Cambridge International Examinations

Cambridge International Advanced Subsidiary and Advanced Level

LITERATURE IN ENGLISH 9695/32

Paper 3 Poetry and Prose May/June 2015
2 hours
No Additional Materials are required.
* 7 4 9 4 9 8 0 8 4 3 *

READ THESE INSTRUCTIONS FIRST

An answer booklet is provided inside this question paper. You should follow the instructions on the front cover
of the answer booklet. If you need additional answer paper ask the invigilator for a continuation booklet.

Answer two questions, each from a different section.

You are reminded of the need for good English and clear presentation in your answers.

All questions in this paper carry equal marks.

This document consists of 9 printed pages, 3 blank pages and 1 insert.

DC (LEG) 105665
© UCLES 2015 [Turn over
 2

Section A: Poetry

TED HUGHES: New Selected Poems 1957–1994

1 Either (a) ‘Crueller than owl or eagle …’

With close reference to two poems, discuss the presentation and significance of
cruelty in Hughes’s poetry.

Or (b) Comment closely on ways in which the following poem presents the dead animal.

View of a Pig

The pig lay on a barrow dead.

It weighed, they said, as much as three men.
Its eyes closed, pink white eyelashes.
Its trotters stuck straight out.

Such weight and thick pink bulk 5

Set in death seemed not just dead.
It was less than lifeless, further off.
It was like a sack of wheat.

I thumped it without feeling remorse.

One feels guilty insulting the dead, 10
Walking on graves. But this pig
Did not seem able to accuse.

It was too dead. Just so much

A poundage of lard and pork.
Its last dignity had entirely gone. 15
It was not a figure of fun.

Too dead now to pity.

To remember its life, din, stronghold
Of earthly pleasure as it had been,
Seemed a false effort, and off the point. 20

Too deadly factual. Its weight

Oppressed me – how could it be moved?
And the trouble of cutting it up!
The gash in its throat was shocking, but not pathetic.

Once I ran at a fair in the noise 25

To catch a greased piglet
That was faster and nimbler than a cat,
Its squeal was the rending of metal.

Pigs must have hot blood, they feel like ovens.

Their bite is worse than a horse’s – 30
They chop a half-moon clean out.
They eat cinders, dead cats.

Distinctions and admirations such

As this one was long finished with.
I stared at it a long time. They were going to scald it, 35
Scald it and scour it like a doorstep.

© UCLES 2015 9695/32/M/J/15

 3

WILFRED OWEN: Selected Poems

2 Either (a) Discuss ways in which Owen presents concern for injured soldiers in two poems.

Or (b) Comment closely on ways in which the following poem expresses the narrator’s
response to the encounter with ‘His face’.

Storm

His face was charged with beauty as a cloud

With glimmering lightning. When it shadowed me
I shook, and was uneasy as a tree
That draws the brilliant danger, tremulous, bowed.

So must I tempt that face to loose its lightning. 5

Great gods, whose beauty is death, will laugh above,
Who made his beauty lovelier than love.
I shall be bright with their unearthly brightening.

And happier were it if my sap consume;

Glorious will shine the opening of my heart; 10
The land shall freshen that was under gloom;
What matter if all men cry aloud and start,
And women hide bleak faces in their shawl,
At those hilarious thunders of my fall?

© UCLES 2015 9695/32/M/J/15 [Turn over

 4

Songs of Ourselves

3 Either (a) ‘I grieve, and dare not show my discontent …’

Compare ways in which writers express grief in two poems.

Or (b) Comment closely on the presentation of the relationship between the man and the
woman in the following poem.

Sonnet 75

One day I wrote her name upon the strand,

But came the waves, and washèd it away:
Again I wrote it with a second hand,
But came the tide, and made my pains his prey.
‘Vain man,’ said she, ‘that dost in vain assay 5
A mortal thing so to immortalise;
For I myself shall like to this decay,
And eke my name be wipèd out likewise.’
‘Not so,’ quod I, ‘let baser things devise
To die in dust, but you shall live by fame: 10
My verse your virtues rare shall eternise,
And in the heavens write your glorious name:
Where, whenas death shall all the world subdue,
Our love shall live, and later life renew.’

Edmund Spenser

© UCLES 2015 9695/32/M/J/15

 5

Turn to page 6 for Section B

© UCLES 2015 9695/32/M/J/15 [Turn over

 6

Section B: Prose

CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE: Half of a Yellow Sun

4 Either (a) ‘Characters are divided by loyalties to different people or ideals.’

Discuss Adichie’s presentation of two characters in the light of this comment.

Or (b) Comment closely on the presentation of the confrontation between Olanna and
Odenigbo’s mother in the following passage.

Ugwu rolled out the wood mortar from under the table and was rinsing it when
Olanna came home. She appeared at the kitchen door; her dress was smart-fitting,
her smiling face was full of light.
‘Mama!’ she said. ‘Welcome, nno. I am Olanna. Did you go well?’ She reached
out to hug Master’s mother. Her arms went round to enclose the older woman but 5
Master’s mother kept her hands to her sides and did not hug Olanna back.
‘Yes, our journey went well,’ she said.
‘Good afternoon,’ Amala said.
‘Welcome.’ Olanna hugged Amala briefly before turning to Master’s mother. ‘Is
this Odenigbo’s relative from home, Mama?’ 10
‘Amala helps me in the house,’ Master’s mother said. She had turned her back
to Olanna and was stirring the soup.
‘Mama, come, let’s sit down. Bia nodu ana. You should not bother in the kitchen.
You should rest. Let Ugwu do it.’
‘I want to cook a proper soup for my son.’ 15
There was a light pause before Olanna said, ‘Of course, Mama.’ Her Igbo had
slipped into the dialect that Ugwu heard in Master’s speech when his cousins visited.
She walked around the kitchen, as if eager to do something to please Master’s
mother but uncertain what to do. She opened the pot of rice and closed it. ‘At least
let me help you, Mama. I’ll go and change.’ 20
‘I hear you did not suck your mother’s breasts,’ Master’s mother said.
Olanna stopped. ‘What?’
‘They say you did not suck your mother’s breasts.’ Master’s mother turned to
look at Olanna. ‘Please go back and tell those who sent you that you did not find my
son. Tell your fellow witches that you did not see him.’ 25
Olanna stared at her. Master’s mother’s voice rose, as if Olanna’s continued
silence had driven her to shouting. ‘Did you hear me? Tell them that nobody’s
medicine will work on my son. He will not marry an abnormal woman, unless you kill
me first. Only over my dead body!’ Master’s mother clapped her hands, then hooted
and slapped her palm across her mouth so that the sound echoed. 30
‘Mama –’ Olanna said.
‘Don’t mama me,’ Master’s mother said. ‘I said, Do not mama me. Just leave
my son alone. Tell your fellow witches that you did not find him!’ She opened the
back door and went outside and shouted. ‘Neighbours! There is a witch in my son’s
house! Neighbours!’ Her voice was shrill. Ugwu wanted to gag her, to stuff sliced 35
vegetables into her mouth. The soup was burning.
‘Mah? Will you stay in the room?’ he asked, moving towards Olanna.
Olanna seemed to get hold of herself. She tucked a plait behind her ear, picked
up her bag from the table, and headed for the front door. ‘Tell your master I have
gone to my flat,’ she said. 40
Ugwu followed her and watched as she got into her car and drove out. She
did not wave. The yard was still; there were no butterflies flitting among the white
flowers. Back in the kitchen, Ugwu was surprised to hear Master’s mother singing
© UCLES 2015 9695/32/M/J/15
 7

a gently melodious church song: Nya nya oya mu ga-ana. Na m metu onu uwe ya
aka.… 45
She stopped singing and cleared her throat. ‘Where has that woman gone?’
‘I don’t know, Mama,’ Ugwu said. He walked over to the sink and began to put
away the clean plates in the cupboard. He hated the too-strong aroma of her soup
that filled the kitchen; the first thing he would do after she left was wash all the
curtains because that smell would soak into them. 50
‘This is why I came. They said she is controlling my son,’ Master’s mother said,
stirring the soup.

Chapter 4

© UCLES 2015 9695/32/M/J/15 [Turn over

 8

E.M. FORSTER: A Passage to India

5 Either (a) In what ways and with what effects does Forster present the English characters in
the novel?

Or (b) Comment closely on the presentation of the trial in the following passage.

But his last words brought on another storm, and suddenly a new name, Mrs
Moore, burst on the court like a whirlwind. Mahmoud Ali had been enraged, his
nerves snapped; he shrieked like a maniac, and asked whether his client was
charged with murder as well as rape, and who was this second English lady.
‘I don’t propose to call her.’ 5
‘You don’t because you can’t, you have smuggled her out of the country; she
is Mrs Moore, she would have proved his innocence, she was on our side, she was
poor Indians’ friend.’
‘You could have called her yourself,’ cried the Magistrate. ‘Neither side called
her, neither must quote her as evidence.’ 10
‘She was kept from us until too late – I learn too late – this is English justice,
here is your British Raj. Give us back Mrs Moore for five minutes only, and she will
save my friend, she will save the name of his sons; don’t rule her out, Mr Das; take
back those words as you yourself are a father; tell me where they have put her, oh,
Mrs Moore …’ 15
‘If the point is of any interest, my mother should have reached Aden,’ said
Ronny dryly; he ought not to have intervened, but the onslaught had startled him.
‘Imprisoned by you there because she knew the truth.’ He was almost out of his
mind, and could be heard saying above the tumult: ‘I ruin my career, no matter; we
are all to be ruined one by one.’ 20
‘This is no way to defend your case,’ counselled the Magistrate.
‘I am not defending a case, nor are you trying one. We are both of us slaves.’
‘Mr Mahmoud Ali, I have already warned you, and unless you sit down I shall
exercise my authority.’
‘Do so; this trial is a farce, I am going.’ And he handed his papers to Amritrao 25
and left, calling from the door histrionically yet with intense passion, ‘Aziz, Aziz –
farewell for ever.’ The tumult increased, the invocation of Mrs Moore continued, and
people who did not know what the syllables meant repeated them like a charm. They
became Indianized into Esmiss Esmoor, they were taken up in the street outside. In
vain the Magistrate threatened and expelled. Until the magic exhausted itself, he 30
was powerless.
‘Unexpected,’ remarked Mr Turton.
Ronny furnished the explanation. Before she sailed, his mother had taken to
talk about the Marabar in her sleep, especially in the afternoon when servants were
on the veranda, and her disjointed remarks on Aziz had doubtless been sold to 35
Mahmoud Ali for a few annas; that kind of thing never ceases in the East.
‘I thought they’d try something of the sort. Ingenious.’ He looked into their wide-
open mouths. ‘They get just like that over their religion,’ he added calmly. ‘Start and
can’t stop. I’m sorry for your old Das, he’s not getting much of a show.’
‘Mr Heaslop, how disgraceful dragging in your dear mother,’ said Miss Derek, 40
bending forward.
‘It’s just a trick, and they happened to pull it off. Now one sees why they had
Mahmoud Ali – just to make a scene on the chance. It is his speciality.’ But he disliked
it more than he showed. It was revolting to hear his mother travestied into Esmiss
Esmoor, a Hindu goddess. 45

‘Esmiss Esmoor
Esmiss Esmoor
Esmiss Esmoor
Esmiss Esmoor …’

Chapter 24
© UCLES 2015 9695/32/M/J/15
 9

Stories of Ourselves

6 Either (a) Discuss ways in which two stories explore characters’ need to escape.

Or (b) Comment closely on the presentation of Grancy and his second wife in the following
passage.

This news of Mrs Grancy’s death came to me with the shock of an immense blunder
– one of fate’s most irretrievable acts of vandalism. It was as though all sorts of
renovating forces had been checked by the clogging of that one wheel. Not that Mrs
Grancy contributed any perceptible momentum to the social machine: her unique
distinction was that of filling to perfection her special place in the world. So many 5
people are like badly-composed statues, over-lapping their niches at one point and
leaving them vacant at another. Mrs Grancy’s niche was her husband’s life; and if it
be argued that the space was not large enough for its vacancy to leave a very big
gap, I can only say that, at the last resort, such dimensions must be determined
by finer instruments than any ready-made standard of utility. Ralph Grancy’s was 10
in short a kind of disembodied usefulness: one of those constructive influences
that, instead of crystallising into definite forms, remain as it were a medium for the
development of clear thinking and fine feeling. He faithfully irrigated his own dusty
patch of life, and the fruitful moisture stole far beyond his boundaries. If, to carry on
the metaphor, Grancy’s life was a sedulously-cultivated enclosure, his wife was the 15
flower he had planted in its midst – the embowering tree, rather, which gave him rest
and shade at its foot and the wind of dreams in its upper branches.
We had all – his small but devoted band of followers – known a moment when
it seemed likely that Grancy would fail us. We had watched him pitted against one
stupid obstacle after another – ill-health, poverty, misunderstanding and, worst of 20
all for a man of his texture, his first wife’s soft insidious egotism. We had seen him
sinking under the leaden embrace of her affection like a swimmer in a drowning
clutch; but just as we despaired he had always come to the surface again, blinded,
panting, but striking out fiercely for the shore. When at last her death released him it
became a question as to how much of the man she had carried with her. Left alone, 25
he revealed numb withered patches, like a tree from which a parasite has been
stripped. But gradually he began to put out new leaves; and when he met the lady
who was to become his second wife – his one real wife, as his friends reckoned –
the whole man burst into flower.
The second Mrs Grancy was past thirty when he married her, and it was clear 30
that she had harvested that crop of middle joy which is rooted in young despair. But
if she had lost the surface of eighteen she had kept its inner light; if her cheek lacked
the gloss of immaturity her eyes were young with the stored youth of half a life-time.
Grancy had first known her somewhere in the East – I believe she was the sister of
one of our consuls out there – and when he brought her home to New York she came 35
among us as a stranger. The idea of Grancy’s remarriage had been a shock to us
all. After one such calcining most men would have kept out of the fire; but we agreed
that he was predestined to sentimental blunders, and we awaited with resignation
the embodiment of his latest mistake. Then Mrs Grancy came – and we understood.
She was the most beautiful and the most complete of explanations. We shuffled 40
our defeated omniscience out of sight and gave it hasty burial under a prodigality of
welcome. For the first time in years we had Grancy off our minds. ‘He’ll do something
great now!’ the least sanguine of us prophesied; and our sentimentalist emended:
‘He has done it – in marrying her!’

The Moving Finger

© UCLES 2015 9695/32/M/J/15

 10

BLANK PAGE

© UCLES 2015 9695/32/M/J/15

 11

BLANK PAGE

© UCLES 2015 9695/32/M/J/15

 12

BLANK PAGE

Permission to reproduce items where third-party owned material protected by copyright is included has been sought and cleared where possible. Every reasonable
effort has been made by the publisher (UCLES) to trace copyright holders, but if any items requiring clearance have unwittingly been included, the publisher will
be pleased to make amends at the earliest possible opportunity.

To avoid the issue of disclosure of answer-related information to candidates, all copyright acknowledgements are reproduced online in the Cambridge International
Examinations Copyright Acknowledgements Booklet. This is produced for each series of examinations and is freely available to download at www.cie.org.uk after
the live examination series.

Cambridge International Examinations is part of the Cambridge Assessment Group. Cambridge Assessment is the brand name of University of Cambridge Local
Examinations Syndicate (UCLES), which is itself a department of the University of Cambridge.

© UCLES 2015 9695/32/M/J/15