Examiners’ reports 2015

Examiners’ reports 2015

EN3116 American Literature

Advice to candidates on how Examiners calculate marks

It is important that candidates recognise that in all papers, three questions
should be answered in order to get the best possible mark (ensuring that the
rubric for the paper has been followed accordingly).
Examiners follow a simple mathematical formula when awarding a final overall
mark: they give each answer a mark out of 100 (up to three answers only, as
required by the exam paper); they then total all available marks; and finally
they divide the total by three, thus giving an average overall mark.
So, if your first answer is given 57%, your second answer is given 56%, and your
third answer 50%, then the calculation will look like this:
57 + 56 + 50 = 163
163 ÷ 3 = 54.3
Overall mark: 54%
Two good essays and no third essay will always bring the mark down. So, if in
the example above a third answer was not given, the calculation would look
like this:
57 + 56 = 113
113 ÷ 3 = 37.6
Overall mark: 38%
In this case, even if the candidate had written a ‘poor’ third answer getting
a mark of 40% their overall mark would be higher than not attempting an
answer at all:
57 + 56 + 40 = 153
153 ÷ 3 = 51
Overall mark: 51%
Note in the example above how the 40% mark, while low, still enables the
candidate to achieve an overall mark in the Lower Second category, which is
in keeping with their first two marks of 57% and 56%. Not answering a third
question would see the candidate lose considerable marks and drop two
whole classes. It could also mean the difference between a pass and a fail.
Candidates are thus strongly advised to give equal attention across the paper,
plan their time accordingly, and attempt to provide three answers of roughly
the same length and as full as possible. Candidates are also reminded that it
is totally unnecessary to copy out the question again into the answer book;
a question number in the margin is sufficient enough, and this will also save
valuable minutes.

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EN3116 American Literature

Examiners’ reports 2015

EN3116 American Literature

Assessment of marks
In total, a good number of candidates sat the examination in 2015, and,
as is often the case, the quality of the work produced did vary somewhat.
Examiners were pleased to note that some candidates produced striking
and very proficient work. Although they wish to commend the candidates
who produced work at the higher end of the scale, the examiners would like
to take this opportunity to provide a commentary that may assist intending
candidates who may sit the examination in 2016. We would recommend that
candidates take note of this guidance and follow it diligently.

General remarks
The examiners noted that, in the majority of cases, each of the three essays
was of similar standard, and, as in 2014–15, candidates appear to have laid
good groundwork ahead of the examination. By the same token, during the
examination candidates appear to have managed their time quite wisely,
spending one of the three hours available on a single question. Consequently,
the examiners found that, in most cases, comparable grades were awarded
to each of the three essays, and that each of the questions was given equal
attention. At times, one of the answers was a little poorer than the other
two, but, interestingly enough, it was not always the final question that
caused issues (i.e. candidates were not simply leaving their weakest answer
to the end). In light of this weakness, the examiners would like to remind
candidates that it is necessary to study at least six texts and five themes/topics
in preparation for the examination. We always recommend that candidates
should attempt to write answers to questions from past papers before the
examination itself – one essay/one hour – and would remind candidates
that this is great exercise to developing a coherent and structured writing
style. It might also be very helpful for candidates to study textbooks such as
Bryan Greetham’s How to Write Better Essays (Palgrave Study Guides. Palgrave
Macmillan, 2008) [ISBN 9780230224803], or to consult one of the various
university websites that have tips about essay writing skills. As in previous
years, the examiners would like to say that a good answer should:
• set up a lucid and clearly defined line of reasoning at the outset, and
directly tackle the question
• introduce two to three crucial facts that explain how these will be studied
and illuminated within the body of the essay
• progressively and logically deal with those two to three themes/ideas
before moving towards a rational and coherent conclusion
• tie elemental statements together in a well-organised manner
• find imaginative and appealing ways of conducting close analysis of
specific scenes and moments in the text in hand, and corroborate the
essay’s thesis by making direct reference to the literature
• make good use of valuable and pertinent secondary sources.

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Finally, the subject guide for this course is an invaluable resource, and it should
be referred to prior to the examination.
As it stands, EN3116 American Literature aims to introduce candidates
to various literary movements, styles and themes as well as historical and
contextual detail. Candidates who intend to take this examination are
reminded that they will be expected to have a good working knowledge of
the historical, political, social and cultural milieu in which 19th, 20th and 21st
century American literature has been produced. The course subsequently
invites candidates to examine literary form, style and effect, and, in
doing so, to link the literature to issues such as national identity, religious
influence and socio-political contexts. Candidates are also encouraged to
familarise themselves with the critical discourse that has informed general
understandings of the text in hand. This course encourages candidates to
reflect deeply on any number of themes, and introduces candidates to a vast
array of literary genres and critical treatises. Candidates are consequently
encouraged to think conceptually and broadly, and to familiarise themselves
with the various contextual energies that shaped 19th and 20th century
American culture. This can be done by: linking historical setting, biographical
detail and broader cultural questions to precise elements of the writing
itself. Candidates should relate those characteristics to the question that the
examiners have posed: by linking the narrative(s) and their style to the subject
matter (i.e. the topic) under discussion, and parsing crucial moments in the
primary text by referring to applicable and germane secondary sources.

Specific issues raised by examiners

Examiners were content that this year’s examination offered candidates the
opportunity to deal with the majority of themes and topics that appear on
the course. Indeed, the examination paper itself introduced a great selection
of subjects, ranging from religion and democracy to minority expression and
regionalism. Given the range of subjects on offer, it was to be expected that, in
all, around ten different questions would be answered. Unsurprisingly enough,
the better candidates wrote crisp and convincing essays that responded to
the question directly, and pinpointed particular moments in the text which
corroborated their analysis of the subject. Higher grades were earned by those
who established clear terms of reference to begin with, and who scrutinised
appropriate images, metaphors or symbols from the play, novel or poem(s). As
noted above, those candidates also introduced and applied secondary sources
with some considerable élan. It is possibly worth noting that a small number of
candidates narrowly missed out on a higher grade primarily because the essay
focused on oft-discussed aspects of well-known texts, and lacked creativity or
imagination. For that reason, candidates should be cognisant of the fact that
the highest grades are awarded to knowledgeable and flowing examinations
of the literature which provide clear definitions and reveal how particular texts
respond to, challenge or make some sense out of particular cultural, political
and social events. The best answers display a familiarity with important critical
theories and link individual scenes, images and themes within the text to
specific concepts and themes.
In terms of the hazards that the candidates might avoid, the examiners
would like to mention some recurring issues. As in 2014, a limited range of
books, poems and plays continues to be extremely popular (Toni Morrison’s
Beloved, for instance), and are often commented on. So, even though many
candidates offered fascinating and valuable readings of well-liked works, we
would advise candidates to study texts that may not be as well known or have
been scrutinised at great length already. The organisation of the argument
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and the essay’s structure continue to be an issue in some cases. We would like
to remind candidates that a good essay has a particular shape; key features
of the essay should be mentioned in the opening paragraph, and each of
those elements should be considered on its own merit thereafter. The final
paragraph of the essay should offer a summary of the points that have been
made in the preceeding essay. We noted in 2014 that candidates should take
the opportunity to offer a comparative assessment of different literary forms
when responding to the question in hand. We did see one or two examples of
this approach in 2015, but feel, nevertheless, that it may be worth reiterating
the point that candidates should feel free – and be encouraged – to compare
and contrast a play with a poem, a work of fiction with a poem, or any other
other combination they choose. By weighing one form’s treatment of a
particular theme, era or historical event with another form’s treatment of
same, candidates might be able to comment on various authors’ abilities to
produce imaginative aesthetics that see the world through a particular lens.
Candidates might, for instance, wish to examine the fiction of Harriet Beecher
Stowe alongside the poetry of Walt Whitman. Doing so might might broaden
the comparative remit and allow candidates to produce a richer, more creative
commentary.
Following on from this, the examiners are keen to point out that weak theses
were offered by a number of candidates, many of whom failed to provide a
critical framework but relied, instead, on simply describing action from the
text and/or providing a basic plot synopsis. We repeat this basic advice from
the 2014 report as a result: ‘Candidates are advised to locate and engage with
the work of at least two well-known critics or scholars who write about the
theoretical and discursive contexts that inform the primary texts that they wish
to study.’
So to recap, we would stress that candidates make sure that they:
• offer the examiners a clear opening paragraph and swiftly identify the
essay’s central concerns
• offer direct, unambiguous and lucid rhetoric
• situate the chosen text within a clearly defined and pertinent critical and
contextual outline, and be sure to refer to biographical detail, historical
events and scholarly arguments where it is pertinent to do so
• discuss critical definitions
• provide one or two well-chosen quotations from the primary text, and
show how these might be salient to the examination underway
• avoid simple errors (spelling, grammar and syntax)
• refer to form, imagery, symbolism, metaphor and other figures of speech
and devices
• ensure that their essays are balanced in terms of intensity of scrutiny, word
count and so on.
As noted above (and in other earlier reports), there are two particular issues
that can, and should, be avoided. First, do not repeat basic points, or make
reference to details and information that are largely unrelated the the topic
being discussed. Secondly, do not provide overlong summaries or basic
synopses of the plot.

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Comments on specific questions

Section A
Answers in this section should discuss the work of ONE American writer.

Question 1
Discuss the notion that colonial literature framed the New World in religious terms.
The most obvious way of responding to this question is to examine Puritan
colonial literature. Successful answers to this question would demonstrate a
sound knowledge of the tenets of Puritan culture (its moral exceptionalism,
providence and typological interpretations of the New World) and explain
how these informed the prose and poetry of the Puritans. Candidates should
certainly not overlook the literary variety found in Puritan writing (for example,
the sermon, historiography, poetry and the journal). That said, responses to
this question need not be limited to Puritanism but could have demonstrated
the Christian frameworks of earlier ethnographic and exploratory colonial
texts by, for example, Thomas Harriot, which sought to map the New World,
its people, geographies and natural resources. Alternatively, candidates could
consider republican and revolutionary literature on the cusp of postcolonial
America (Thomas Paine or Thomas Jefferson, for example) that draws
on regligious frameworks in their arguments for political independence.
Interesting responses to this question also examined the revival of Puritanism
in the 18th century and its cultural significance.

Question 2
Examine ONE twentieth-century American writer’s use of myth.
This question offered candidates an opportunity to discuss various myth-
making processes in American history and cultures. Successful answers might
have focused on the extent to which Manifest Destiny and notions of a rugged
American frontier fed into the myth that the continent was once ‘virgin land’
that almost yearned to be settled by European colonisers. By the same token,
responses might have discussed Native American myths and/or the role that
those stories played in the genesis of both American literature and American
identity as well as Native American fiction and poetry in the 19th and 20th
centuries.

Question 3
Discuss the ways that ONE African American writer (of any period) negotiates what W.E. Dubois
described as ‘double consciousness’.
The African American experience is a topic that tends to reappear on this
particular examination, and candidates might have considered the prospect
of assessing the form and structure of various texts in response to this
question about double consciousness. The segregation of African American
communities is the topic that candidates are most likely to discuss in relation
to this question, and answers could discuss the slave narrative and/or recent
literary representations of that terrible institution or racism. When doing so,
candidates might wish to mention issues such as: African American voice and
agency; articulation; the recasting of religious or literary images in African
American texts and so on. It is also worth noting that early 20th-century
contexts might be discussed too, for instance, the Harlem Renaissance,
literature of the American South and so on.

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Question 4

What was the legacy of colonial Puritanism on nineteenth-century American literature? Answer with
reference to ONE text that you have studied on this course.
The key to answering this question is a clear and concise identification of the
Puritan mode of interpretation in the 17th century, including typology and
its relation to providence, and the collapse of the private self and the public
mission (in which the religious progress of the individual becomes a measure
of the progress of community). The direct and indirect legacies of these
interpretive methods can be found across a wide range of 19th-century texts
and literary movements. With a clear sense of their origins, candidates would
be able to identify the revision and appropriation of Puritan ways of seeing
the New World by later, postcolonial writers, particularly in their scrutiny of
the progress of the nation. Candidates could relate the moral exceptionalism
of Puritanism to the democratic ideals of postcolonial America. Candidates
might also choose to trace the social and political authoritarianism attributable
to the failure of that democracy back to its structural origins in Puritanism,
via 19th-century literature that articulates this link. Pertinent examples of
a revisionary articulation or Puritanism or of its resonance might include
Transcendentalism, slave narratives and Hawthorne’s direct critique of Puritan
modes of interpretation and Puritan authoritarianism.

Question 5
With reference to the work of ONE nineteenth-century text that you have studied on this course,
discuss the literary construction of ONE of the following types of spaces:
a. urban
b. rural
c. frontier
d. the battlefield or theatre of war.
In discussing the treatment of urban, rural, frontier or battlefield spaces,
candidates should not treat these locations as mere backgrounds or as
incidental to literary narrative but as integral to both content and form.
Candidates should be mindful of the different kinds of literary aesthetics
produced in response to these different settings and of the wider cultural
discourses that might inform those responses, whether they are structured
by, for example, the trauma of the battlefield, the modernity of the city, the
pastoralism of the rural or the mythologisation of the frontier.

Question 6
Why was Transcendentalism so important to the development of nineteenth-century literature?
Answer with reference to ONE nineteenth-century American writer.
Very obviously a question that urges candidates to offer a treatment of
Transcendentalist thought and the literary texts that it influenced, this
question called for a definitive and coherent definition of Trancendentalism
at the outset. This definition would have been framed by reference to
Emerson, Thoreau, Fuller and others; their philosophical, religious and political
convictions in the 19th century; the influences of Romanticism on their
thought; and their resulting aesthetic strategies. Having offered what has
to be a concise and pithy definition, candidates would have been expected
to write further on one text, and could have chosen between some of the
more obvious selections, on the one hand (Emerson’s essays or Hawthorne’s
fiction, for instance), or making slightly more daring choices, on the other (for
instance, the work of Jack Keroauc or Allen Ginsberg).

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Question 7
Explore the relationship between gendered AND racial identity in American literature. Discuss the
work of ONE author in your answer.
Raising another recurring theme on the course, this question centered on
gender and racial identity. Candidates would have done well to define gender
in terms of the theoretical and critical material that discusses the formation of
gender roles (perhaps first-, second- or third-wave feminist theories, the work
of scholars such as Judith Butler, Susan Gubar and others, or possibly even
Freudian theory), and race in terms of the work of Toni Morrison, Henry Louis
Gates Jr, Michael Awkward and others. Unlike Question 13 below, Question
7 affords candidates the opportunity to discuss the construction of race in
America. The work of Zora Neale Hurston, Chester Himes and Richard Wright
might have been discussed here. The key to a succesful answer here is to
articulate the ways in which race and gender are mutually constitutive, rather
than consider separately race and gender as two separate categories.

Question 8
Discuss ONE nineteenth-century American author’s treatment of sexual desire AND sexual
morality.
In a slight departure from previous years, the examiners decided to add this
question on sexual desire and morality to the examination paper. This move
paid some dividends, since a small number of good candidates saw this as an
opportunity to provide the examiners with an original and imaginative take
on various themes in American literature, including: the body; the repression/
supression/expression of physical desire; religious conformism; and the
generation of immorality in literature (fabrication of narratives, the notion
of what remains unspoken and so on). Candidates may have considered the
work of Kate Chopin, Carson McCullers, Harriet Jacobs, Henry Miller and others
when answering this question.

Question 9
To what extent is literary modernism an experiment in form as opposed to a means of social
commentary? Answer with reference to the work of ONE American author.
Successful responses to this question were able to summarise the key tenets
of literary modernism, its formal characteristics, typical subject matter and
concerns, and its general historical, social and cultural contexts. Only then
will candidates be able to evaluate the relation between form and content in
modernist literature and to determine how effectively and with what interest
that literature responds to the conditions of modernity. Of course, candidates
may choose to pursue the argument that modernism pivots around formal
innovation rather than social commentary, in which case modernism’s
eschewal of mass culture in favour of formal autonomy, or modernism’s focus
on literature and language as artifice, are pertinent examples, among many, of
the possible focus of such an argument.

Question 10
Taking ONE text you consider to be postmodern, explain its postmodernist features and account
for the relationship between subject matter and style.
This question calls for a sound understanding of the features of
postmodernism, its forms and contents, a sense of what literary modes and
traditions it responds to (modernism and realism), and what historical, social
and cultural contexts inform it. Poor responses to this question often identified
the postmodernist characteristics of literature without explaining their
significance or what makes them postmodernist. The most successful answers

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tended to be focused on particular issues such as postmodernist strategies for

deconstructing (denaturalising) race and gender identities, or for commenting
on consumer culture, or representing histories of atrocity, catastrophe, war and
violence.

Question 11
The ‘uncanny is in reality nothing new or alien, but something which is familiar and old
established in the mind and which has become alienated from it only through the process of
repression’ (SIGMUND FREUD). Discuss how and why ONE American writer stages the uncanny.
Candidates would be expected to explore the social, cultural and political
reasons for the repression of that which was once familiar. Successful
responses to this question often focused on the ways in which those things
that contradict the ideals of national identity are repressed. For example, in
terms of 19th-century literature, candidates discussed the failure of America to
countenance fully the failure of democracy in the perpetuation of slavery. Here
the return of the repressed manifests itself in allegorical form. For example,
Poe, Hawthorne and Melville have all written allegories of America’s disavowal
of the problem of slavery.

Section B
Answers in this section should discuss the work of TWO OR MORE American writers.

Question 12
Discuss the ways in which TWO OR MORE American writers explore and scrutinize the idea of
American exceptionalism. You may refer to American writers from the seventeenth century to the
present day.
Primarily, candidates responding to this question should have a keen sense
of American exceptionalism and the ways in which America is thought to be
unlike other established democracies. Whether this is because of a stronger
sense of personal and cultural liberty, its unique history, or its religious and
social foundations could be debated. Strong answers would have defined
exceptionalism and cited some of its historical roots (be it Winthrop, Jefferson
or similar), before discussing the ways in which the literature critiques,
examines or reflects Lincoln’s notion that America is ‘the last best hope of man
on earth’.

Question 13
Discuss the ways in which the work of TWO OR MORE American writers have explored radical social
change in innovative ways.
Here, candidates were expected to delve into works of literature that appear
to comment on or discuss radical social change. A number of eras – and the
literature produced in those eras – might have been discussed, ranging from
the radical industrialisation of the mid/late 1800s to the sexual and cultural
revolutions of the 1960s. Key to answering this question successfully would
be incisive discussion of literature’s formal innovations in relation to change
or at least a sense of innovative strategy in the face of change, rather than
just a description of literature’s representation of change. More precisely,
this question invites candidates to consider the experimental and innovative
literary strategies or new literary movements that respond to historical
ruptures and discontinuities. Pertinent examples can be found in modernism
and postmodernism, but the 19th century should not be overlooked, with
its examples of protomodernism, open form poetry, post-Civil-War realism
and naturalism, and even Romance as a response to the looming social and
political disintegration of the United States. Candidates must account for what

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makes such literary events and movements radical and innovative and identify
their departure from previous literary styles, modes and traditions in response
to social change.

Question 14
‘The past is never dead. It’s not even past’ (WILLIAM FAULKNER). Consider the ways that TWO OR
MORE American writers (of any period) have explored the relationship between the historical past
and the present.
This is really a question about historical memory and the ways in which it
haunts the present. This question produced a wide range of responses and
literary examples, from the persistence of mythologies that have framed the
past and which are deployed to understand the present (as in, for example,
literature of the frontier), to fictions that deal with the histories of racial
oppression and their strutural and psychological legacies in the present (as
in the frequent choice of Morrison), to literature that deals with post-war
trauma (from the 18th century to the present day). Faulkner, of course, would
make an ideal case study for the way in which his modernist aesthetics stage
the collapse of time (rolling past, present and future into one moment) and
thereby constituting subjects who are always living with the burdens of a
personal and collective past (the legacies of slavery, the collapse of the Old
South, and so on).

Question 15
‘[Our] speaking out will permit other women to speak, until laws are changed and lives are saved
and the world is altered forever’ (AUDRE LORDE). With this quotation as your starting point,
consider the influence of feminist thought on any TWO authors on the course.
As with Question 7, this question called for a careful consideration of feminist
perspectives, and candidates would have been expected to refer to first-,
second- and third-wave feminist theory before choosing a text that presented
women’s perspectives and tackled the political and sociological contexts that
informed women’s suffrage, autonomy and liberation. It is worth noting that
the work of Sylvia Plath – although wonderful – is massively over-represented
each year, and that candidates should aim to discuss other women writers
and texts other than The Bell Jar – or at least develop a startlingly original
interpretation of Plath’s work.

Question 16
With reference to the work of AT LEAST TWO American writers, critically compare and contrast the
treatment of socio-economic class in ONE nineteenth-century text and ONE text after 1900.
This is really a question about social moblity and stasis and whether it has
affected or structured American literature or whether American literature has
remained immune and impervious to the stratification of culture, people and
capital. The most insightful answers to this question began by considering
whether a national literature can ever be attentive to fiscal and social
inequalities, when literature is avowedly a middle-class pursuit. Put differently,
another way of responding to this question is to consider whether literature
represents the homogenous experiences of socially homogenous subjects
and the social positions they share or whether it is informed by cultural
heterogeneity produced by a class structures.

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Question 17
‘To look upon that landscape in the early morning, with the sun at your back, is to lose the sense of
proportion’ (N. SCOTT MOMADAY). Discuss the influence of landscape and belonging in the work of
AT LEAST TWO American writers (of any period studied on this course).
The issue of belonging and landscape often informs American literature
and art. This question invited candidates to consider American literature’s
commentary on issues such as pastoralism, indigenous landscape traditions,
naturalism and ecocriticism. The best answers drew on secondary work that
informed, and has been informed by, ecological concerns, and candidates
considered two authors’ celebration of particular places. If answering this,
or a similar, question in the future, candidates would do well to blend close
readings of the fiction with pertinent secondary material that examines
senses of place (you may wish to consult texts such as Keith Basso’s Wisdom
Sits in Places (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1996) [ISBN
9780826317247] or Robert Finch and John Elder (eds), Norton Book of Nature
Writing (New York: W. W. Norton, 2002) [ISBN 9780393978162]).

Question 18
Discuss the significance of the way that AT LEAST TWO American writers (of any period) represent
the South or the West.
An insightful understanding of the literature of the West would entail a
recognition of the histories and/or legacies of Manifest Destiny and the
frontier, and of the violence and conflict brought about by expansion.
Equally, the South’s history of slavery and racial oppression will inform an
understanding of the context of Southern literature. That is not to say that
these regional literatures can or should be simply reduced to these histories,
but rather that they may be influenced or inflected, directly or indirectly, by
the historical legacies and the cultural traditions that originated in those
contexts. Of course, candidates should be attentive to revisonary regionalism:
the literature that seeks to rewrite and re-remember the South and/or West,
producing a counter-narrative – often from a marginalised perspective.
Cormac McCarthy would be an ideal author on whom to base an answer this
question, as he deploys histories and myths of the South and West in order to
scrutinise them.

Question 19
To what extent does Native American literature depart from AND/OR converge with European–
American literary traditions? In your answer, refer to the work of AT LEAST TWO Native American
writers.
Candidates intending to answer this question must account for the
relationship between Native America literary traditions and European–
American ones. This might be done by considering issues such as mimicry,
subversion and cross-cultural influences (the scholarship of Louis Owens,
Gerald Vizenor and Craig Womack might be helpful here). Having rehearsed
these key critical arguments at the outset, candidates should then examine
tribal writers’ methods of reformulating various non-Native signs and devices.
Areas to focus on include narrative voice, literary trope(s), movements and/
or strategies. Candidates are also welcome to consider the extent to which
authors such as Leslie Marmon Silko, Sherman Alexie and LeAnne Howe
reconstitute images from European–American and European literature.

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Question 20
Account for why any TWO American novelists adopt a realist mode of writing.
Candidates answering this question need to account for the historical,
social and cultural contexts that explain realism’s emergence or its later
deployments, revisions and evolutions. In terms of realism’s emergence,
candidates need to place realism in the context of late 19th-century America,
post-Civil War, in which literature was called upon to represent (or remember)
the violence of the Civil War, and to document and analyse (with a reformist
impulse) the social consequences of urbanisation and industrialisation, and
the ever-increasing pervasiveness of capitalism and consumerism. Candidates
discussing 20th-century literature should not deploy a static and unchanged
version of realism but rather investigate how it has evolved, how it might differ
from other movements such as modernism, and to what specific contexts it
responds (war-time and post-war America, for example).

Question 21
Compare and contrast the treatment of race by ONE nineteenth-century American writer and ONE
twentieth-century American writer.
Informed and well-researched essays would focus on two authors’
representation of race in the United States, and might consider the various
theories that shed light on the production of racial categories in the 19th
century alongside the lasting effects that such stratification and separation
have had in the 20th century. Obvious choices to study include 19th-century
slave narratives and 20th-century texts that examine racism and the colour
line, or perhaps early Native American writing that represents the holocaust
and extermination of tribal peoples and contemporary indigenous fiction.
That said, even though literature’s representation of one particular racial
groups’ experience is surely worthy of examination (be it African American,
Latin American or Native American), the stronger answers will dare to offer
cross-cultural/inter-racial comparisons between these groups. Similarly, some
candidates may wish to consider the early treatment of European immigrants
(the Irish, for instance), as a means of thinking about the construction of
whiteness.

Question 22
With reference to the work of TWO American writers of any period, explore the significance of the
perspectives and identities fostered by the literature of travel AND/OR migration.
Ideal answers to this question will consider the perspectives afforded by travel
and/or migration on national or regional cultures and societies, whether
critical or affirmative, rather than just track the itineraries of and in literature.
Insightful answers might consider whether movement actually shapes form
as well as content, tracking the formation of literary strategies that can keep
pace with travel or which register the crossing of cultural borders and multiple
cultural influences and hybridised forms.

Concluding remarks
Overall, examiners concluded that candidates sitting the examination in
2015–16 would be wise to conduct an examination of the syllabus and 1)
identify the main themes and styles that are used by a number of authors in
whose work they are interested, then 2) locate and work through a number of
secondary essays and books that introduce and explain the author’s interest
in and use of those themes and styles, and then 3) explore the specific texts
themselves in order to locate scenes, moments, quotations and references

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that will support some possible readings and interpretations during the
examination period. Candidates are advised to remember that each text has
countless meanings, so answers should not seek out a defined, singular truth;
on the contrary, examiners hope to see candidates mull over, engage with, and
introduce possible modes of analysis. As noted in other years, the themes that
arise and the questions that are set do tend, in some form or other, to reappear
from year to year. The examiners agreed that candidates should seek new
and original approaches to these themes by broadening and deepening their
understandings of literary movements, contextual matters (American history,
politics, culture and so on) and – above all – the text itself. An introductory
textbook that examines contemporary American writing (for instance, Richard
Gray’s A History of American Literature [Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2004] [ISBN
9780631221357]) should be purchased by all candidates.

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