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JAIPUR NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, JAIPUR
School of Distance Education & Learning
Internal Assignment No. 1
M.A. (English)
Paper Code: MEG– 204
Paper Title: Literary Theory
Last date of submission: Max. Marks: 30
Note: Question No. 1 is of short answer type and is compulsory for all the students. It carries 10 marks – total
Q. 1. Answer all the questions:
I . With Blue, uncertain, stumbling buzz between the light and me. And then the window failed and
then I would not see to see.
Answer: This fly comes between the speaker and ‘the light’. Has she seen the light? How should we interpret this? Is it simply the candle or lamp in the room lighting it (such as would attract a bluebottle to it), or is the ‘light’ signalling the arrival of that ‘King’, Death? Has he come for her?
And why then do the
II. What is ironic about the speaker’s statements concerning his neighbour’s opinion of wall Building
in “Mending wall”?
Answer: Every year, two neighbors meet to repair the stone wall that divides their property. The narrator is skeptical of this tradition, unable to understand the need for a wall when there is no livestock to be contained on the property, only apples and pine trees. He does not believe that a wall should exist simply for
III. “Books are the best of things, well used; abused among the worst”. What is the relevance of this
statement in “The American Scholar” by Emerson.
Answer: Emerson begins by noting that the beginning of another school year is an occasion of “hope, and, perhaps, not enough of labor.” Emerson goes on to explain that, unlike in European countries, this lecture is not to celebrate scientific
IV. In this poem “I felt a funeral, in my brain.” Dickenson writes “that sense was breaking
through” – What kind of“sense” might she be suggesting?
Answer: The speaker feels as though a funeral service is taking place within his or her own mind. It feels like the funeral attendees are pacing back and forth inside the speaker’s head, so much so that whatever they’re walking on might
V. “Death is the mother of beauty.” Summarize the thinking process by which the speaker in the
Poem “Sunday Morning” transform “Sunday Morning” from a day ofChristian religious
Observance for the dead into a very different kind of celebration
Answer: Sunday Morning is a meditative poem in which Stevens presents a woman who is frightened by the thought of death when she hears the church bells. The poet initially appreciates the woman’s rational thoughts as she refuses to accept the romantic fancies of the Christian afterlife and wants to make her life on this earth itself
VI. How does Willy’s desperate quest for the American dream resemble a religious crusade?
Answer: Written by Arthur Miller in 1949, “Death of a Salesman” Is a tragedy play about the difference between the dream of Willy Loman’s family and the reality of their lives. Willy is a salesman who travels on business trips and is an insecure and self-misled person who fails to achieve the American Dream
VII. “The Bluest Eye” is a novel about racism, and yet there are relatively few instances of the direct
oppression of black people by white people in the novel. Explain how racism functions in the
novel.
Answer: The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison’s first novel, was published in 1970. Set in Lorain, Ohio — where Morrison herself was born — the book tells the story of Pecola Breedlove, an eleven-year-old African American girl who is convinced that she is ugly, and yearns to have lighter skin and blue eyes. This, she believes,
VIII. Briefly describe how Brutus Jones is introduced in the opening scene of “The Emperor Jones”?
Answer: Brutus Jones, the protagonist of the play, is a black American who has become the emperor of an unnamed island in the West Indies. Prior the start of the play, Jones worked for ten years as a porter on Pullman sleeper trains, where he learned from listening to white passengers that “big stealin” is far more profitable
IX. What sums to be the allegorical significance of the story “the young Goodman brown”?
Answer: In the short story of “Young Goodman Brown” by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the setting is a very important aspect in providing symbolism to certain events. The setting of a dramatic work or story is defined as the overall setting of a narrative detailing the general location, historical time, and social undermining in which its action
X. Explain in brief the meaning of the lines of the poem
“Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening:
“Miles to go before I sleep.
Miles to go before I sleep
Answer: The speaker is away from his home, where he feels that he needs to repeat this fact to himself that he has miles to reach home. However, symbolically the word “sleep” suggests death and darkness. Hence, this line refers to a long journey ahead before the speaker could go to eternal sleep of death, or it
NOTE: Answer any four questions. Each question carries 5 Marks. (4*5=20 Marks) (500 Words).
Q2. Emerson projects a true theory of nature and man in “The American Scholar.” Discuss.
Answer:
Q.3 Attempt a critical appreciation of Walt Whitman’s “Passage to India.”
Answer: Whitman was greatly impressed by three great engineering achievements: the opening of the Suez Canal (1869), the laying of the transatlantic undersea cable (1866), and the joining of the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads at Utah to produce the nation’s first transcontinental railway (1869). These events resulted in improved communication and travel, thus making possible a shorter passage to India. But in
Q.4 Bring out the dramatic significance of the silver bullet in O’Neill’s ‘Emperor Jones’.
Answer: The Emperor Jones is the first of the most imaginative of O’Neill’s plays, in which direct symbolism and fantasy begin to take the place of more realistic characters who are only indirectly symbolic. In this play, the silver bullet is the symbol of materialism, of that, superstition by which the dishonest rich have made the world believe that their very riches could save them from the revenge of their victims, just as Jones had made the natives believe that he could be killed only by a silver bullet. The silver bullet is also the
Q.5 Frost’s poems move from ‘delight’ to ‘wisdom’. Examine the statement with reference to the poems prescribed.
Answer: “Poetry begins in delight and ends in wisdom” – Robert Frost Essay Danielle Sims Robert Frost was a poet who wrote traditional poetry that opposed the free verse styles and “no rules” system of the modernist poets who wrote at the same time in the early 1900s. His poetry is deceptively simple, commonly
Q.6 Comment on Hawthorne’s use of symbolism in “Young Goodman Brown”.
Answer: Young Goodman Brown, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, is the story of a seventeenth century Puritan man who loses faith in all of mankind. He sees his wife, members of the religious community and other respected townspeople attending a Black Mass and this leads him to mistrust all of the townspeople and even his own family. Ironically, it is unclear if this is even real or just a dream he has had and the people
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