UNIVERSITY OF BOLTON BOLTON SCHOOL OF THE ARTS BA (HONS) ENGLISH STUDIES TRIMESTER ONE EXAMINATION 2016/2017 ASPECTS OF PROSE FICTION

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1 ADL001 UNIVERSITY OF BOLTON BOLTON SCHOOL OF THE ARTS BA (HONS) ENGLISH STUDIES TRIMESTER ONE EXAMINATION 2016/2017 ASPECTS OF PROSE FICTION MODULE NO: EST 5004 Date: Wednesday 11 th January 2017 Time: noon INSTRUCTIONS TO CANDIDATES: All candidates must answer TWO questions; ONE from Section A and ONE from Section B. You should not repeat substantially the same material in answering separate questions. You need only refer to authors studied on this module. The Section A answer carries 50% of the available marks, and Section B 50%. You are advised to apportion the time spent on each answer accordingly.

2 Page 2 of 7 SECTION A [50%] Choose ONE passage. Offer a detailed textual analysis of narrative voice, style, technique and the relationship between the passage and the story from which it is Passage One: from The Yellow Wallpaper Hurrah! This is the last day, but it is enough. John is to stay in town over night, and won't be out until this evening. Jennie wanted to sleep with me--the sly thing! But I told her I should undoubtedly rest better for a night all alone. That was clever, for really I wasn't alone a bit! As soon as it was moonlight and that poor thing began to crawl and shake the pattern, I got up and ran to help her. I pulled and she shook, I shook and she pulled, and before morning we had peeled off yards of that paper. A strip about as high as my head and half around the room. And then when the sun came and that awful pattern began to laugh at me, I declared I would finish it to-day! We go away to-morrow, and they are moving all my furniture down again to leave things as they were before. Jennie looked at the wall in amazement, but I told her merrily that I did it out of pure spite at the vicious thing. She laughed and said she wouldn't mind doing it herself, but I must not get tired. How she betrayed herself that time! But I am here, and no person touches this paper but me--not ALIVE! She tried to get me out of the room--it was too patent! But I said it was so quiet and empty and clean now that I believed I would lie down again and sleep all I could; and not to wake me even for dinner--i would call when I woke. So now she is gone, and the servants are gone, and the things are gone, and there is nothing left but that great bedstead nailed down, with the canvas mattress we found on it.

3 Page 3 of 7 We shall sleep downstairs to-night, and take the boat home to-morrow. I quite enjoy the room, now it is bare again. How those children did tear about here! This bedstead is fairly gnawed! But I must get to work. I have locked the door and thrown the key down into the front path. I don't want to go out, and I don't want to have anybody come in, till John comes. I want to astonish him. I've got a rope up here that even Jennie did not find. If that woman does get out, and tries to get away, I can tie her! But I forgot I could not reach far without anything to stand on! This bed will NOT move! I tried to lift and push it until I was lame, and then I got so angry I bit off a little piece at one corner--but it hurt my teeth. Then I peeled off all the paper I could reach standing on the floor. It sticks horribly and the pattern just enjoys it! All those strangled heads and bulbous eyes and waddling fungus growths just shriek with derision! I am getting angry enough to do something desperate. To jump out of the window would be admirable exercise, but the bars are too strong even to try. Besides I wouldn't do it. Of course not. I know well enough that a step like that is improper and might be misconstrued. I don't like to LOOK out of the windows even--there are so many of those creeping women, and they creep so fast. I wonder if they all come out of that wall-paper as I did? But I am securely fastened now by my well-hidden rope--you don't get ME out in the road there! I suppose I shall have to get back behind the pattern when it comes night, and that is hard! Pleases turn the page

4 Page 4 of 7 It is so pleasant to be out in this great room and creep around as I please! I don't want to go outside. I won't, even if Jennie asks me to. For outside you have to creep on the ground, and everything is green instead of yellow. But here I can creep smoothly on the floor, and my shoulder just fits in that long smooch around the wall, so I cannot lose my way. Why there's John at the door! Passage Two: from The New Dress by Virginia Woolf She faced herself straight in the glass; she pecked at her left shoulder; she issued out into the room, as if spears were thrown at her yellow dress from all sides. But instead of looking fierce or tragic, as Rose Shaw would have done Rose would have looked like Boadicea she looked foolish and self-conscious, and simpered like a schoolgirl and slouched across the room, positively slinking, as if she were a beaten mongrel, and looked at a picture, an engraving. As if one went to a party to look at a picture! Everybody knew why she did it it was from shame, from humiliation. Now the fly s in the saucer, she said to herself, right in the middle, and can t get out, and the milk, she thought, rigidly staring at the picture, is sticking its wings together. It s so old-fashioned, she said to Charles Burt, making him stop (which by itself he hated) on his way to talk to some-one else. She meant, or she tried to make herself think that she meant, that it was the picture and not her dress, that was old-fashioned. And one word of praise, one word of affection from Charles would have made all the difference to her at the moment. If he had only said, Mabel, you re looking charming to-night! it would have changed her life. But then she ought to have been truthful and direct. Charles said nothing of the kind, of course. He was malice itself. He always saw through one, especially if one were feeling particularly mean, paltry, or feeble-minded. Mabel s got a new dress! he said, and the poor fly was absolutely shoved into the middle of the saucer. Really, he would like her to drown, she believed. He had no heart, no fundamental kindness, only a veneer of friendliness. Miss Milan was much more real, much kinder. If only one could feel that and stick to it, always. Why, she asked herself replying to Charles much too pertly, letting him see that she was out of temper, or ruffled as he called it ( Rather ruffled? he said and went on to laugh at her with some woman over there) Why, she asked herself, can t I feel one thing always, feel quite sure that Miss Milan is right, and Charles wrong and stick to it, feel sure about the canary and pity and love and not be whipped all round in a second by coming into a room full of people? It was her odious, weak, vacillating character

5 Page 5 of 7 again, always giving at the critical moment and not being seriously interested in conchology, etymology, botany, archeology, cutting up potatoes and watching them fructify like Mary Dennis, like Violet Searle. Then Mrs. Holman, seeing her standing there, bore down upon her. Of course a thing like a dress was beneath Mrs. Holman s notice, with her family always tumbling downstairs or having the scarlet fever. Could Mabel tell her if Elmthorpe was ever let for August and September? Oh, it was a conversation that bored her unutterably! it made her furious to be treated like a house agent or a messenger boy, to be made use of. Not to have value, that was it, she thought, trying to grasp something hard, something real, while she tried to answer sensibly about the bathroom and the south aspect and the hot water to the top of the house; and all the time she could see little bits of her yellow dress in the round looking-glass which made them all the size of boot-buttons or tadpoles; and it was amazing to think how much humiliation and agony and self-loathing and effort and passionate ups and downs of feeling were contained in a thing the size of a threepenny bit. And what was still odder, this thing, this Mabel Waring, was separate, quite disconnected; and though Mrs. Holman (the black button) was leaning forward and telling her how her eldest boy had strained his heart running, she could see her, too, quite detached in the looking-glass, and it was impossible that the black dot, leaning forward, gesticulating, should make the yellow dot, sitting solitary, self-centred, feel what the black dot was feeling, yet they pretended. So impossible to keep boys quiet that was the kind of thing one said. Passage Three: from The Sisters by James Joyce THERE was no hope for him this time: it was the third stroke. Night after night I had passed the house (it was vacation time) and studied the lighted square of window: and night after night I had found it lighted in the same way, faintly and evenly. If he was dead, I thought, I would see the reflection of candles on the darkened blind for I knew that two candles must be set at the head of a corpse. He had often said to me: I am not long for this world, and I had thought his words idle. Now I knew they were true. Every night as I gazed up at the window I said softly to myself the word paralysis. It had always sounded strangely in my ears, like the word gnomon in the Euclid and the word simony in the Catechism. But now it sounded to me like the name of some maleficent and sinful being. It filled me with fear, and yet I longed to be nearer to it and to look upon its deadly work. Old Cotter was sitting at the fire, smoking, when I came downstairs to supper. While my aunt was ladling out my stirabout he said, as if returning to some former remark of his: No, I wouldn t say he was exactly... but there was something queer... there was something uncanny about him. I ll tell you my opinion.... He began to puff at his pipe, no doubt arranging his opinion in his mind. Tiresome old fool! When we knew him first he used to be rather interesting, talking of faints and worms; but I soon grew tired of him and his endless stories about the distillery.

6 Page 6 of 7 I have my own theory about it, he said. I think it was one of those... peculiar cases.... But it s hard to say.... He began to puff again at his pipe without giving us his theory. My uncle saw me staring and said to me: Well, so your old friend is gone, you ll be sorry to hear. Who? said I. Father Flynn. Is he dead? Mr. Cotter here has just told us. He was passing by the house. I knew that I was under observation so I continued eating as if the news had not interested me. My uncle explained to old Cotter. The youngster and he were great friends. The old chap taught him a great deal, mind you; and they say he had a great wish for him. God have mercy on his soul, said my aunt piously. Old Cotter looked at me for a while. I felt that his little beady black eyes were examining me but I would not satisfy him by looking up from my plate. He returned to his pipe and finally spat rudely into the grate. I wouldn t like children of mine, he said, to have too much to say to a man like that. How do you mean, Mr. Cotter? asked my aunt. What I mean is, said old Cotter, it s bad for children. My idea is: let a young lad run about and play with young lads of his own age and not be... Am I right, Jack? That s my principle, too, said my uncle. Let him learn to box his corner. That s what I m always saying to that Rosicrucian there: take exercise. Why, when I was a nipper every morning of my life I had a cold bath, winter and summer. And that s what stands to me now. Education is all very fine and large.... Mr. Cotter might take a pick of that leg mutton, he added to my aunt. No, no, not for me, said old Cotter.

7 Page 7 of 7 My aunt brought the dish from the safe and put it on the table. But why do you think it s not good for children, Mr. Cotter? she asked. It s bad for children, said old Cotter, because their mind are so impressionable. When children see things like that, you know, it has an effect.... I crammed my mouth with stirabout for fear I might give utterance to my anger. Tiresome old red-nosed imbecile! SECTION B [50%] Answer ONE question 1. Discuss the theme of unacknowledged desire in Katherine Mansfield s short fiction. 2. With reference to one or more texts, explore the way in which modernist writing conveys the inner world of characters. 3. Discuss the significance of silence and secrecy in James Joyce s fiction. 4. How important is the theme of history to The English Patient? 5. Comment on the relationship between the narrative style and the themes of The English Patient. 6. Discuss the ways in which otherness is explored in The English Patient. END OF QUESTIONS