 Hello everyone, I am Deeksha Jain and I secured rank 22 in civil services examination 2018. I clear this exam with English literature optional and in this video I will be discussing in detail the optional paper one, paper one of English literature that came in 2018. So let us get to it, firstly how to attempt the question paper, the instructions are written on the first paper of the question paper that you will get, all in all there are 8 questions but all of them are not compulsory. Only question number 1 and question number 5, both of which have 5 parts each are to be done in a compulsory manner, the other 3 questions that are to be attempted to have to be from one section and one has to be from one section, please do not make the mistake of attempting all 3 questions from one section because then one question will not be evaluated at all. So the first question is short notes, the first compulsory question are basically 5 short notes and because of this question you cannot ignore any section from the poetry because any poet can come in this section. The question number 5 which is also compulsory is unseen poetry analysis question. For that you have to build up your poetry analysis skills and another thing that I would like to add is that every question is given a certain set of marks either 10 marks, 15 marks or 20 marks and they have a certain time limit with which it has to be written because if you give more than the allotted time to any question then you will be compromising on the content of the other question. So be very careful while timing your question paper. So finally now we will be discussing the questions in detail. Now let us look at the question number 1 which is a compulsory question. Here in this paper the place and the poetry which is there in paper number 1 is asked in question number 1. The first question here is related with the Tempest by William Shakespeare and it reads how do post-colonial critics view Prospero's use of magic and exploitation of Caliban. So in this question what basically has to be done is that you have to talk about how Prospero uses magic and how the character of Prospero and Caliban show relationship of exploitation which has been analysed by post-colonial critics as a sort of representation of colonialism. Now I attempted this answer was that I started with an introduction of the role of Prospero, how he is a western king who is stranded in an oriental setting and he subjugates the inhabitants of that particular setting which is basically Ariel and Caliban also. And after that I discussed about the relationship between Prospero and Caliban. You can focus here on the way you can use instances from the text. For example, the way Prospero makes Caliban a slave, he commands him to do things. Very interesting parallel is that Prospero is the one who teaches Caliban how to write and how to speak. He teaches language to Caliban which again sort of is related to the trope that it is the western world which is civilised and it is the orient which is uncivilised and which has to be taught by the western world. Even in India we had a colonial policy of education in which English was taught to so many people. So you can make that kind of a relationship. A good quotation to use would be when Caliban says that yes you have taught language to me and my benefit on it is that I know how to curse. So the idea in this question is that when you give what the relationship of Caliban and Prospero includes you are analysing it from the perspective of Caliban, the perspective of subjugation, the perspective of colonial education and you can even include slight bit of historical background as to how when this play was written in around early 17th century colonialism was beginning and there were a lot of merchant ships of England which were heading out to the colonies and this was a reality which England was also sort of trying to analyse in its own terms. One interesting incident is that at the end of the play the fate of Caliban is left vague. We don't know what happens to Caliban once Prospero leaves. So that also shows the anxiety that is there within the English society about the colonial enterprise. So you can include all these points, substantiate them with quotations from the text and you can even use some critics comments like Stephen Greenblatt but your own analysis of this relationship will form the core of the answer. And since it is a 10 mark answer you will get two sides to write it down. So make sure that your points are crisp and concise and to the point. So now we will move to the second question. The second question is Adam is a Christian hero in Paradise Lost. Again 10 marks, so two sides. Here what we will be looking at is how Paradise Lost firstly it is a Christian epic. So one needs to understand what are the qualities of a Christian hero. How is a Christian hero different from the hero of an epic for example a Greek or a Roman epic. So the qualities that Christianity valorises how they are shown in Adam. First thing would be obedience to God which is again valorised in Adam. Then piety, there is also the importance of labour, importance of frugality. So earlier heroes in epics would be valorised in terms of the wealth that they own, the courage that they have, the physical strength that they manifest. On the other hand a Christian hero will be valorised in terms of things like basically obedience to God, then piety, frugality, the simplicity. Earlier if wealth was valorised then here what is valorised is that they have no possessions at all. That love towards God is also something that is valorised in Adam. Apart from this you can talk about the way in which Adam is physically described as a hero. I think it is somewhere around book 4 when Adam is described as this, you know when Eve looks at Adam he is this tall figure very beautiful to look at. He is supposed to be the manifestation of everything that is good. And Eve looks at him and although she feels that she is more beautiful but ultimately she is told that she has to admire Adam. So Adam has these qualities. Even when Eve eats the fruit Adam shows this sort of resistance and even when finally Adam agrees to eat the fruit along with Eve, later it is sort of shown that there is a lot of repentance and they take Adam and Eve both take responsibility for their actions once they are thrown out of the paradise. So you can talk about all these Christian values which are valorised in Adam. And the third question here is satirical writing in the Augustan age with specific reference to rape of the lock. So satire was genre which was really in vogue in the Augustan age. And there were people like Dryden and Popo were writing satire. So basically we have a background topic in this particular paper called satire in which you obviously have to generally speak about Augustan satire. And here you have to do it with respect to specific reference to the rape of the lock which is in the course by Alexander Pope. So what you should be discussing or what I discussed in this question were the qualities of satire that were there. The satire was it was about the society. So there was satire about the materialism of the society. So here you can refer to the dressing table of Belinda which has the comb made of tortoise shell and the perfumes of Arabia. Here you can mention the materialism which is driving the society. The superficiality of the society where everybody is just interested in card games and who is marrying whom or who is interested in whom. And on the other hand important issues like poverty etc. being ignored. There is a specific line in the poem where Pope says that judges are more concerned with having their dinner irrespective of the fact that the wretches are being hanged on their word. So it sort of shows the superficiality of the society. So you can talk about satire which is looking at the superficial society of the Augustin age. Then you can also talk about what are the ways and means through which satire works. So in this particular poem uses the supernatural machinery in terms of silts like ariel and nymphs and salamanders etc. So you can talk about how fantasy is also included in satire to deepen the satire on society. Another point that can be included is that the satire is also targeted at women and their sort of superficial, their interest in dressing up and their sort of how to like basically how they are only interested in dressing up in society and they are not at all even the religion that they have is only to show other people. So it is sort of slightly also targeted at women which was a trend during that time shift also does it. So you can talk about that as well. I think if you write this much your 10 marks like your time will be over by then. So we will move on to the next question. The fourth question here is a birth is our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting. Explain this line from birth so it is owed on intimations of immortality and comment on the significance of the poem. So here what they have done is they have taken a direct quote from a poem and you have to analyze that poem and that poet with respect to this line. So this particular line has been taken from owed to intimations of immortality and here basically it is talking about Wordsworth's own philosophical idea that when human beings take birth in this life this is actually an intermittent time when we forget our heavenly home and the time between when we forget our heavenly home we come to this life and when we return to it. So it is a sleep and a forgetting. The next line of this poem is that our soul has elsewhere its setting. So you can even include that to sort of emphasize the philosophical idea behind this poem. Apart from that you can talk about the mysticism that was there in romantic poetry and how it is manifested in these lines through a poet who was so quintessentially romantic like Wordsworth who will talk about you know how nature is a caretaker of the soul during its time in the earth who will talk about mystical aspects like you know heavenly soul coming to life and then going back again. So it is basically you have to explain this line you have to explain the philosophical background of Wordsworth in this line and you can also relate with it as Wordsworth is a romantic poet and how these lines connect with romanticism. The fifth question is the imagery of light and darkness in tenacence in memoriam. So in memoriam is a fairly long poem and the major themes within in memoriam have to do with nature, death. It is an elegy because Tennyson had written this poem out of pain for his friend's death whose name was Arthur H. Hallam. So death is also an element of darkness here and also sort of overcoming personal grief. So all these elements have a lot of things to do with light and darkness. So how does Tennyson use this imagery? The first thing that you can talk about is life and death. So whenever Tennyson is talking about death, whenever Tennyson is grieving you can see how the imagery of darkness, clouds, night, ghostliness, etc. is used and when finally at the end of the poem he is talking about it becomes an epithalium that is it talks about a wedding and it sort of overcomes that grief. So there is a lot of imagery of light in those lines. So you can even quote from there. Second thing where light and darkness are there is the way nature is used. There is a very beautiful quote from the poem, words like nature half reveal and half conceal the soul behind. So this concealing and revealing has to do with light and darkness. How nature at times is an agent of darkness and at times an agent of life and light and both are important because here if we talk about the supernatural element when Tennyson has this sort of an epiphany and a communion with Hallam's soul it happens in a mode of darkness and it is a very mystical place. So nature is used as a sort of element of darkness there but it leads to something very good. And at the same time when Wordsworth is at times in Emotions of Happen as he will talk about flowers and mountains and there is a lot of use of light. So you can conclude by saying that light and darkness are two images and they are two feelings that are used throughout the poem and they are the two images which sort of help us understand Tennyson's emotions as he is grieving and coming out of that grief over the death of Arthur H. Hallam. So let us now move to the second question. Question number 2 A says show how Wordsworth reinvents the traditional renaissance pastoral in Michael and Resolution and Independence. So here if we were to talk about the renaissance pastoral it was basically if you look at Shakespeare's plays like Midsummer's Night's Dream or as you like it the pastoral has been used as a setting where the royalty would sort of get lost and there would be some sort of comedy and they will use the pastoral setting as a place where they can let go of the incumbrances which come with being royal and they will interact and then again they will move back to the royal sphere or to the society so to speak. And the renaissance pastoral also usually lacked the actual characters from pastoral in the sense that they would not have many characters who are poor or who are actually part of that pastoral framework. It will actually be very rich and sort of authorial figures of society who get lost in a jungle. Now what Wordsworth does here is that he uses the same setting he uses the same pastoral setting but he sort of also talks about the people the hardships of the people who actually live in the pastoral setting. They are away from the comforts of the city life that you can introduce this answer by talking about the renaissance pastoral and saying how Wordsworth reinvents it uses it but at the same time carves a different niche for himself in terms of pastoral poetry. Then you can give reference from both these poems. First thing Wordsworth explores the raw beauty of the pastoral. Instead of the renaissance jungle or the forest where magical forest here you do not have any magical figures but you have awe-inspiring mountains and pastures and that idea of natural beauty is evoked. Number two the primary characters of Michael are basically a shepherd called Michael and his wife and their son who goes to the city and loses his way in the city. So he is talking also about the hardships of the people who live in rural areas and who live in these remote areas. So to that extent he is reinventing it. You can use some quotes to substantiate this point of view. In resolution and independence also sort of talks about how Wordsworth himself is travelling in this pastoral setting in a very natural setting and there is nobody visible for you know as far as I can see but then he looks at a very old crippled man who is a leech gatherer and after looking at him and how he is still at this age and with so many difficulties he still has the determination and the discipline to do his work and whatever meager he gets he is being faithful to the natural setting in which he is living. So Wordsworth again uses the natural setting its beauty to evoke other values like the importance of labour, the importance of determination, the importance of overcoming physical disabilities. It is by looking at the leech gatherer that Wordsworth actually is himself inspired to do something in life. So here nature not only becomes a setting where people get lost but nature becomes a teacher as well. So you can include that point as well. Moving on to the B question of question number two. Analyze the thematic opposition between the natural and the unnatural in King Lear. Also with reference to the text. So this is of course like it is a slightly difficult question because then you have to look at natural and unnatural in all its dimensions and aspects. It is a 20 mark question which means that you have to write four sides on it. One very interesting thing that happened this year was that the 20 mark questions in paper one were given only three sides and I was expecting there to be four sides. So I was writing in a very sort of you know elaborate manner till I realised that I don't have enough space and I had to suddenly cram so many points. So my advice will be that before starting the question just quickly flip through and see how much space you have for that particular question. So natural and unnatural. So you can look at natural and unnatural in so many ways. The first way to look at it is about relationships. That what is natural, because King Lear uses this in like a lot of, it is the central theme of King Lear that what is a natural relationship and what is unnatural. Lear himself makes the huge mistake of thinking that his two daughters, Gornaral and Regan, who actually in a way they are being fake in their love, they are being unnatural but he's unable to gauge that. He's unable to see that the natural love that Cordelia has cannot be put into words and the high words that Regan and Gornaral are using are actually they are hiding a much more sinister feeling that they have for their father. So this natural and unnatural in terms of difference between words and true feelings that people have. Natural and unnatural in terms of setting as well. For example, the unnatural setting I would say is the court in King Lear because the court is the place where all kinds of malefied intentions are there, there are a lot of conspiracies also. People's eyes are gouged out, people's are banished from the kingdom. It is the natural setting, the absolutely, you know, the heat, the place where Glaucester also experiences epiphany. It is these natural settings which lead to spiritual realization for the main characters. Lear realizes the importance of Cordelia's love and his own mistakes when he's in the natural setting. So again an opposition between natural and unnatural is created. Another way in which natural and unnatural would be there is the way characters are made. The way Edmund is there and Edgar is there. So although in a way Edmund is the bastard and Edgar is actually the real heir but what makes Edmund unnatural is the way he becomes, he gets the sinister intention towards his father where he keeps plotting against his father as well as everybody. Edmund is so Machiavellian in his approach that he plots so much that ultimately it always plots sort of, you know, merge and they come to nothing. So in a way Shakespeare is also talking about the unnaturalness of the Machiavellian approach of having, you know, of making your means that you can have any means to attain your ends. So Shakespeare is also talking about the unnaturalness of this philosophy. So these are some ideas that you can talk of in terms of natural and unnatural and you can even explore through your own analysis if there are any other points that you can find. The third question in question number two for 15 marks is the incidents, characters and dialogues in Ibsen's Doll's house are contrived in such a way that they conceal as much as they receive. So here the keywords are incidents, characters and dialogues. So you have to talk about all three. So when we are talking about incidents we can talk about how, when Nora is talking to Tawald and the way, you know, she is talking about the earlier, the way Tawald and Nora interact on stage, how although it seems like the relationship is very good but it hides so many things. It is only when we hear about Nora's own perspective about the relationship that we realize that the incident that just happened on stage between Nora and Tawald is actually hiding the superficiality of the relationship. The way Nora seems to be so happy in the beginning of the play and slowly we realize that her happiness is actually premised on this false notion that Tawald actually loves and respects her or that you know she feels that she, her being a wife and a mother is enough for her but she realizes in the end that she needs to find her own place in the world. So it is also showing that the character that Nora has in the beginning sort of hides so many things from us and as the play moves on, so much more is revealed. In terms of dialogues, you can talk about two things. One is the symbolism in dialogues. So when Tawald says to Mrs. Lent that you know you should be sowing is much more becoming in a woman than knitting, then it is very symbolic of Tawald's general approach to women, how he sees them, how they should always be presentable and how they should always try to please the other sex. On the other hand, you know, basically the play reveals the double standards that Tawald himself has. So in terms of dialogues, also you can talk in terms of symbols, the macarons or even the dance that she performs, Nora performs, how it is also a symbol of her sexuality. Apart from that, in dialogues, you can also look at how in the beginning we don't know about the past of Tawald and how he had fallen ill. We don't know about the backstory of Mrs. Lent and the other character who is the sort of villain who is asking for money from Nora. So all these things are revealed at the end. So you can talk about how by using symbolism, by using dialogues which have meanings, which not only have implications for the characters but about patriarchy and society in general. And you can also talk about how the play is structured in such a way that things are revealed towards the end which we don't know at the beginning of the play. You can also improvise on this. I did not attempt this question because I felt that I would have been able to answer the other questions in a better manner. Let us now move to question number three, something which I actually attempted in the exam, the A part. Considering the representation of Satan and Paradise Laws, Book 1, 2, 4 and 9, would you agree with Blake that in writing Paradise Laws, Milton was of the devil's party without knowing it? So this is a very common question. This question has come multiple times earlier also. So please have an opinion about it. My opinion about this was that yes, Milton was republican. There is certain vigor and certain strength of argument in Satan's dialogue which makes us feel that Blake is also giving his republican ideas. He is actually mouthing them through Satan. At the same time I was also pretty sure that in terms of political ideology and religion, Milton has a clear separation and he is on the side of God. So ultimately yes, he is not of Satan's party and there is certain evidence within the text which will show that although Satan has a very good argument but Satan has the sort of double standard which he says something else to motivate the other devils. He will talk about democracy and that everybody should have a vote but at the same time he is actually trying to become a dictator himself in terms of he will sort of silence them and everybody is scared of him and ultimately his motivations are not right. Although he might be talking of democracy, he is actually not in support of democracy. So what Milton is doing here is he is showing the double standards of Satan but at the same time he gives some very powerful dialogues to Satan which actually you know one could say that yes the arguments are very strong but he is not of Satan's party like I wouldn't go that far. So how do you approach this answer? The first thing that you have to do is that you have to use evidence from book 1, 2, 4 and 9 because that is specifically mentioned in the question. What you can say, you can start the introduction like how I think I started was that Blake did call Satan as of being of the devils party without knowing it because of Milton's Republican background. Milton was somebody who actually supported the Regicide of the then King Charles I and he was pro-democracy and he was pro whether he was a Republican. So these ideals are represented in Satan. How are they represented? When we look at Satan in book 1 and 2, Satan talks to the other devils and he says that we should have the vote. He says that God is actually a dictator and we should overthrow the dictator which is very it reminds us of you know Charles I was also a dictatorial figure but what happens even actually when Satan tries to convince Eve in book 9 that why she should eat the fruit. He talks about you know how God is the dictator and why should God refuse, why should God stop Adam and Eve eating the fruit without giving them a reason why they shouldn't eat. So these arguments are appealing they are very they appeal to Eve also and they also appeal to the readers but then what Milton does is he exposes the double standards of Satan. He shows that actually Satan does not want democracy, Satan wants to be the dictator he actually wants to be God that is the problem with Satan. When Satan talks of the vote he sort of organizes it in such a manner that everybody agrees with him and when Satan stands up every devil is scared of him. When Satan convinces Eve to eat the fruit he is not doing it to empower Eve, he is actually doing it to get back at God. So the intentions here are not right. So again like my I would say that use textual evidence here to make your argument and whatever side you want to take or you want to take a balanced approach like me you can go with it just you know substantiate it with quotes from the text it will become a beautiful answer then. Now the three B part is discuss the salient features of metaphysical conceits used by Dan and elucidate your answer citing examples from the poems prescribed for study. So first thing here is what is metaphysical conceit and how does Dan use them. So you define metaphysical conceit that metaphysical conceit was a trope used by the poets during the 17th century in which by poets like Dan and there are others also but since Dan is in the syllabus so you can just mention Dan and metaphysical conceit involves taking two very contrary and unrelated subjects and using images in such a way that they come in violent contradiction with each other to create very meaningful and very intellectual metaphors. So for example I will just give one example here for the question that Dan when he is talking to his beloved in one of the poems he says that you are my America my newfound land so what is Dan doing here he is conflating the romantic idea the private space which is totally separate from colonialism and using a image which is about colonialism exploration and about colonizing a new land like America which was happening this was the time when you know more and more people were going to America and they were colonizing that space they were clearing out the forest etc. So here what Dan is doing is that he is first bringing together two very contrary images and there is a lot of meaning that is also being created through this image. So you are talking not just about the image that is created you will also talk about then conquering a new land is like conquering a woman. So here it is done is sort of also you know talking about that patriarchal ownership of a woman that you know you conquer a woman here the woman's consent to this is not really become a matter of question in this poem. So you can talk about this you know how the colonizer conquers the man also conquers the woman so that meaning was also being brought together through this metaphysical conceit. There are other examples also related to alchemy and how you know the coming together of the beloved and the poet is like coming as magical as you know alchemy. So you can talk about how science, astronomy, colonial adventures, images from all these places are suddenly brought into the private sphere to create very intellectual and engaging poetry. So you can talk about that you can also talk about how this was very new for its time. The other poets who were writing during this time who belong to the Petrachan school for example they would you know use normal things like your face is like the moon or you know my beloved looks like you know the sun and her soul is as pure as things like that. But here what Dan is talking about is he is using intellectual metaphors so that is something which is very new in Dan's poetry. So that is what you have to discuss and you use more examples than one because it is a 15 mark question and you will have time and space to do that. The C part of question number three is what picture of 18th century aristocratic London life do you gain from Pope's rape of the lock in terms of both of its material and moral aspects. We have actually done this question in one of the short notes one here you will be talking about Pope's satire and what exactly is a satiring. So the keywords here are material aspects and moral aspects. In terms of material aspects you can talk about Belinda's wardrobe you can talk about the superficial society its concern with riches it's a society which is being fed with colonial wealth and where consumerism is being seen as something which the society is moving towards but which people are also not people like Pope are not comfortable with as well. In terms of moral aspects you can talk about so basically Pope uses this trope called Zuma and he says that for a woman losing husband or a I think a husband or a brocade is a bore a brocade is the same thing so relationships human relationships are equated with material things it sort of shows the lopsided priorities of the 18th century England. You can also talk about women in specific how they are satirized I don't completely agree with this because Pope will often say that it is the women you know who are driving colonialism by their materialistic desire but on the other hand I think that it was because of the colonial wealth which was coming in that women were seen as possible customers of all these things. So you can even use a critical point at this stage you can talk about the judge example that I gave that you know even the people of authority they have become so materialistic that they don't care about justice values like justice or the importance of life of other people what they care about is where they are going to have dinner. So you can talk about the imagery that is used also and you can again like just conclude with satire and your comments on the society of 17th century and poetry therein. In question number four the A part is in his preface to lyrical valets Wordsworth describes poetry both as a spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings and his emotion recollected in tranquility show how he resolves it apparent contradiction in Tintin Abbey. So this is a 15 mark question which you have to answer from Tintin Abbey so you should have like a detailed understanding of Tintin Abbey a summary of it or you know just superficially reading it will not do. So let us look at what the contradiction is on the one hand Wordsworth is saying that it is a spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings. So the feelings are spontaneously overflowing on the other hand he is saying that it is recollected in tranquility. So here you need to have an understanding of what Wordsworth's idea of poetry of romantic poetry is all about poetry here it means that when you writing poetry it is going to be a spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings because when you recall your past experiences and your emotions it is also a spontaneous overflow when you experience them that also leads to a lot of emotional sort of overflow but when you are writing poetry you recall those emotions you go into that state again and you bring it out in the form of a poem. In Tintin Abbey Wordsworth recalls his visit to Tintin Abbey when he had gone once and then again when he goes with his sister. So it is that state that he is in he recalls his the emotional and spiritual transformation that he experienced at Tintin Abbey and how his poetry received a new sort of a new kick or a new sort of transformation by through his visit in the Tintin Abbey how nature affected him in Tintin Abbey and he brings that to the poem. Apart from that there is also a section in the poem which talks about that not only does nature and not only does the visit to Tintin Abbey heal him in the present moment when he had visited but when he is in the city in the cloistered rooms and when he is feeling depressed and when he recalls those moments again it revives him. So this is also recollected in tranquility the aspect of recollecting good experiences in tranquility. There are other evidences on the in the text as well when he talks about talks to Dorothy and he says that I hope nature does that for you which it has done for me the way it has healed me the way it has empowered me I hope it does it for you also. So again the whole idea of poetry being spontaneous and at the same time a recollection and it is because poetry is a recollection that poetry has that rhythm you are thinking about putting you know rhyming words that cannot happen without recollection if it is only spontaneous overflow then it might also come out as gibberish but poetry is structured so you can talk about this that you know to in order to give creative meaning to the overflowing emotions the recollection and tranquility is important for Wordsworth. So yeah you can again like explore this idea on your own also this is question number four part B in Memoriam. Tennyson mourns the passing of many other aspects of life over and above the death of Arthur Henry Hallam elucidate this comment with reference to the poem. So this is basically referring to the other major themes that are there in Memoriam which is the clash between nature and the clash between the idea of nature and God the Darwinian theory of evolution which had just come out and the religious idea of the development of man and how you know the religious idea so it is nature versus religion it is also science versus religion how scientific ideas are developing during this time and they are in contradiction with religion. So Tennyson in effect is not just mourning the death of Hallam he is also mourning a bygone era when it was very simplistically you could believe in religion and you did not have to question yourself in terms of the evolution of man in terms of scientific theories in terms of you know what happens when death is there a heaven or not a heaven so there is something called a Victorian compromise that you can talk about the Victorian compromise was sort of assimilating nature religion and science together of having that compromise where in your private sphere and in your faith you believe in religion but in your understanding of the world you are able to assimilate natural and scientific principles. So you can talk about the Victorian compromise and how Tennyson is mourning a bygone age which was more simplistic and the way it is moving towards the Victorian compromise where both of these things can coexist. There are some good quotations that you can use from the poem where he's talking about Darwin's theory where nature read in tooth and blood I think there is also that quote you can use these quotations to enhance your answer. Fourth question C part now analyze the ways in which the trope of the storm is a key to our understanding of the tempest the trope of the storm now I really like this question because this question will really push you to think because here there is the title itself means a storm tempest is another word for storm but the storm in the play is not just physical you can the physical storm is there the magical storm is there because the physical world is coming in clash with the magical world because Prospero has magic and Caliban's mother was also a witch then the storm is also in terms of politics because there is a storm in the political sphere where you know a king is being overthrown then there are marriage alliances and then Prospero takes back his kingdom so the storm is there in the political sphere the storm is there in the spiritual section also if you look at Prospero's character he is very disturbed although he thinks that he is going to teach a lesson and he is going to take revenge but in the play like when he is constantly disturbed by what he is doing and ultimately he takes the path of forgiveness he forgives his brother he also sort of you know lets Caliban go he frees Ariel also so that conflict is also a sort of storm the storm you can also explore in the relation between the Orient and the Occident as Edward Said calls it that is the colonial power the western society and what it viewed as its other the Orient so you can talk about the storm in terms of the tension between the relations of Caliban and Prospero from a post-colonial perspective as we have already discussed in an earlier question so here explore the trope of storm in all its possibilities and not just in its physical aspect so section A is done we can now move on to section B so section B the fifth question is a compulsory question and it is an unseen poetry so what I will try to do is the what came in the question paper I will try to briefly analyze and solve the questions here let us first go through the poem please I would request you to pause the video and read the poem once on your own and then watch the video again so the poem goes like this between my finger and my thumb the squat pen rests snug as a gun under my window a clean rasping sound when the spade sinks into the gravelly ground my father digging by god the old man could handle a spade just like his old man my grandfather cut more tough in a day than any other man on toner's bark the cold smell of potato mold the squelch and slap of soggy beat the cut cuts of an edge through living roots awaken in my head but I have no spade to follow men like them between my finger and my thumb the squat pen rests I live with it so this poem is very symbolic I this is actually before this question paper before this 2018 question paper the poems used to be simpler here this poem has meanings at multiple levels so I would say that please practice poetry analysis before going into the exam first question is what is the theme of the poem so the theme of the poem for me is about a person who seems to be from a rural background whose father and grandfather were digging they were not partaking in the intellectual activities like writing or you know making their voice hurt so it is sort of a coming of age poem for the poet about how he has broken that generation and he has sort of moved to the intellectual sphere at the same time the poet is not denigrating his father or grandfather he respects the work the physical labor that they had put in he also knows that that physical labor never was never heard in literature or was never spoken about it was just there and it was always unrecognized so what he wishes to do with his pen which he says is like a gun is that he wants to give voice to those experiences he wants to talk about the physical labor that you know the toiling that millions of poor people have done and whose work has been unrecognized and the fact that he equates the pen with the gun only shows that the pen is an instrument of agency the pen is a means of making your voice heard a means of you know sort of it is an aggressive means from where you can actually if you feel that you have been oppressed you can talk against that oppression through that pen so it is about words as agency words as you know what we call that you know what the pen is mightier than this word so here it is talking about that the pen is a really mighty instrument of expression you can again develop your own ideas about what you think is the theme of the poem as well and I am sure when I wrote this answer there was a lot of I think there was like around one and a half pages so there are a lot of themes to talk about in this poem so you can explore it further second question is what kind of person is the speaker so here it is pretty evident from the poem that the speaker comes from a generation of people who have been digging the ground who have been doing physical labor and the speaker on the other hand is somebody who likes to write who has got education probably he is the first generation educated man in his family so you know even in India we have like in all over the world there are families the first person who is educated they have a certain sense of agency because they are coming from a poor background but they are making their voices heard so this speaker seems to be from such a background this speaker also seems to be a person who has a lot of love and respect for the work that his family has been doing for generations that his father and forefathers have been doing he is a person who wants to express and he wants to write about that work he wants to express himself also because he is writing is a means of expressing himself and he is also a person who is trying to find his way in life he is trying to he says that he will be using his pen so he is trying to find his own place in the society as a writer so you can talk about all these things about the speaker see is what is the speaker's purpose in celebrating men like them the speaker's purpose I think is to pay homage to his ancestry of giving voice to those people who have not had a voice in history the work of the people who have not been spoken about so it would somewhat be like we always talk about Taj Mahal but the people who actually toil to make it so it is basically talking about those people those laborers those agricultural workers who have not been spoken about in history so the purpose is to celebrate to celebrate one's own upbringing one's own focus on hard work in the values that the speaker has learned from his father and his forefathers purpose is also to equate writing with labor that you know writing is not something superficial which is you know away from the society it is often writing is something which is not recognized as labor but when you are celebrating labor and you are equating your writing with digging what you are doing is that you are saying that yes I belong to the same generation and I am doing a digging of a different kind the deep question is comment on the language of the poem and the use of figures of speech what effect is gained by use of such kind of language so language of the poem and figures of speech language of the poem you can talk about the symbolism in language the way pen is equated with guns then there is roots in mind so you can think about you know plants with roots growing inside but that is equated with how these ideas are taking roots in the poet's mind language is also used in terms of when the poet says I will dig with it there are so many things he is going to what does he mean by digging digging means I will talk about my forefathers I will express myself I will write about writing I will also write about labor so digging is a means of expression here so you can talk about that as well figures of speech you can talk about so for example snag as a gun is a simile so I would again learn the figures of speeches and what they mean so that you can use them in analysis of poetry to give I think another example here the squelch and slap is onomatopoeia because they are talking about sounds that are evoked in the poem roots awaken in my head that is again sort of a metaphor because roots taking root in the ground and then taking root in the head ideas taking ideas are being compared with the plant so it is also a sort of extended metaphor so these figures of speech you can also look at while analyzing the poem what is the effect gained by use of such language the effect is that it imparts meaning and beauty aesthetic as well as intellectual value to the poem the intellectual value is that it gives by saying I will dig with it the poet is talking about not just physical digging but so many other things so many themes come together aesthetic value by using simile by using onomatopoeia or by using beautiful words the poem gets its structure its rhythm its beauty so you can talk about both these aspects what is the meaning of the final line I'll dig with it now I have discussed this many times I'll with it in all spheres you know excel expression talking about forefathers rewriting history it's sort of also again digging with it is also you know a voice against those people who have not allowed a certain section of the society to speak before now so many things education writing so you can include all of it in I'll dig with it so the next question is question number six the next question is question number six the A part says assess the role of the narrator in Tom Jones so Tom Jones is like a huge book and one very obvious question from it is regarding the narrator it has come earlier also so it was one of the first novels that was written and later as novels developed the narrator sort of you know kept on disappearing the novels went into first person and there was even you know stream of consciousness later but the narrator in Tom Jones not only is present in the novel in the sense that the narrator is the one who is narrating there is a third person narration in the novel but the narrator constantly comments on the characters on the society on the way moral lessons should be taken or not taken what is morality what is immorality so you can say that the authorial presence in the text is there through the narratorial voice and it is present to a huge extent like it is present in Mill on the Floss also but not to the same extent as in Tom Jones you can even you know compare these two texts that you know the same thing we can see in Mill on the Floss also George Eliot is also constantly commenting on society but here feeling is much more present in the novel you can elaborate this answer by saying you know that the first that the narrator the narration is third person you can talk about Fielding's comments on society then Fielding's own perception of the characters in the novel whether it is Tom Jones himself or the other characters about morality and immorality and you can elaborate this answer like that part 6 B says show how Dickens represents the impact of the industrial revolution in hard times not only from the material but also from the moral and philosophical perspectives so hard times is like a fable which criticizes certain aspects of the industrial revolution so on the surface of it you can talk about how Cooktown is a place which has a lot of physical pollution the people the workers who are working in Cooktown are miserable their jobs are they are completely alienated from their work in the society wages are not proper there is a lot of soot the environment is polluted this is at the material level at the moral level you can talk about the moral degeneration that it brings in society here you can talk about the character of Boundary who in order to come up in this industrialized society he pushes his mother back he refuses to recognize her he builds a story around himself he marries a woman so young to him just to make relations with her father he exploits the workers who are working under him he literally I mean you know in a way he is the reason behind Stephen Blackpool's death also so you can look at moral degeneration in the industrial society because of the values that industrial society promotes industrial society what does industrial society promote it promotes materialism because the industrial society was related to mass production and there needed to be consumers to actually buy these products from market so consumerism was promoted industrial society also promotes utilitarianism that you look at everything in terms of profit and loss you marry because it is profitable to marry somebody and not because you share a compatibility or you fall in love with the person or you like the person and the values that that person has so all these things take a backbench coming from the moral to the philosophical perspectives it is actually the central criticism is of utilitarian philosophy which was been propounded by people like Jeremy Bentham and later J.S. Mill also so a very extreme view of the utilitarian philosophy is taken where you see that the children are being taught only facts and nothing but the facts and there is no place for imagination or fancy or emotions or love so Dickens shows us a society which is so unhappy without the emotional part without the love and relationships that is that are essential part of our society so he is essentially criticizing the utilitarian philosophy the way grad grind is able to just marry his daughter because he feels that statistically seeing these marriages are you know they are lasting for a long time but that is not the only thing that matters in a relationship this philosophy is also criticized in terms of education we have people like Bitzkrieg in the novel who is fed on facts as a small child that you know only facts are important only profit is important and when he grows up he becomes a very utilitarian man he only sees everything as a means to his own personal end so you can look at the entire novel as a criticism of utilitarian philosophy and you can sort of answer this question like that the c part is the Mississippi River is a striking metaphor for Huck Finn's journey his great escape and the quest for freedom do you think the river is the main structural principle of the novel I agree with this that yes river is the main structural principle because number one the story revolves around the journey on the river so wherever Huckleberry Finn and Jim are moving the story moves along with them on the river as they move through places there is social critique of whether it is the shepherd's sons or whether it is when later slavery is also criticized but it is done through the motif of the river even the two characters that you can the king they come to them they journey with them on the river and then they leave so the river always remains the center point of the novel so here the other three givers are Huckleberry Finn's journey so the river as a metaphor of Huckleberry Finn's growth he grows from a person who does not particularly mind slavery who is just rebelling who's just a young boy and he grows to a much more mature situation where he understands the problems that Jim is facing he witnesses violence and he sort of you know grows mature because of it there is that famous dialogue in the novel which says all right then I will go to hell so that is the center point which shows the growth of Huckleberry Finn and that the river is the center point it as the river widens as the river swells the Mississippi swells so does Huckleberry Finn's personality his great escape now you can the river as a means of escape because it is literally the means of the escape and river as also an escape from earlier notions and belief systems and escape from the place that he was where his father was you know torturing him where the society was trying to you know cast him into a mold so you can talk about both these things and the quest for freedom quest for freedom intellectual freedom physical freedom and you know that the sense of adventure because ultimately Huckleberry Finn even at the end of the novel says that I will go and explore further so that exploration is always born by the river so all these things are held together by the river in the novel let us now move to question number 7a in pride and prejudice Jane Austen combines the essence of conservative as well as reformist issues concerning rights education marriage authority and gender discussion it is a pretty straightforward questions because it is already telling you the major themes that you have discussed in the novel so what is the conservative and reformist attitude and how does she balance between them conservative would be that women do not need to read a lot women should be more into you know just sewing and generally being pretty and knowing you know how to manage social relations and reformist would be that you know there is need for education for women there is need for better education that women need to be getting out to work as well so she always takes a balance Jane Austen in pride and prejudice has tried to find out a middle ground she knows that the society was not mature enough to take women as full-fledged working women you know the way she was Jane Austen was a writer she never married and she actually passed her life through her own earnings so even though she is pretty radical in her novel Elizabeth is not that radical ultimately she does get married but she tries to find a balance and a space for happiness in a conservative society for reformative women now how does she do that first is writes in the very beginning in the novel we are told that the Bennett sisters and Mrs. Bennett will lose all rights to the property if Mr. Bennett dies and it will all go to Mr. Collins so she is raising the issue of the struggle for women because if they do not get married they might as well just you know live in poverty and they might not have any future for themselves so she tries to sort of find a balance because then ultimately Jane Elizabeth and even Lydia do get married and so there is some sort of future for them number two is education so the Bennett sister have a very organic sort of an education Elizabeth's character is very important here because Elizabeth is not just educated in terms of sewing knitting and playing the piano but she is an avid reader so that is something you know like sort of Jane is trying to say that reading is a good quality that women should be reading and intellectual qualities in women make them more accomplished in fact so there also she is trying to find a balance between conservatism and reformism second is marriage so the conservative aspect of marriage would be as you know that the lady Catherine de Burg so she said her idea is that you know nobility should marry into nobility there should not be any intermarriage there shouldn't be any class mobility and marriage should be based on arrangements of property but what Austin is saying is that marriage can be there needs to be flexibility there that personal relationships mutual attraction compatibility are important aspects of marriage so when Elizabeth who is a you know a relatively poor gentile woman marries Mr. Darcy who is a rich and rich noble you know he belongs to the nobility so there is class mobility there is space for love and marriage there is space for compatibility so there is a sort of she is not talking about a revolution of the lower classes but she is sort of showing class mobility and space for love and marriage so in both the sense she is reformist the authority that her husband has over his wife that women can have their own voice in marriage that is also there in the voice of Elizabeth as well as Jane so you can also talk about that and gender discourse so this entire discourse is around gender whether it is property relations education gender is at the center what Jane Austin is trying to do is that in a conservative society and in a place where women have very few option either they can become governesses or they will you know die as spinsters or they can get married she is trying to find a place for women to be happy in this conservative environment so she is sort of you know sowing seeds of reformism within this novel so you can talk about that it is a good and detailed question that can be answered on aspects next question is would you agree that Tess of Dabuville's portrays the decadence of late Victorian England substantiate your answer with reference to the novel so Thomas Hardy was one of the late Victorian writers in his novels what we see is a society in transition the morality is Victorian there is a lot of conservatism but this society is moving towards modernity so there are industrial machines which are seen in the novel there are changing value systems Hardy himself is questioning a very basic premise of Victorian morality that do you say that a woman is pure on the basis of whether she has lost her virginity or not or do you say a woman is pure because of her character of the purity of her heart so he is raising this very fundamental question in the very title of the novel so how does this novel then talk about the decadence of Victorian England number one it is talking about the mercantile decadence because there is so much wealth has come because of colonialism there are people who have grown wealthy like Alec Dabuville who have taken up you know names of former noble families but in fact there inside themselves the morals are totally decadent even the Dabuville family the original Dabuville family whose paintings are there in the novel they also seem sinister so it sort of evokes that you know somewhere the moral core of the society is losing so you get that feeling decadence also in terms of you know how higher society rich men would easily rape poor women so that is also a matter of decadence that you know women have no security no safety decadence also in terms of a society which has become so superficial that it will judge people on the basis of their wealth and their physical attributes and not on the values and the heart that they have within themselves and decadence in ways will also be about you know when Tess's husband goes to Brazil and he thinks that you know he is going to start a farm there and you sort of feel that resistance because that land is not welcoming to the colonizers and this whole feeling that you can just go to another continent and make it your own and there is a sort of you know arrogance there and in a way I also feel that there also it is decadence because ultimately he becomes sick and he comes back to England so you can talk about these aspects and other aspects of decadence which are there in the novel number C is Maggie Tulliver's intelligence scholarly competence and wide-ranging imagination become liabilities for a woman discuss the statement with reference to social determinism so social determinism basically means that you know the gender and the place that your born in will determine the course of your life so we have a woman in Melon the Floss Maggie Tulliver who is an avid reader very imaginative very independent in her thought she is also looking for ways in which she can independently work but because the society is there in such a manner that women are not working if they work they get very less money women are not encouraged to read women are not encouraged to be imaginative to be you know to explore their sexuality or to explore their inner sort of desires of any sort so in a very conservative society Maggie is a woman who is very different she is like the dark woman which is there in a physical attributes because she has this sort of allure about herself her dark hair and everything so it is there in a physical aspects also so you can talk about her intelligence and scholarly competence in terms of her education and the way she is better at the education than her brother you can talk about a wide-ranging imagination in terms of the books that she reads and how she is you know emotionally so volatile and how all these things become a liabilities for a woman number one her education comes to not she is very competent but she cannot work she will not get enough money to work she cannot even marry properly because her father is dead and they do not have anything they do not have any wealth or too many connections of that sort and ultimately Maggie dies and she dies because the story's end seems to be saying that a woman who is so ahead of her times would not have survived in a society which is so conservative so you can conclude by saying this you know this is what social determinism does that because the society is such a character is sort of killed off in the novel it dies a death by a violent death by a flood because the society is not accepting of such a character let us move to question number 8a hardy uses several symbols skillfully in test of the taboos and they are too deep to be measured first reading discuss so here you can talk about the many symbols that are there in test of the taboos and how they improve the message of the novel for reference I will talk about two three symbols but you can explore more as per the requirements of the answer one symbol would be I think the strawberries the way Alec feeds strawberries first comes into the house the house itself as a very it is very newly built and it is very it's a fine house but it has a very sinister vibe so it is symbolic of what Tess is going to face the doom that Tess is going to face in that house and throw Alec second symbol I would like to talk about is when Tess kills the birds by turning their necks the birds who have already been shot down by hunters it is symbolic of the fact that soon in the novel Tess is going to put an end to her own pain and that she is going to take a very violent action in killing Alec so like sort of symbolic of Tess taking control of her life of expressing the anger that has been in her since you know ever since she was raped so that is also a very symbolic moment another interesting symbolism would be Tess moves to the next farm which is a very poor farm there is an industrial machine in that farm so that industrial machine is symbolic of the changing countryside of England it shows the change from the traditional dairies to the more industrial setups which are going to come with modernity and industrial evolution it also shows how the warmth of the traditional society is also being lost as industrialism is taking over so in that case also it is very symbolic you can look at other symbols in the novel as well the B part is the apparently superficial concern with marriage in Pride and Prejudice masks a deeper social critique discussed with reference to the novel so you know there is a very famous line with which the novel starts that a suitable and wealthy man must be on the lookout for a wife and it sort of you know I have paraphrased it but it basically sets the tone of the novel because the tone is about men and women looking for spouses and spouses who are well settled and who have enough money so there are characters like Mrs. Bennett who are after you know the only concern in their lives is that my daughter should be married to rich people so that they have a you know well settled life and she's a sort of caricature also like much like you know some of the characters in our serials you know who's always plotting the marriage of her daughters but what this actually sort of masks is the social critique in the sense that why is it that women are you know really concerned about marriage and for this you have to look at the other aspect of the novel number one is the estate that women don't have right to property so unless they marry anybody can throw them out of their houses they will have to live in poverty they will have you know nothing to look forward to in life Charlotte's character is very important in this regard because she tells Elizabeth that happiness in marriage is a matter of chance she marries Mr. Collins for convenience she's not beautiful so she knows that an offer of marriage might never come in her way so the only option that she has in a society where marriage was the only you know good option for women is that she marries somebody like Mr. Collins whom she actually does not love so that aspect to it as well and the deeper social critique is also about the lack of space for love and compatibility in social relations and especially in marriage but what Jane Austen is doing is that even within such a conservative and very sort of you know utilitarian setup for marriage she's trying to figure out spaces of love and happiness for women of compatibility and equality within marriage so you can talk about these things in this answer question number C is what are the objects of Swift's satire in Gulliver's journey to Laputa in part three of Gulliver's travels now this question is very specific to part three and part three is supposed to be it is a critique of many things but it is also like one primary criticism is of the you know the Royal Society of London you know people like Newton have been in that society it was a scientific organization so what Gulliver is critiquing or what Swift is critiquing is when science has misplaced objectives so you have one thing is that people on Laputa their one eyes turn inwards and one is towards the heaven which means that they have been they are away from the practical realities of life so that is a critique of science that science is moved away from the material concerns of people it has become superstitious and astronomy and astrology are said to be you know favorite subjects of the Laputans it is also talking about the violence in science that you know there are the social aspect of science which has been ignored because we are told that Laputa island never there is a rebellion from below the Laputa island sort of you know they threaten that place that we will you know sort of drop on you and destroy you or we will you know stop rain you don't do things like that so it is about the violence that you know that highly developed scientific societies can also be masking it is a social critique of people of in general also that you know the more people have been involved in academic pursuits the more they have lost human connection the scientists on Laputa are not aware that their wives are having affairs so you can talk about these things and other aspects of Laputans that Swift satirizes and you can also mention that the larger critique of humanity and the direction that it is taking in Swift please remember that Swift was a Catholic and a religious man so in a way you can also sort of look at how this degeneration of values with the scientific wave is being criticized by Swift thank you subscribe to our channel and click on the bell 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