Cambridge O Level

LITERATURE IN ENGLISH 2010/12

Paper 1 Poetry and Prose May/June 2023

1 hour 30 minutes

You must answer on the enclosed answer booklet.

* 4 0 8 9 1 8 2 7 1 0 *

You will need: Answer booklet (enclosed)

INSTRUCTIONS
● Answer two questions in total:
Section A: answer one question.
Section B: answer one question.
● Follow the instructions on the front cover of the answer booklet. If you need additional answer paper,
ask the invigilator for a continuation booklet.

INFORMATION
● The total mark for this paper is 50.
● All questions are worth equal marks.

This document has 28 pages. Any blank pages are indicated.

DC (LO) 323810
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BLANK PAGE

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CONTENTS

Section A: Poetry

text question
numbers page[s]

Songs of Ourselves Volume 1: from Part 4 1, 2 pages 4–5

Songs of Ourselves Volume 2 : from Part 4 3, 4 pages 6–7
Ted Hughes: from New Selected Poems 5, 6 pages 8–11

Section B: Prose

text question
numbers page[s]

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: Purple Hibiscus 7, 8 page 12

Charles Dickens: Great Expectations 9, 10 pages 14–15
Daphne du Maurier: Rebecca 11, 12 pages 16–17
Henry James: Washington Square 13, 14 pages 18–19
Jhumpa Lahiri: The Namesake 15, 16 pages 20–21
Joan Lindsay: Picnic at Hanging Rock 17, 18 pages 22–23
Yann Martel: Life of Pi 19, 20 pages 24–25
from Stories of Ourselves Volume 2 21, 22 pages 26–27

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SECTION A: POETRY

Answer one question from this section.

SONGS OF OURSELVES VOLUME 1: from Part 4

Remember to support your ideas with details from the writing.

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

Rain

Rain, midnight rain, nothing but the wild rain

On this bleak hut, and solitude, and me
Remembering again that I shall die
And neither hear the rain nor give it thanks
For washing me cleaner than I have been 5
Since I was born into this solitude.
Blessed are the dead that the rain rains upon:
But here I pray that none whom once I loved
Is dying to-night or lying still awake
Solitary, listening to the rain, 10
Either in pain or thus in sympathy
Helpless among the living and the dead,
Like a cold water among broken reeds,
Myriads of broken reeds all still and stiff,
Like me who have no love which this wild rain 15
Has not dissolved except the love of death,
If love it be for what is perfect and
Cannot, the tempest tells me, disappoint.

(Edward Thomas)

Explore the ways in which Thomas makes this such a moving poem.

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Or 2 How does Cheng create such disturbing impressions of the city in The Planners?

The Planners

They plan. They build. All spaces are gridded,

filled with permutations of possibilities.
The buildings are in alignment with the roads
which meet at desired points
linked by bridges all hang 5
in the grace of mathematics.
They build and will not stop.
Even the sea draws back
and the skies surrender.

They erase the flaws, 10

the blemishes of the past, knock off
useless blocks with dental dexterity.
All gaps are plugged
with gleaming gold.
The country wears perfect rows 15
of shining teeth.
Anaesthesia, amnesia, hypnosis.
They have the means.
They have it all so it will not hurt,
so history is new again. 20
The piling will not stop.
The drilling goes right through
the fossils of last century.

But my heart would not bleed

poetry. Not a single drop 25
to stain the blueprint
of our past’s tomorrow.

(Boey Kim Cheng)

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SONGS OF OURSELVES VOLUME 2: from Part 4

Remember to support your ideas with details from the writing.

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

I Find No Peace

I find no peace, and all my war is done.

I fear and hope. I burn and freeze like ice.
I fly above the wind, yet can I not arise;
And nought I have, and all the world I season.
That loseth nor locketh holdeth me in prison 5
And holdeth me not–yet can I scape no wise–
Nor letteth me live nor die at my device,
And yet of death it giveth me occasion.
Without eyen I see, and without tongue I plain.
I desire to perish, and yet I ask health. 10
I love another, and thus I hate myself.
I feed me in sorrow and laugh in all my pain;
Likewise displeaseth me both life and death,
And my delight is causer of this strife.

(Sir Thomas Wyatt)

Explore the ways in which Wyatt strikingly conveys his feelings in this poem.

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Or 4 How does Fairburn make Rhyme of the Dead Self such a memorable poem?

Rhyme of the Dead Self

Tonight I have taken all that I was

and strangled him that pale lily-white lad
I have choked him with these my hands these claws
catching him as he lay a-dreaming in his bed.

Then chuckling I dragged out his foolish brains 5

that were full of pretty love-tales heighho the holly
and emptied them holus bolus to the drains
those dreams of love oh what ruinous folly.

He is dead pale youth and he shall not rise

on the third day or any other day 10
sloughed like a snakeskin there he lies
and he shall not trouble me again for aye.

(A R D Fairburn)

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TED HUGHES: from New Selected Poems

Remember to support your ideas with details from the writing.

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

The Thought-Fox

I imagine this midnight moment’s forest:

Content removed due to copyright restrictions.

The page is printed.

Explore the ways Hughes strikingly depicts how thoughts come to him as he writes the
poem.

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TURN OVER FOR QUESTION 6.

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Or 6 How does Hughes powerfully depict his early morning walk in The Horses?

The Horses

I climbed through woods in the hour-before-dawn dark.

Content removed due to copyright restrictions.

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Content removed due to the copyright restrictions.

Between the streams and the red clouds, hearing curlews,

Hearing the horizons endure.

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SECTION B: PROSE

Answer one question from this section.

CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE: Purple Hibiscus

Remember to support your ideas with details from the writing.

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

We were all in the living room, playing cards, when the phone rang
that evening.

Content removed due to copyright restrictions.

He had seemed immortal.

How does Adichie make this such a dramatic moment in the novel?

Or 8 Explore the ways in which Adichie vividly depicts Kambili’s school days.

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TURN OVER FOR QUESTION 9.

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CHARLES DICKENS: Great Expectations

Remember to support your ideas with details from the writing.

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

My sister, Mrs. Joe Gargery, was more than twenty years older than I,
and had established a great reputation with herself and the neighbours
because she had brought me up ‘by hand.’ Having at that time to find out
for myself what the expression meant, and knowing her to have a hard and
heavy hand, and to be much in the habit of laying it upon her husband as 5
well as upon me, I supposed that Joe Gargery and I were both brought up
by hand.
She was not a good-looking woman, my sister; and I had a general
impression that she must have made Joe Gargery marry her by hand. Joe
was a fair man, with curls of flaxen hair on each side of his smooth face, 10
and with eyes of such a very undecided blue that they seemed to have
somehow got mixed with their own whites. He was a mild, good-natured,
sweet-tempered, easy-going, foolish, dear fellow – a sort of Hercules in
strength, and also in weakness.
My sister, Mrs. Joe, with black hair and eyes, had such a prevailing 15
redness of skin that I sometimes used to wonder whether it was possible
she washed herself with a nutmeg-grater instead of soap. She was tall and
bony, and almost always wore a coarse apron, fastened over her figure
behind with two loops, and having a square impregnable bib in front, that
was stuck full of pins and needles. She made it a powerful merit in herself, 20
and a strong reproach against Joe, that she wore this apron so much.
Though I really see no reason why she should have worn it at all: or why, if
she did wear it at all, she should not have taken it off, every day of her life.
Joe’s forge adjoined our house, which was a wooden house, as many
of the dwellings in our country were – most of them, at that time. When 25
I ran home from the churchyard, the forge was shut up, and Joe was
sitting alone in the kitchen. Joe and I being fellow-sufferers, and having
confidences as such, Joe imparted a confidence to me, the moment I
raised the latch of the door and peeped in at him opposite to it, sitting in
the chimney corner. 30
‘Mrs. Joe has been out a dozen times, looking for you, Pip. And she’s
out now, making it a baker’s dozen.’
‘Is she?’
‘Yes, Pip,’ said Joe; ‘and what’s worse, she’s got Tickler with her.’
At this dismal intelligence, I twisted the only button on my waistcoat 35
round and round, and looked in great depression at the fire. Tickler was a
wax-ended piece of cane, worn smooth by collision with my tickled frame.
‘She sot down,’ said Joe, ‘and she got up, and she made a grab at
Tickler, and she Ram-paged out. That’s what she did,’ said Joe, slowly
clearing the fire between the lower bars with the poker, and looking at it: 40
‘she Ram-paged out, Pip.’
‘Has she been gone long, Joe?’ I always treated him as a larger
species of child, and as no more than my equal.
‘Well,’ said Joe, glancing up at the Dutch clock, ‘she’s been on the
Ram-page, this last spell, about five minutes, Pip. She’s a coming! Get 45
behind the door, old chap, and have the jack-towel betwixt you.’
I took the advice. My sister, Mrs. Joe, throwing the door wide open,
and finding an obstruction behind it, immediately divined the cause, and
applied Tickler to its further investigation. She concluded by throwing me
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– I often served her as a connubial missile – at Joe, who, glad to get hold 50
of me on any terms, passed me on into the chimney and quietly fenced me
up there with his great leg.

(from Chapter 2)

How does Dickens make this such an entertaining introduction to the Gargerys?

Or 10 How far does Dickens make you feel sympathy for Magwitch?

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DAPHNE DU MAURIER: Rebecca

Remember to support your ideas with details from the writing.

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

‘Miss Caroline de Winter,’ shouted the drummer.

Content removed due to copyright restrictions.

And then I ran from her, down the long narrow passage to my own
room, tripping, stumbling over the flounces of my dress.

(from Chapter 16)

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How does du Maurier make this such a powerful moment in the novel?

Or 12 Explore the ways in which du Maurier memorably portrays Frank Crawley.

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HENRY JAMES: Washington Square

Remember to support your ideas with details from the writing.

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

Morris Townsend came again, some five days afterwards; but Dr

Sloper was not called, as he was absent from home at the time. Catherine
was with her aunt when the young man’s name was brought in, and Mrs
Penniman, effacing herself and protesting, made a great point of her
niece’s going into the drawing-room alone. 5
‘This time it’s for you – for you only,’ she said. ‘Before, when he talked
to me, it was only preliminary – it was to gain my confidence. Literally, my
dear, I should not have the courage to show myself to-day.’
And this was perfectly true. Mrs Penniman was not a brave woman,
and Morris Townsend had struck her as a young man of great force of 10
character, and of remarkable powers of satire; a keen, resolute, brilliant
nature, with which one must exercise a great deal of tact. She said to
herself that he was ‘imperious’, and she liked the word and the idea. She
was not the least jealous of her niece, and she had been perfectly happy
with Mr Penniman, but in the bottom of her heart she permitted herself 15
the observation: ‘That’s the sort of husband I should have had!’ He was
certainly much more imperious – she ended by calling it imperial – than
Mr Penniman.
So Catherine saw Mr Townsend alone, and her aunt did not come
in even at the end of the visit. The visit was a long one; he sat there – 20
in the front parlour, in the biggest arm-chair – for more than an hour. He
seemed more at home this time – more familiar; lounging a little in the
chair, slapping a cushion that was near him with his stick, and looking
round the room a good deal, and at the objects it contained, as well as at
Catherine; whom, however, he also contemplated freely. There was a smile 25
of respectful devotion in his handsome eyes which seemed to Catherine
almost solemnly beautiful; it made her think of a young knight in a poem.
His talk, however, was not particularly knightly; it was light and easy and
friendly; it took a practical turn, and he asked a number of questions about
herself – what were her tastes – if she liked this and that – what were her 30
habits. He said to her, with his charming smile, ‘Tell me about yourself;
give me a little sketch.’ Catherine had very little to tell, and she had no
talent for sketching; but before he went she had confided to him that she
had a secret passion for the theatre, which had been but scantily gratified,
and a taste for operatic music – that of Bellini and Donizetti, in especial (it 35
must be remembered in extenuation of this primitive young woman that
she held these opinions in an age of general darkness) – which she rarely
had an occasion to hear, except on the hand-organ. She confessed that
she was not particularly fond of literature. Morris Townsend agreed with
her that books were tiresome things; only, as he said, you had to read a 40
good many before you found it out. He had been to places that people
had written books about, and they were not a bit like the descriptions.
To see for yourself – that was the great thing; he always tried to see for
himself. He had seen all the principal actors – he had been to all the best
theatres in London and Paris. But the actors were always like the authors 45
– they always exaggerated. He liked everything to be natural. Suddenly he
stopped, looking at Catherine with his smile.

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‘That’s what I like you for; you are so natural! Excuse me,’ he added;
‘you see I am natural myself!’

(from Chapter 6)

In what ways does James strikingly portray the characters at this moment in the novel?

Or 14 To what extent does James make it possible for you to admire Dr Sloper?

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JHUMPA LAHIRI: The Namesake

Remember to support your ideas with details from the writing.

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

Nikhil consults his map and for the next few days he follows the routes
she has charted for him with a pencil.

Content removed due to copyright restrictions.

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Content removed due to copyright restrictions.

But she refuses to indulge him, moving her chair out of view with a
scrape on the pavement; she doesn’t want to be mistaken for a tourist in
this city, she says.

(from Chapter 9)

Explore the ways in which Lahiri makes this such a revealing moment in the novel.

Or 16 How does Lahiri create such memorable impressions of Ashoke’s life?

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JOAN LINDSAY: Picnic at Hanging Rock

Remember to support your ideas with details from the writing.

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

‘Miss Edith, did anyone suggest which way they wanted to go?’

Content removed due to copyright restrictions.

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Content removed due to copyright restrictions.

And that was the last and only piece of factual information to
be extracted from Edith Horton, either on Wednesday, February the
eighteenth, or on any subsequent occasion.

(from Chapter 5)

In what ways does Lindsay make this moment in the novel both entertaining and
significant?

Or 18 How does Lindsay’s portrayal of Sara Waybourne’s suffering contribute to the power of
the novel?

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YANN MARTEL: Life of Pi

Remember to support your ideas with details from the writing.

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

I looked around at the horizon.

Content removed due to copyright restrictions.

Plan Number Seven: Keep Him Alive.

(from Chapter 57)

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How does Martel strikingly convey Pi’s excitement with his plan at this moment in the
novel?

Or 20 Explore the ways in which Martel vividly depicts Pi’s extreme suffering during his time at
sea.

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from STORIES OF OURSELVES Volume 2

Remember to support your ideas with details from the writing.

Either 21 Read this passage from A Thousand Years of Good Prayers (by Yiyun Li), and then
answer the question that follows it:

The next morning, Mr Shi confesses to Madam, ‘The daughter, she’s not
happy.’

Content removed due to copyright restrictions.

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Content removed due to copyright restrictions.

‘Old stories are not exciting.’

How does Li vividly portray Mr Shi’s unhappiness at this moment in the story?

Or 22 Explore the ways in which Hughes creates vivid impressions of Mrs Jones in Thank You
M’am.

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