,’ he said, ‘and I shall never recover. It is a question
of weeks. Well, life has been pleasant; I liked it; yes, sir, I used to like it. 15
I sometimes think if we knew all, we should be more glad to get away.’
‘Jekyll is ill, too,’ observed Utterson. ‘Have you seen him?’
But Lanyon’s face changed, and he held up a trembling hand. ‘I wish to
see or hear no more of Dr Jekyll,’ he said, in a loud, unsteady voice. ‘I am
quite done with that person; and I beg that you will spare me any allusion 20
to one whom I regard as dead.’
‘Tut, tut!’ said Mr Utterson; and then, after a considerable pause, ‘Can’t I
do anything?’ he inquired. ‘We are three very old friends, Lanyon; we shall
not live to make others.’
‘Nothing can be done,’ returned Lanyon; ‘ask himself.’ 25
‘He will not see me,’ said the lawyer.
‘I am not surprised at that,’ was the reply. ‘Some day, Utterson, after
I am dead, you may perhaps come to learn the right and wrong of this.
I cannot tell you. And in the meantime, if you can sit and talk with me of
other things, for God’s sake, stay and do so; but if you cannot keep clear 30
of this accursed topic, then, in God’s name, go, for I cannot bear it.’
As soon as he got home, Utterson sat down and wrote to Jekyll,
complaining of his exclusion from the house, and asking the cause of this
unhappy break with Lanyon; and the next day brought him a long answer,
often very pathetically worded, and sometimes darkly mysterious in drift. 35
The quarrel with Lanyon was incurable. ‘I do not blame our old friend,’
Jekyll wrote, ‘but I share his view that we must never meet. I mean from
henceforth to lead a life of extreme seclusion; you must not be surprised,
nor must you doubt my friendship, if my door is often shut even to you.
You must suffer me to go my own dark way. I have brought on myself a 40
punishment and a danger that I cannot name. If I am the chief of sinners,
I am the chief of sufferers also. I could not think that this earth contained
a place for sufferings and terrors so unmanning; and you can do but one
thing, Utterson, to lighten this destiny, and that is to respect my silence.’
Utterson was amazed; the dark influence of Hyde had been withdrawn, 45
the doctor had returned to his old tasks and amities; a week ago, the
prospect had smiled with every promise of a cheerful and an honoured
age; and now in a moment, friendship and peace of mind and the whole
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tenor of his life were wrecked. So great and unprepared a change pointed
to madness; but in view of Lanyon’s manner and words, there must lie for 50
it some deeper ground.
A week afterwards Dr Lanyon took to his bed, and in something less
than a fortnight he was dead.

[from Chapter 6, ‘Remarkable Incident of Dr Lanyon’]

In what ways does Stevenson make you sympathise with both Dr Lanyon and Mr Utterson
at this moment in the novel?

Or 20 Explore two moments in the novel which Stevenson makes particularly shocking for you.

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 26

from Stories of Ourselves

Remember to support your ideas with details from the writing.

Either 21 Read this extract from Billennium (by J. G. Ballard), and then answer the question that
follows it:

All day long, and often into the early hours of the morning, the tramp of
feet sounded up and down the stairs outside Ward’s cubicle. Built into a
narrow alcove in a bend of the staircase between the fourth and fifth floors,
its plywood walls flexed and creaked with every footstep like the timbers of
a rotting windmill. Over a hundred people lived in the top three floors of the 5
old rooming house, and sometimes Ward would lie awake on his narrow
bunk until 2 or 3 a.m., mechanically counting the last residents returning
from the all-night movies in the stadium half a mile away. Through the
window he could hear giant fragments of the amplified dialogue booming
among the rooftops. The stadium was never empty. During the day the 10
huge four-sided screen was raised on its davit and athletics meetings or
football matches ran continuously. For the people in the houses abutting
the stadium the noise must have been unbearable.
Ward, at least, had a certain degree of privacy. Two months earlier,
before he came to live on the staircase, he had shared a room with seven 15
others on the ground floor of a house in 755th Street, and the ceaseless
press of people jostling past the window had reduced him to a state of
exhaustion. The street was always full, an endless clamour of voices and
shuffling feet. By 6.30, when he woke, hurrying to take his place in the
bathroom queue, the crowds already jammed it from sidewalk to sidewalk, 20
the din punctuated every half minute by the roar of the elevated trains
running over the shops on the opposite side of the road. As soon as he
saw the advertisement describing the staircase cubicle he had left (like
everyone else, he spent most of his spare time scanning the classifieds
in the newspapers, moving his lodgings an average of once every two 25
months) despite the higher rental. A cubicle on a staircase would almost
certainly be on its own.
However, this had its drawbacks. Most evenings his friends from the
library would call in, eager to rest their elbows after the bruising crush of
the public reading room. The cubicle was slightly more than four and a 30
half square metres in floor area, half a square metre over the statutory
maximum for a single person, the carpenters having taken advantage,
illegally, of a recess beside a nearby chimney breast. Consequently
Ward had been able to fit a small straight-backed chair into the interval
between the bed and the door, so that only one person at a time needed 35
to sit on the bed – in most single cubicles host and guest had to sit
side by side on the bed, conversing over their shoulders and changing
places periodically to avoid neck-strain.
‘You were lucky to find this place,’ Rossiter, the most regular visitor,
never tired of telling him. He reclined back on the bed, gesturing at the 40
cubicle. ‘It’s enormous, the perspectives really zoom. I’d be surprised if
you haven’t got at least five metres here, perhaps six.’
Ward shook his head categorically. Rossiter was his closest friend, but
the quest for living space had forged powerful reflexes. ‘Just over four and
a half, I’ve measured it carefully. There’s no doubt about it.’ 45
Rossiter lifted one eyebrow. ‘I’m amazed. It must be the ceiling then.’

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Manipulating the ceiling was a favourite trick of unscrupulous landlords –

most assessments of area were made upon the ceiling, out of convenience,
and by tilting back the plywood partitions the rated area of a cubicle could
be either increased, for the benefit of a prospective tenant (many married 50
couples were thus bamboozled into taking a single cubicle), or decreased
temporarily on the visits of the housing inspectors. Ceilings were criss-
crossed with pencil marks staking out the rival claims of tenants on
opposite sides of a party wall. Someone timid of his rights could be literally
squeezed out of existence – in fact, the advertisement ‘quiet clientele’ was 55
usually a tacit invitation to this sort of piracy.
‘The wall does tilt a little,’ Ward admitted. ‘Actually, it’s about four
degrees out – I used a plumb-line. But there’s still plenty of room on the
stairs for people to get by.’
Rossiter grinned. ‘Of course, John. I’m just envious, that’s all. My room 60
is driving me crazy.’ Like everyone, he used the term ‘room’ to describe his
tiny cubicle, a hangover from the days fifty years earlier when people had
indeed lived one to a room, sometimes, unbelievably, one to an apartment
or house. The microfilms in the architecture catalogues at the library
showed scenes of museums, concert halls and other public buildings in 65
what appeared to be everyday settings, often virtually empty, two or three
people wandering down an enormous gallery or staircase. Traffic moved
freely along the centre of streets, and in the quieter districts sections of
sidewalk would be deserted for fifty yards or more.

In what ways does Ballard make this such a depressing opening to the story?

Or 22 How does Mistry vividly portray the relationships between fathers and sons in Of White
Hairs and Cricket ?

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