Cambridge International AS Level

LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE IN ENGLISH 8695/21

Paper 2 Drama, Poetry and Prose May/June 2021

2 hours

You must answer on the enclosed answer booklet.

* 5 9 2 3 7 0 4 7 1 6 *

You will need: Answer booklet (enclosed)

INSTRUCTIONS
● Answer two questions in total, each from a different section.
● Follow the instructions on the front cover of the answer booklet. If you need additional answer paper,
ask the invigilator for a continuation booklet.
● Dictionaries are not allowed.

INFORMATION
● The total mark for this paper is 50.
● The number of marks for each question or part question is shown in brackets [ ].

This document has 24 pages. Any blank pages are indicated.

DC (RCL (DF)) 201366/4

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Section A: Drama

ARTHUR MILLER: All My Sons

1 Either (a) Discuss Miller’s presentation of different attitudes to wealth in All My Sons. [25]

Or (b) Discuss Miller’s presentation of the relationship between Ann and Kate Keller
(Mother) in the following extract. In your answer you should pay close attention to
the language and dramatic effects. [25]

Ann [to MOTHER]: Don’t let them bulldoze you.

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Mother: I have to have some tea.

(from Act 1)

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WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE: Much Ado About Nothing

2 Either (a) In what ways, and with what dramatic effects, does Shakespeare present reputation
and its loss in the play? [25]

Or (b) Discuss Shakespeare’s presentation of the relationship between Benedick and

Beatrice in the following extract. In your answer you should pay close attention to
dramatic methods and their effects. [25]

Don Pedro: Well, I am sorry for your niece. Shall we go seek Benedick,
and tell him of her love?
Claudio: Never tell him, my lord; let her wear it out with good counsel.
Leonato: Nay, that’s impossible; she may wear her heart out first.
Don Pedro: Well, we will hear further of it by your daughter; let it cool 5
the while. I love Benedick well; and I could wish he would
modestly examine himself, to see how much he is unworthy
so good a lady.
Leonato: My lord, will you walk? Dinner is ready.
Claudio: If he do not dote on her upon this, I will never trust my 10
expectation.
Don Pedro: Let there be the same net spread for her; and that must your
daughter and her gentlewomen carry. The sport will be when
they hold one an opinion of another’s dotage, and no such
matter; that’s the scene that I would see, which will be merely 15
a dumb show. Let us send her to call him in to dinner.
[Exeunt DON PEDRO, CLAUDIO, and LEONATO.]
Benedick [Coming forward]: This can be no trick: the conference was
sadly borne; they have the truth of this from Hero; they seem
to pity the lady; it seems her affections have their full bent. 20
Love me! Why, it must be requited. I hear how I am censur’d:
they say I will bear myself proudly if I perceive the love come
from her; they say, too, that she will rather die than give any
sign of affection. I did never think to marry. I must not seem
proud; happy are they that hear their detractions and can put 25
them to mending. They say the lady is fair; ’tis a truth, I can
bear them witness; and virtuous; ’tis so, I cannot reprove it;
and wise, but for loving me. By my troth, it is no addition to
her wit; nor no great argument of her folly, for I will be horribly
in love with her. I may chance have some odd quirks and 30
remnants of wit broken on me because I have railed so long
against marriage; but doth not the appetite alter? A man loves
the meat in his youth that he cannot endure in his age. Shall
quips, and sentences, and these paper bullets of the brain,
awe a man from the career of his humour? No; the world 35
must be peopled. When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not
think I should live till I were married. Here comes Beatrice.
By this day, she’s a fair lady; I do spy some marks of love
in her.
[Enter BEATRICE.] 40
Beatrice: Against my will I am sent to bid you come in to dinner.
Benedick: Fair Beatrice, I thank you for your pains.

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Beatrice: I took no more pains for those thanks than you take pains to
thank me; if it had been painful, I would not have come.
Benedick: You take pleasure, then, in the message? 45
Beatrice: Yea, just so much as you may take upon a knife’s point, and
choke a daw withal. You have no stomach, signior; fare you
well.
[Exit.]
Benedick: Ha! ‘Against my will I am sent to bid you come in to dinner’ 50
– there’s a double meaning in that. ‘I took no more pains for
those thanks than you took pains to thank me’ – that’s as
much as to say ‘Any pains that I take for you is as easy as
thanks’. If I do not take pity of her, I am a villain; if I do not
love her, I am a Jew. I will go get her picture. [Exit.] 55

(from Act 2 Scene 3)

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WOLE SOYINKA: The Trials of Brother Jero and Jero’s Metamorphosis

3 Either (a) Discuss some of the ways Soyinka develops the role and characterisation of Chume
in the two plays. [25]

Or (b) Discuss Soyinka’s presentation of the relationship between Jero and Rebecca in
the following extract from Jero’s Metamorphosis. In your answer you should pay
close attention to Soyinka’s dramatic methods and their effects. [25]

Rebecca: But Brother Jero …

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The woman’s condition
obviously uplifts him for he moves off with even jauntier step
and a light adjustment to his chasuble.]

(from Jero’s Metamorphosis, Scene 1)

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THOMAS MIDDLETON AND WILLIAM ROWLEY: The Changeling

4 Either (a) Discuss some of the ways Middleton and Rowley shape an audience’s response to
Beatrice in The Changeling. [25]

Or (b) Discuss the presentation of the relationship between Antonio and Isabella in the
following extract. In your answer you should pay close attention to dramatic methods
and their effects. [25]

Isabella: How long hast thou been a fool?

Antonio: Ever since I came hither, cousin.
Isabella: Cousin? I’m none of thy cousins, fool.
Lollio: Oh mistress, fools have always so much wit as to claim
their kindred. 5
Madman within: Bounce, bounce, he falls, he falls!
Isabella: Hark you, your scholars in the upper room
Are out of order.
Lollio: Must I come amongst you there? Keep you the fool,
mistress; I’ll go up and play left-handed Orlando 10
amongst the madmen. [Exit.]
Isabella: Well, sir.
Antonio: ’Tis opportuneful now, sweet lady! Nay,
Cast no amazing eye upon this change.
Isabella: Ha! 15
Antonio: This shape of folly shrouds your dearest love,
The truest servant to your powerful beauties,
Whose magic had this force thus to transform me.
Isabella: You are a fine fool indeed.
Antonio: Oh, ’tis not strange: 20
Love has an intellect that runs through all
The scrutinous sciences, and like
A cunning poet, catches a quantity
Of every knowledge, yet brings all home
Into one mystery, into one secret 25
That he proceeds in.
Isabella: Y’are a parlous fool.
Antonio: No danger in me: I bring nought but love,
And his soft-wounding shafts to strike you with:
Try but one arrow; if it hurt you, 30
I’ll stand you twenty back in recompense. [Kisses her.]
Isabella: A forward fool too!
Antonio: This was love’s teaching:
A thousand ways he fashion’d out my way,
And this I found the safest and the nearest 35
To tread the Galaxia to my star.
Isabella: Profound, withal! Certain, you dream’d of this;
Love never taught it waking.
Antonio: Take no acquaintance

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Of these outward follies; there is within 40

A gentleman that loves you.
Isabella: When I see him,
I’ll speak with him; so in the meantime keep
Your habit, it becomes you well enough.
As you are a gentleman, I’ll not discover you; 45
That’s all the favour that you must expect:
When you are weary, you may leave the school,
For all this while you have but play’d the fool.
[Enter LOLLIO.]
Antonio: And must again. — He, he, I thank you, cousin; 50
I’ll be your valentine to-morrow morning.
Lollio: How do you like the fool, mistress?
Isabella: Passing well, sir.
Lollio: Is he not witty, pretty well for a fool?
Isabella: If he hold on as he begins, he is like 55
To come to something.

(from Act 3 Scene 3)

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Section B: Poetry

ROBERT BROWNING: Selected Poems

5 Either (a) In what ways, and with what effects, does Browning present religion in two poems
from your selection? [25]

Or (b) Comment closely on Browning’s presentation of emotions in the following poem,

Women and Roses. [25]

Women and Roses

I
I dream of a red-rose tree.
And which of its roses three
Is the dearest rose to me?

II
Round and round, like a dance of snow
In a dazzling drift, as its guardians, go 5
Floating the women faded for ages,
Sculptured in stone, on the poet’s pages.
Then follow women fresh and gay,
Living and loving and loved to-day.
Last, in the rear, flee the multitude of maidens, 10
Beauties yet unborn. And all, to one cadence,
They circle their rose on my rose tree.

III
Dear rose, thy term is reached,
Thy leaf hangs loose and bleached:
Bees pass it unimpeached. 15

IV
Stay then, stoop, since I cannot climb,
You, great shapes of the antique time!
How shall I fix you, fire you, freeze you,
Break my heart at your feet to please you?
Oh, to possess and be possessed! 20
Hearts that beat ’neath each pallid breast!
Once but of love, the poesy, the passion,
Drink but once and die!–In vain, the same fashion,
They circle their rose on my rose tree.

V
Dear rose, thy joy’s undimmed, 25
Thy cup is ruby-rimmed,
Thy cup’s heart nectar-brimmed.

VI
Deep, as drops from a statue’s plinth
The bee sucked in by the hyacinth,
So will I bury me while burning, 30
Quench like him at a plunge my yearning,

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Eyes in your eyes, lips on your lips!

Fold me fast where the cincture slips,
Prison all my soul in eternities of pleasure,
Girdle me for once! But no–the old measure, 35
They circle their rose on my rose tree.

VII
Dear rose without a thorn,
Thy bud’s the babe unborn:
First streak of a new morn.

VIII
Wings, lend wings for the cold, the clear! 40
What is far conquers what is near.
Roses will bloom nor want beholders,
Sprung from the dust where our flesh moulders.
What shall arrive with the cycle’s change?
A novel grace and a beauty strange. 45
I will make an Eve, be the artist that began her,
Shaped her to his mind!–Alas! in like manner
They circle their rose on my rose tree.

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OWEN SHEERS: Skirrid Hill

6 Either (a) Compare ways in which Sheers presents animals in two poems. [25]

Or (b) Comment closely on the following poem, analysing ways in which Sheers presents
the relationship. [25]

Landmark

Afterwards they were timeless

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and complete without them.

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Songs of Ourselves, Volume 2

7 Either (a) Compare the writing and effects of two poems which present war. [25]

Or (b) Comment closely on the following poem, analysing ways in which Yeats presents
the speaker’s feelings. [25]

When You are Old

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,

And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace, 5

And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,

Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled 10
And paced upon the mountains overhead,
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

(William Butler Yeats)

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GILLIAN CLARKE: Selected Poems

8 Either (a) Discuss the writing and effects of two poems in which Clarke presents the
relationship between adults and children. [25]

Or (b) Discuss the presentation of winter and its effects in the following poem. In your
answer you should pay close attention to Clarke’s poetic methods. [25]

February

Lamb-grief in the fields

and a cold as hard as slate.
Foot and hoof are shod

with ice. Our footprints

seem as old as ferns in stone. 5
Air rings in ash and thorn.

Ice on the rain-butt, thick

as a shield and the tap chokes,
its thumb in its throat.

The stream runs black 10

in a ruff of ice, its caught breath
furls a frieze of air.

At night ice sings

to the strum of my thrown stones
like a snapped harp-string. 15

The pond’s glass eye holds

leaf, reed, fish, paperweight
in a dream of stone

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TURN OVER FOR SECTION C.

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Section C: Prose

E M FORSTER: Howards End

9 Either (a) Helen is described as ‘rather apt to entice people, and, in enticing them, to be
herself enticed’.

In the light of this comment, discuss Forster’s portrayal of Helen. [25]

Or (b) Comment closely on Forster’s presentation of Margaret’s and Henry Wilcox’s

different attitudes to places in the following passage. [25]

Margaret had a bad attack of these nerves during the honeymoon.

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I can’t be as young as I was, for these

alterations don’t suit me.’

(from Chapter 31)

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ANDREA LEVY: Small Island

10 Either (a) Discuss ways in which Levy uses Queenie’s house in London as a setting in the
novel. [25]

Or (b) Comment closely on ways in which the experience of the American soldiers is
presented in the following passage. [25]

‘Well, Joe, I know you British do things different, but where we come from it’s
the way of things …’

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Don’t get that where we come from.

(from Chapter 14)

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Stories of Ourselves, Volume 2

11 Either (a) Discuss ways in which married relationships are presented in two stories. [25]

Or (b) Comment closely on Mansfield’s presentation of the doll’s house in the following
passage from The Doll’s House. [25]

There stood the doll’s house, a dark, oily, spinach green, picked out with bright
yellow. Its two solid little chimneys, glued on to the roof, were painted red and white,
and the door, gleaming with yellow varnish, was like a little slab of toffee. Four
windows, real windows, were divided into panes by a broad streak of green. There
was actually a tiny porch, too, painted yellow, with big lumps of congealed paint 5
hanging along the edge.
But perfect, perfect little house! Who could possibly mind the smell. It was part
of the joy, part of the newness.
‘Open it quickly, someone!’
The hook at the side was stuck fast. Pat prised it open with his penknife, and the 10
whole house front swung back, and – there you were, gazing at one and the same
moment into the drawing-room and dining-room, the kitchen and two bedrooms.
That is the way for a house to open! Why don’t all houses open like that? How much
more exciting than peering through the slit of a door into a mean little hall with a hat-
stand and two umbrellas! That is – isn’t it? – what you long to know about a house 15
when you put your hand on the knocker. Perhaps it is the way God opens houses at
the dead of night when He is taking a quiet turn with an angel. …
‘Oh-oh!’ The Burnell children sounded as though they were in despair. It was
too marvellous; it was too much for them. They had never seen anything like it in
their lives. All the rooms were papered. There were pictures on the walls, painted 20
on the paper, with gold frames complete. Red carpet covered all the floors except
the kitchen; red plush chairs in the drawing-room, green in the dining-room; tables,
beds with real bedclothes, a cradle, a stove, a dresser with tiny plates and one big
jug. But what Kezia liked more than anything, what she liked frightfully, was the
lamp. It stood in the middle of the dining-room table, an exquisite little amber lamp 25
with a white globe. It was even filled all ready for lighting, though, of course, you
couldn’t light it. But there was something inside that looked like oil and moved when
you shook it.
The father and mother dolls, who sprawled very stiff as though they had fainted
in the drawing-room, and their two little children asleep upstairs, were really too big 30
for the doll’s house. They didn’t look as though they belonged. But the lamp was
perfect. It seemed to smile at Kezia, to say, ‘I live here.’ The lamp was real.

(from The Doll’s House)

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NGŨGĨ WA THIONG’O: Petals of Blood

12 Either (a) Discuss ways in which Ngũgĩ presents ‘the poor, the downtrodden, the masses’ and
makes them significant in the novel. [25]

Or (b) Comment closely on ways in which the following passage presents Karega’s
account of his meeting with Mukami. [25]

‘I first really met her when I found her sitting at the edge of the Manguo quarry
on a hill we called ha-Mutabuki, near the household of Njinju wa Nducu and that
of Omari Juma, but whom we called Umari wa Juma.

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The teachers
allowed me to skip a class or two so that within two years I was only a class behind
her.

(from Chapter 7)

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