Texts and Traditions Questions: Solved
PART A EXTENDED RESPONSE
Answer the following question by typing your response below the question. The recommended response length should be approximately 500 – 600 words in length.
QUESTION 1 (40 marks)
Based on the Brand New Ancients excerpt (see Appendix A at page 5 of this exam paper), answer the following question:
How does the representation of the individual and society in Brand New Ancients compare to previous understandings of the individual and society in past texts and traditions?”
Note: In addition to Tempest’s poem, ensure that you engage with at least one text and one tradition studied in this unit.
QUESTION 1 RESPONSE:
[Type your response here]
PART B SHORT ANSWER RESPONSES (60 marks)
Answer the following question by typing your response below the question. The recommended response length for each of the following three questions is about 200 words.
Step 1
- Read the following information:
“Now she could see flies crawling slowly out of a saucer of milk with their wings stuck together; and she strained and strained (standing in front of the looking-glass, listening to Rose Shaw) to make herself see Rose Shaw and all the other people there as flies, trying to hoist themselves out of something, or into something, meagre, insignificant, toiling flies.”
(Woolf, V 1973, ‘The New Dress’, in S McNicholl (ed.), Mrs Dalloway’s Party: a short story sequence by Virginia Woolf, Harcourt Brace and Company, San Diego, pp. 56–65.)
The quotation above is from Virginia Woolf’s short story ‘The New Dress’ (1924). It is an example of an interior monologue — a key Modernist literary technique.
With reference to the Modernist literary tradition, Woolf’s short story and this quote in particular, answer the following:
QUESTION 1
What does the fly motif suggest about Mabel and others at the party in ‘The New Dress’? (20 marks)
QUESTION 1 RESPONSE:
[Type your response here]
QUESTION 2
Can we trust Mabel’s perception of the party? Why? Why not? (20 marks)
QUESTION 2 RESPONSE
[Type your response here]
QUESTION 3
Freud’s theory of the unconscious is clearly expressed in Virginia Woolf’s ‘The New Dress’. Do you agree or disagree? Justify your response with an analysis of Woolf’s short story. (20 marks)
QUESTION 3 RESPONSE
[Type your response here]