NYGH 2010-S3EOY-Adv Lit (HP)

1 Class Register Number Name 南洋女子中学校南洋女子中学校南洋女子中学校南洋女子中学校 NANYANG GIRLS' HIGH SCHOOL SECONDARY THREE END -OF -YEAR EXAMINATION 8TH OCTOBER 2010 Friday 1045 - 1245 2 Hours Advanced Literature (HP) READ THESE INSTRUCTIONS FIRST 1. Write your name on your answer script. 2. Use dark blue or black pen . 3. Do not use correction fluid / tape. INFORMATION FOR CANDIDATES 1. Answer two questions: one from Section A and one from Section B. 2. You are reminded of the need for good English an d good handwriting. Setter: SB This document consists of 7 printed pages. NANYANG GIRLS' HIGH SCHOOL [ Turn over]

2 SECTION A: SET TEXT – The Turn of the Screw, Henry James Answer either question 1 or 2 Question 1 (a) How effective is James’ use of imagery, symboli sm and development of mood in the extract below? (b) How do the literary devices employed below further your understanding of the text as a whole ? [30] My sense of how he received this suffered for a minute from something that I can describe only as a fierce split of my attention--a stroke that at first, as I sprang straight up, reduced me to the mere blind movement of getting hold of him, drawing him close, and, while I just fell for support against the nearest piece of furniture, instinctively keeping him with his back to the window. The appearance was full upon us that I had already had to deal with here: Peter Quint had come into view like a sentinel before a prison. The next thing I saw was that, from outside, he had reached the window, and then I knew that, close to the glass and glaring in through it, he offered once more to the room his white face of damnation. It represents but grossly what took place within me at the sight to say that on the second my decision was made; yet I believe that no woman so overwhelmed ever in so short a time recovered her grasp of the act. It came to me in the very horror of the immediate presence that the act would be, seeing and facing what I saw and faced, to keep the boy himself unaware. The inspiration--I can call it by no other name--was that I felt how voluntarily, how transcendently, I might. It was like fighting with a demon for a human soul, and when I had fairly so appraised it I saw how the human soul--held out, in the tremor of my hands, at arm's length--had a perfect dew of sweat on a lovely childish forehead. The face that was close to mine was as white as the face against the glass and out of it presently came a sound, not low nor weak, but as if from much further away, that I drank like a waft of fragrance. "Yes--I took it." At this, with a moan of joy, I enfolded, I drew him close; and while I held him to my breast, where I could feel in the sudden fever of his little body the tremendous pulse of his little heart, I kept my eyes on the th ing at the window and saw it move and shift its posture. (Chapter XXIV)

3 Question 2 ‘Literature is the question minus the answer.’ (Roland Barthes) What questions does The Turn of the Screw raise and to what extent does it provide the answers? [30] ********* SECTION B: LITERARY RESPONSE Answer either question 3 or 4 Question 3 Read the following question and answer with reference to works (i) and (ii) below. 3. How effective is each writer’s depiction of creativity? Answer with reference to tone, language, form and genre. [30] (i) The Writer - Richard Wilbur In her room at the prow of the house Where light breaks, and the windows are tossed with linden, My daughter is writing a story. I pause in the stairwell, hearing From her shut door a commotion of typewriter-keys Like a chain hauled over a gunwale*.

4 Young as she is, the stuff Of her life is a great cargo, and some of it heavy: I wish her a lucky passage. But now it is she who pauses, As if to reject my thought and its easy figure. A stillness greatens, in which The whole house seems to be thinking, And then she is at it again with a bunched clamor Of strokes, and again is silent. I remember the dazed starling Which was trapped in that very room, two years ago; How we stole in, lifted a sash And retreated, not to affright it; And how for a helpless hour, through the crack of the door, We watched the sleek, wild, dark And iridescent creature Batter against the brilliance, drop like a glove To the hard floor, or the desk-top, And wait then, humped and bloody, For the wits to try it again; and how our spirits Rose when, suddenly sure, It lifted off from a chair-back, Beating a smooth course for the right window And clearing the sill of the world. It is always a matter, my darling, Of life or death, as I had forgotten. I wish What I wished you before, but harder. *Gunwale : (Nautical term) The Upper edge of the side of a vessel

5 (ii) The Artist : A Chinese Fable – Isabelle C. Chang There was once a king who loved the graceful curves of the rooster. He asked the court artist to paint a picture of a rooster for him. For one year he waited, and still this order was not fulfilled. In a rage, he stomped into the artist's studio and demanded to see the artist. Quickly the artist brought out paper, paint, and brush. In five minutes a perfect picture of a rooster emerged from his skillful brush. The king turned purple with anger, saying, "If you can paint a perfect picture of a rooster in five minutes, why did you keep me waiting for over a year?" "Come with me," begged the artist. He led the king to his storage room. Paper was piled from the floor to the ceiling. On every sheet was a painting of a rooster. "Your Majesty," explained the artist, "it took me more than a year to learn how to paint a perfect rooster in five minutes." Life is short, Art is long. Question 4 Read the following question and answer with reference to works (i) and (ii) below. 4. How do the writers’ techniques contribute to your understanding of each speaker’s relationship with the moors in the following texts? [30]

6 (i) Warm Moors – Ted Hughes The moorline fumes like a pane of ice held up to the thawing Blue. And the lark, that toad of the roots, Begins under the ear’s moist threshold. Then out and up, the lung’s deep muscle Building the stair, lifting stone By stone a stair up the air, taking his time To score the face of every stone as he sings With a scoring and scribbling chisel, This is the way the lark climbs into the sun – Till your eye’s gossamer* snaps and your hearing floats back Widely to earth. After which the sky lies blank open Without wings, and the earth is a folded clod. Only the sun goes silently and endlessly on with the lark’s song. * gossamer: A very delicate type of fabric; a thread or web of this substance (ii) Jacob’s Room – Virginia Woolf Mrs. Jarvis walked on the moor when she was unhappy, going as far as a certain saucer-shaped hollow, though she always meant to go to a more distant ridge; and there she sat down, and took out the little book hidden beneath her cloak and read a few lines of poetry, and looked about her. She was not very unhappy, and, seeing that she was forty- five, never perhaps would be very unhappy, desperately unhappy that is, and leave her husband, and ruin a good man's career, as she