Cambridge IGCSE™

LITERATURE IN ENGLISH 0475/12

Paper 1 Poetry and Prose February/March 2024

1 hour 30 minutes

You must answer on the enclosed answer booklet.

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

You will need: Answer booklet (enclosed)

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

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

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

DC (CE) 326920/2
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CONTENTS

Section A: Poetry

text question
numbers page[s]

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

Songs of Ourselves Volume 2: from Part 4 3, 4 pages 6–7
Ted Hughes: from New Selected Poems 5, 6 pages 8–9

Section B: Prose

text question
numbers page[s]

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: Purple Hibiscus 7, 8 pages 10–11

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

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SECTION A: POETRY

Answer one question from this section.

SONGS OF OURSELVES VOLUME 1: from Part 4

Remember to support your ideas with details from the writing.

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

Rain

Rain, midnight rain, nothing but the wild rain

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

(Edward Thomas)

How does Thomas strikingly convey the speaker’s thoughts and feelings about death in
this poem?

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Or 2 In what ways does Stevenson create such a powerful image of the baby in The Spirit is
too Blunt an Instrument?

The Spirit is too Blunt an Instrument

The spirit is too blunt an instrument

to have made this baby.
Nothing so unskilful as human passions
could have managed the intricate
exacting particulars: the tiny 5
blind bones with their manipulating tendons,
the knee and the knucklebones, the resilient
fine meshings of ganglia and vertebrae,
the chain of the difficult spine.

Observe the distinct eyelashes and sharp crescent 10

fingernails, the shell-like complexity
of the ear, with its firm involutions
concentric in miniature to minute
ossicles. Imagine the
infinitesimal capillaries, the flawless connections 15
of the lungs, the invisible neural filaments
through which the completed body
already answers to the brain.

Then name any passion or sentiment

possessed of the simplest accuracy. 20
No, no desire or affection could have done
with practice what habit
has done perfectly, indifferently,
through the body’s ignorant precision.
It is left to the vagaries of the mind to invent 25
love and despair and anxiety
and their pain.

(Anne Stevenson)

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SONGS OF OURSELVES VOLUME 2: from Part 4

Remember to support your ideas with details from the writing.

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

Waterfall

I do not ask for youth, nor for delay

in the rising of time’s irreversible river
that takes the jewelled arc of the waterfall
in which I glimpse, minute by glinting minute,
all that I have and all I am always losing 5
as sunlight lights each drop fast, fast falling.

I do not dream that you, young again,

might come to me darkly in love’s green darkness
where the dust of the bracken spices the air
moss, crushed, gives out an astringent sweetness 10
and water holds our reflections
motionless, as if for ever.

It is enough now to come into a room

and find the kindness we have for each other
– calling it love – in eyes that are shrewd 15
but trustful still, face chastened by years
of careful judgement; to sit in the afternoons
in mild conversation, without nostalgia.

But when you leave me, with your jauntiness

sinewed by resolution more than strength 20
– suddenly then I love you with a quick
intensity, remembering that water,
however luminous and grand, falls fast
and only once to the dark pool below.

(Lauris Edmond)

In what ways does Edmond memorably portray love in this poem?

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Or 4 How does Fairburn vividly communicate the speaker’s thoughts and feelings in Rhyme
of the Dead Self ?

Rhyme of the Dead Self

Tonight I have taken all that I was

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

Then chuckling I dragged out his foolish brains 5

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

He is dead pale youth and he shall not rise

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

(A R D Fairburn)

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TED HUGHES: from New Selected Poems

Remember to support your ideas with details from the writing.

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

Roe-Deer

In the dawn-dirty light, in the biggest snow of the year

Content removed due to copyright restrictions.

Back to the ordinary.

In what ways does Hughes strikingly portray the roe-deer in this poem?

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Or 6 Explore the ways in which Hughes powerfully portrays the jaguar in The Jaguar.

The Jaguar

The apes yawn and adore their fleas in the sun.

Content removed due to copyright restrictions.

Over the cage floor the horizons come.

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SECTION B: PROSE

Answer one question from this section.

CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE: Purple Hibiscus

Remember to support your ideas with details from the writing.

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

Sister Margaret saw him as we walked to my class.

Content removed due to copyright restrictions.

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Content removed due to copyright restrictions.

He hugged me, a brief side hug.

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

Or 8 In what ways does Adichie make Obiora a memorable and significant character?

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CHARLES DICKENS: Great Expectations

Remember to support your ideas with details from the writing.

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

I had heard of Miss Havisham up town – everybody for miles round,

had heard of Miss Havisham up town – as an immensely rich and grim
lady who lived in a large and dismal house barricaded against robbers,
and who led a life of seclusion.
‘Well to be sure!’ said Joe, astounded. ‘I wonder how she came to 5
know Pip!’
‘Noodle!’ cried my sister. ‘Who said she knew him?’
‘– Which some indiwidual,’ Joe again politely hinted, ‘mentioned that
she wanted him to go and play there.’
‘And couldn’t she ask Uncle Pumblechook if he knew of a boy to go 10
and play there? Isn’t it just barely possible that Uncle Pumblechook may
be a tenant of hers, and that he may sometimes – we won’t say quarterly
or half yearly, for that would be requiring too much of you – but sometimes
– go there to pay his rent? And couldn’t she then ask Uncle Pumblechook
if he knew of a boy to go and play there? And couldn’t Uncle Pumblechook, 15
being always considerate and thoughtful for us – though you may not
think it, Joseph,’ in a tone of the deepest reproach, as if he were the most
callous of nephews, ‘then mention this boy, standing Prancing here’ –
which I solemnly declare I was not doing – ‘that I have for ever been a
willing slave to?’ 20
‘Good again!’ cried Uncle Pumblechook. ‘Well put! Prettily pointed!
Good indeed! Now Joseph, you know the case.’
‘No, Joseph,’ said my sister, still in a reproachful manner, while Joe
apologetically drew the back of his hand across and across his nose,
‘you do not yet – though you may not think it – know the case. You may 25
consider that you do, but you do not, Joseph. For you do not know that
Uncle Pumblechook, being sensible that for anything we can tell, this boy’s
fortune may be made by his going to Miss Havisham’s, has offered to take
him into town to-night in his own chaise-cart, and to keep him to-night,
and to take him with his own hands to Miss Havisham’s to-morrow 30
morning. And Lor-a-mussy me!’ cried my sister, casting off her bonnet in
sudden desperation, ‘here I stand talking to mere Mooncalfs, with Uncle
Pumblechook waiting, and the mare catching cold at the door, and the boy
grimed with crock and dirt from the hair of his head to the sole of his foot!’
With that, she pounced upon me, like an eagle on a lamb, and my 35
face was squeezed into wooden bowls in sinks, and my head was put
under taps of water-butts, and I was soaped, and kneaded, and towelled,
and thumped, and harrowed, and rasped, until I really was quite beside
myself. (I may here remark that I suppose myself to be better acquainted
than any living authority, with the ridgy effect of a wedding-ring, passing 40
unsympathetically over the human countenance.)
When my ablutions were completed, I was put into clean linen of the
stiffest character, like a young penitent into sackcloth, and was trussed
up in my tightest and fearfullest suit. I was then delivered over to Mr
Pumblechook, who formally received me as if he were the Sheriff, and 45
who let off upon me the speech that I knew he had been dying to make
all along: ‘Boy, be for ever grateful to all friends, but especially unto them
which brought you up by hand!’
‘Good-by, Joe!’
‘God bless you, Pip, old chap!’ 50
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I had never parted from him before, and what with my feelings and
what with soap-suds, I could at first see no stars from the chaise-cart. But
they twinkled out one by one, without throwing any light on the questions
why on earth I was going to play at Miss Havisham’s and what on earth I
was expected to play at. 55

(from Chapter 7)

In what ways does Dickens make this such an entertaining and significant moment in the
novel?

Or 10 Explore how Dickens powerfully portrays Pip’s relationship with Magwitch after he returns
to England.

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DAPHNE DU MAURIER: Rebecca

Remember to support your ideas with details from the writing.

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

He whipped round and looked at me as I sat there huddled on the

floor.

Content removed due to copyright restrictions.

It doesn’t make for

sanity, does it, living with the devil.’
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In what ways does du Maurier make this such a revealing moment in the novel?

Or 12 Explore how du Maurier makes Beatrice such a memorable character.

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JHUMPA LAHIRI: The Namesake

Remember to support your ideas with details from the writing.

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

That evening Ashoke goes home to the apartment, checks for the
letter.

Content removed due to copyright restrictions.

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Content removed due to copyright restrictions.

She knows the story of the accident, a story she

first heard with polite newlywed sympathy, but the thought of which now,
now especially, makes her blood go cold.

(from Chapter 2)

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

Or 14 How does Lahiri create such vivid impressions of Gogol as he grows up?

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JOAN LINDSAY: Picnic at Hanging Rock

Remember to support your ideas with details from the writing.

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

Doctor McKenzie was right: ‘Don’t think about the Rock, dear child.

Content removed due to copyright restrictions.

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Content removed due to copyright restrictions.

For a person who found difficulty in expressing himself on paper, the

writer had conveyed his meaning remarkably well.

(from Chapter 11)

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

Or 16 To what extent does Lindsay make it possible for you to feel sorry for Mrs Appleyard?

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YANN MARTEL: Life of Pi

Remember to support your ideas with details from the writing.

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

In my case, to protect myself from Richard Parker while I trained him, I

made a shield with a turtle shell.

Content removed due to copyright restrictions.

My fifth shield lasted me the rest of his training.

(from Chapter 72)
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How does Martel strikingly portray Pi at this moment in the novel?

Or 18 Explore two moments in the novel which Martel makes particularly moving.

Do not use the passage printed in Question 17 in answering this question.

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H G Wells: The War of the Worlds

Remember to support your ideas with details from the writing.

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

A moderate incline runs towards the foot of Maybury Hill, and down
this we clattered. Once the lightning had begun, it went on in as rapid
a succession of flashes as I have ever seen. The thunderclaps, treading
one on the heels of another and with a strange crackling accompaniment,
sounded more like the working of a gigantic electric machine than the usual 5
detonating reverberations. The flickering light was blinding and confusing,
and a thin hail smote gustily at my face as I drove down the slope.
At first I regarded little but the road before me, and then abruptly my
attention was arrested by something that was moving rapidly down the
opposite slope of Maybury Hill. At first I took it for the wet roof of a house, 10
but one flash following another showed it to be in swift rolling movement. It
was an elusive vision – a moment of bewildering darkness, and then, in a
flash like daylight, the red masses of the Orphanage near the crest of the
hill, the green tops of the pine-trees, and this problematical object came
out clear and sharp and bright. 15
And this Thing I saw! How can I describe it? A monstrous tripod, higher
than many houses, striding over the young pine-trees, and smashing them
aside in its career; a walking engine of glittering metal, striding now across
the heather; articulate ropes of steel dangling from it, and the clattering
tumult of its passage mingling with the riot of the thunder. A flash, and it 20
came out vividly, heeling over one way with two feet in the air, to vanish
and reappear almost instantly as it seemed, with the next flash, a hundred
yards nearer. Can you imagine a milking-stool tilted and bowled violently
along the ground? That was the impression those instant flashes gave.
But instead of a milking-stool imagine it a great body of machinery on a 25
tripod stand.
Then suddenly the trees in the pine-wood ahead of me were parted,
as brittle reeds are parted by a man thrusting through them; they were
snapped off and driven headlong, and a second huge tripod appeared,
rushing, as it seemed, headlong towards me. And I was galloping hard 30
to meet it! At the sight of the second monster my nerve went altogether.
Not stopping to look again, I wrenched the horse’s head hard round to the
right, and in another moment the dogcart had heeled over upon the horse;
the shafts smashed noisily, and I was flung sideways and fell heavily into a
shallow pool of water. 35
I crawled out almost immediately, and crouched, my feet still in the
water, under a clump of furze. The horse lay motionless (his neck was
broken, poor brute!) and by the lightning flashes I saw the black bulk of the
overturned dogcart and the silhouette of the wheel still spinning slowly. In
another moment the colossal mechanism went striding by me, and passed 40
uphill towards Pyrford.
Seen nearer, the Thing was incredibly strange, for it was no mere
insensate machine driving on its way. Machine it was, with a ringing
metallic pace, and long, flexible, glittering tentacles (one of which gripped
a young pine-tree) swinging and rattling about its strange body. It picked 45
its road as it went striding along, and the brazen hood that surmounted it
moved to and fro with the inevitable suggestion of a head looking about.
Behind the main body was a huge mass of white metal like a gigantic
fisherman’s basket, and puffs of green smoke squirted out from the joints
of the limbs as the monster swept by me. And in an instant it was gone. 50
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So much I saw then, all vaguely for the flickering of the lightning, in
blinding high lights and dense black shadows.
As it passed it set up an exultant deafening howl that drowned the
thunder – ‘Aloo! aloo!’ – and in another minute it was with its companion,
half a mile away, stooping over something in the field. I have no doubt this 55
Thing in the field was the third of the ten cylinders they had fired at us from
Mars.
For some minutes I lay there in the rain and darkness watching, by
the intermittent light, these monstrous beings of metal moving about in
the distance over the hedge-tops. A thin hail was now beginning, and as 60
it came and went their figures grew misty and then flashed into clearness
again. Now and then came a gap in the lightning, and the night swallowed
them up.

(from Book 1, Chapter 10)

How does Wells make this moment in the novel so dramatic?

Or 20 Explore the ways in which Wells strikingly portrays the artilleryman.

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from STORIES OF OURSELVES Volume 2

Remember to support your ideas with details from the writing.

Either 21 Read the following extract from And Women Must Weep (by Henry Handel Richardson),
and then answer the question that follows it:

She was ready at last, the last bow tied, the last strengthening pin in place,
and they said to her – Auntie Cha and Miss Biddons – to sit down and rest
while Auntie Cha ‘climbed into her own togs’: ‘Or you’ll be tired before the
evening begins.’ But she could not bring herself to sit, for fear of crushing
her dress – it was so light, so airy. How glad she felt now that she had 5
chosen muslin, and not silk as Auntie Cha had tried to persuade her. The
gossamer-like stuff seemed to float around her as she moved, and the cut
of the dress made her look so tall and so different from everyday that she
hardly recognised herself in the glass; the girl reflected there – in palest
blue, with a wreath of cornflowers in her hair – might have been a stranger. 10
Never had she thought she was so pretty … nor had Auntie and Miss
Biddons either; though all they said was: ‘Well, Dolly, you’ll do,’ and: ‘Yes,
I think she will be a credit to you.’ Something hot and stinging came up
her throat at this: a kind of gratitude for her pinky-white skin, her big blue
eyes and fair curly hair, and pity for those girls who hadn’t got them. Or an 15
Auntie Cha either, to dress them and see that everything was ‘just so’.
Instead of sitting, she stood very stiff and straight at the window,
pretending to watch for the cab, her long white gloves hanging loose over
one arm so as not to soil them. But her heart was beating pit-a-pat. For
this was her first real grown-up ball. It was to be held in a public hall, and 20
Auntie Cha, where she was staying, had bought tickets and was taking
her.
True, Miss Biddons rather spoilt things at the end by saying: ‘Now
mind you don’t forget your steps in the waltz. One, two, together; four, five,
six.’ And in the wagonette, with her dress filling one seat, Auntie Cha’s the 25
other, Auntie said: ‘Now, Dolly, remember not to look too serious. Or you’ll
frighten the gentlemen off.’
She was only doing it now because of her dress: cabs were so
cramped, the seats so narrow.
Alas! in getting out a little accident happened. She caught the bottom 30
of one of her flounces – the skirt was made of nothing else – on the iron
step, and ripped off the selvedge. Auntie Cha said: ‘My dear, how clumsy!’
She could have cried with vexation.
The woman who took their cloaks hunted everywhere, but could only
find black cotton; so the torn selvedge – there was nearly half a yard of it 35
– had just to be cut off. This left a raw edge, and when they went into the
hall and walked across the enormous floor, with people sitting all round,
staring, it seemed to Dolly as if every one had their eyes fixed on it. Auntie
Cha sat down in the front row of chairs beside a lady-friend; but she slid
into a chair behind. 40
The first dance was already over, and they were hardly seated
before partners began to be taken for the second. Shyly she mustered
the assembly. In the cloakroom, she had expected the woman to exclaim:
‘What a sweet pretty frock!’ when she handled it. (When all she did say
was: ‘This sort of stuff’s bound to fray.’) And now Dolly saw that the hall 45
was full of lovely dresses, some much, much prettier than hers, which
suddenly began to seem rather too plain, even a little dowdy; perhaps
after all it would have been better to have chosen silk.

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She wondered if Aunt Cha thought so too. For Auntie suddenly turned
and looked at her, quite hard, and then said snappily: ‘Come, come, child, 50
you mustn’t tuck yourself away like that, or the gentlemen will think you
don’t want to dance.’ So she had to come out and sit in the front; and show
that she had a programme, by holding it open on her lap.

How does Richardson vividly convey Dolly’s thoughts and feelings in this opening to the
story?

Or 22 In what ways does Laski make The Tower such a disturbing story?

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