St. Joseph’s College of Commerce (Autonomous)
End Semester Examination – April 2014
B.COM (Travel and Tourism) – IV semester
GENERAL ENGLISH
Duration: 3 hours Max. Marks: 100
Section -A
- Write short notes on the following in about 100 words. (4×5 =20)
- Inmates of the asylum in Toba Tek Singh.
- Poetry as ‘globed fruit’ in ‘Ars Poetica’.
- The nature of eternal and unchanging love in “Sonnet 116”.
- Sketch the character of Natalia Stepanovna.
SECTION – B
- Answer any five of the following in about 200 words. (5×10 =50)
- How does Saddat hasan Manto bring out the suffering and tragedy of partition in Toba Tek Singh without giving any direct references?
- Discuss the play ‘Marriage Proposal’ as a farce comedy. Give relevant examples from the play.
- Does love as portrayed in sonnet 116, exists in the real world, or, is it just a utopian ideal? Give your view points.
- “To abandon the struggle for private happiness, to expel all eagerness of temporary desire, to burn with passion for eternal things, this is freeman’s worship”. Throw light on the above statement by giving suitable references from the text The Freeman’s worship.
- Discuss Rushdie’s views on displacement and immigrants from the essay ‘Imaginary Homelands’.
- Summarize the key ideas discussed in the essay, Freeman’s Worship by Russell.
SECTION – C
Read the following passage and answer the following questions.
One of the essentials of a good community –that is, a community in which each of us can build flourishing lives for ourselves and those we care about –is tolerance. Tolerance matters for the obvious reason that the diversity of interests and desires people have is sometimes so great that we don’t even understand why others should think and behave as they do; and yet acknowledge their right to do so, because we cherish the same right for ourselves.
Thus the very possibility of society turns on tolerance. Society involves people getting along peacefully all the time and co-operatively most of the time and neither is possible unless people recognize the entitlement of others to their choices, and give them space accordingly.
But here, of course, is the familiar rub: the paradox of tolerance, which is that a tolerant society is always at risk of tolerating those who are intolerant and allowing movements to grow which foster intolerance. The profoundly dismaying spectacle of today’s Netherlands illustrates this point. What was one of the, most inclusive and welcoming societies in Europe has been stabbed in the heart by people it sheltered and who have grown into intolerant activists wishing to impose conformity and censorship on others by violence. And, alas, it has happened in the UK too.
The remedy for the paradox of tolerance is, of course, that tolerance must not tolerate intolerance if it is to protect itself. But this truism is often greeted with the response that if tolerance is intolerant of something, it is in breach of itself. The answer is to insist that although it is natural to think that tolerance is a warm, wooly, feel-god attitude, in fact it is a principle: it is an ethical demand that everyone should respect everyone’s else’s rights and liberties. And this does the trick all by itself. Tolerance is not a demand to license just anything whatever, least of all behavior that threatens the rights of others; it is a demand to respect others’ rights and entitlements even when one does not agree with their views or share their interests. Tolerance thus has its central place in the good society along with other principles that stop it from being a merely flabby acceptance that anything goes. These are the principles of pluralism and individual liberty, which is: intolerance of anything that causes harm. Insisting on this vital point is what explains why tolerance not only cannot but must not tolerate intolerance.
It is important to notice that tolerance requires work. If people do not mind what others do, even when what those others do seems strange, alternative and remote, this is not tolerance; it is indifference. But tolerance is an active thing. It involves recognizing the right of others to be different from oneself, and allowing them the space and opportunity to speak from their different perspective and to live it out. It involves putting up with the fact that others seem odd, or offensive, or disagreeable. One might argue with them, try to persuade them to agree with or conform to one’s own choices, criticize them, satirize them, and so forth- thus exercising one’s freedom of speech in return- but not forbid or prevent them.
Tolerating thus turns out to have two dimensions. Tolerating the existence of others who have different views and ways of life does not mean that one can not disagree with them or criticize them. Conversely, being tolerated carries with an acceptance that one is going to have to tolerate the disagreement or criticism that comes at one from others.
III) Answer the following questions in a sentence or two. (5×2=10)
- Give your personal definition of Tolerance.
- How does tolerance help us to survive in society?
- Describe any one effect of intolerance in society.
- What are the two dimensions of tolerance mentioned in the passage?
- What do you understand by the sentence ‘tolerance requires work’?
- IV) Answer any two of the following questions in about 200 words. (2×10=20)
- After reading the passage, describe the essayist’s views on the principle of tolerance. What is the paradox attached to it?
- Do you think India is a place where this virtue is practiced and followed? Justify your answer by giving suitable examples from your experiences.
- “Tolerance must not tolerate intolerance if it is to protect itself”. Explain the sentence from the above passage. How does the author explain the difference between ‘tolerance’ and ‘indifference’?
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