St. Joseph’s College of Commerce (Autonomous)
End Semester Examination – SEPT/Oct. 2015
B.Com – I Semester
C1 15 1 AE: ADDITIONAL ENGLISH
Duration: 3 Hours Max. Marks: 100
Note: Read the questions carefully and answer.
Do not exceed the paragraph limit.
Each paragraph should contain at least four sentences.
Do not copy sentences or paragraphs from the passage.
SECTION -A
Read the passage below and answer the questions.
Method and madness
Vitor Pordeus makes a good Hamlet. Bearded, handsome, angry at the world, he stands at the centre of his group of actors. Like a force of nature that fights to be heard against the wind blowing in from the Atlantic Ocean, he rails against the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune to a backdrop of palm trees and hot-dog stands.
Behind him, the sun drops like a giant orange behind the DoisIrmãosor Two Brothers, the picture‑postcard hills behind Ipanema beach and home to the recently gentrified Vidigal favela in Rio de Janeiro. The old King of Denmark sits on his throne, immutable. He’s a thin, frail man with only one leg. ‘Serounãoser,’ the chorus around him rises up: ‘To be or not to be.’ Then, a low hum, as the group starts to chant and dance their way around the circle. ‘Renascer,’ they sing –meaning: be reborn, revive.
This is no group of pampered actors. A banner with carnival streamers is emblazoned in gold, blue and orange with ‘Madness Hotel’, the name of the collective behind this production. The 20-odd performers have arrived at the sea’s edge from a psychiatric hospital in Rio’s densely populated and overheated North Zone. Pordeus is their doctor, though it might be more accurate now to describe him as an actor-director.
Theatre provides a rare stimulus for psychotic, schizophrenic and depressed patients, giving them an opportunity to communicate and interact constructively with others. ‘We are all actors; we take on our identity, we take on our culture,’ Pordeus says. Released from their fixed roles as catatonic[1], belligerent[2] or withdrawn patients, his actors – Pordeus calls them clients rather than patients – are free to don different masks as characters from Shakespeare, and to live out a different reality for a few hours. In the safe, performative setting, new things can be said or tried out. As the circle moves round, it breaks at times for people to hug each other, for spats to be heard then ironed out, and for each player to start new chants which the others then follow.
Pordeus says that the success of his work can be seen clearly in the thousands of films and photographs he records of the performances, both beachside and in the ‘Madness Hotel and Spa’ at the Nise da Silveira Mental Health Institute in Rio de Janeiro. When the patients review these later on, they can see the progress they’ve made, but also better understand their own behaviour and interactions with others. He claims that patients who never spoke before joining the Madness Hotel and who now smile or spontaneously interact with others are proof of the healing power of theatre.
The project has attracted a wave of publicity in Brazil, and an artists’ residence now takes place once a year at the Madness Hotel hospital unit. Yet Pordeus is not without his critics. Funding for the project through the municipal authority is an ongoing challenge, and there is a clash between the Madness Hotel and those in charge of other units in the hospital.
‘There is a lot of conflict between us and the other doctors,’ Pordeus admits. ‘They attack us, they say it agitates the patients. They say the basis of therapy is drugs, and that’s not true.’ Pordeus’s critics say that the emphasis on freedom of expression away from the clear doctor-patient hierarchy creates insecurity and confusion among patients rather than providing a healthy outlet. Yet this is to miss the point, since Pordeus is an activist as much as a doctor; he seeks to challenge mainstream ideas about illness and treatment, and that is bound to stir protest.
In wider perspective, the Madness Hotel performances, with their songs and costumes, can be seen as a continuation of Brazilian cultural traditions. Samba, for example, has always brought people together to seek redemption through collective remembrances of past suffering.
During carnival in Rio, the streets are filled with people singing songs such as Agoniza Mas NãoMorre: ‘Samba: agoniza mas nãomorre/ Alguémsempretesocorre/ Antes de suspiroderradeiro’ (Samba: agonise but don’t die/ Someone will always rescue you/ Before the final breath). Lyrics recall the shared traumas of slavery and the massacres of the poor by colonial authorities, while the powerful rhythms restore the African culture from which many of Brazil’s people were once violently removed. Crucially, this redemption is often to be found collectively and not individually in Brazilian culture – collectivism, of course, being a strong element of theatre.
The idea of using theatre as a tool for change was pioneered in Brazil by the late director and activist Augusto Boal who in the 1950s created the Theatre of the Oppressed, now world-renowned. In the Theatre of the Oppressed, drama became a framework in which people could visualise and understand the power dynamics at work in society and explore new possibilities through role play. These Boal-inspired ‘dress rehearsals for real life’ have been used in strife-torn locations such as Israel and Palestine, as well as all over Latin America and Europe. Boal believed that everyone is a self-contained spectator, actor and theatre in one; if we start by observing our actions and interactions, we can then go on to do things differently in the future.
Plato and Socrates believed that poets and priests could commune with the gods through accessing a kind of ‘divine madness’, thereby identifying the source of creative inspiration and insanity as one and the same, and the ‘mad artist’ has remained a persistent motif in many cultures, from Vincent van Gogh to Kanye West. Eccentric behaviour is indulged, encouraged or even expected in creative people, who enjoy a privileged position outside of the normal rules of society, and who often play up to this idea as if to underscore their untrammelled creativity.
In her book Touched with Fire: Manic-depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament (1991), Kay Redfield Jamison points to a wealth of evidence that supports such a link, among them studies that show elevated rates of mood disorders in highly creative people, and which further suggest that the link is genetic. Jamison, an American clinical psychologist, who is Professor in Mood Disorders at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore and who is bipolar herself, quotes the study of 113 German-speaking artists, writers, architects and composers compiled by the Austrian psychiatrist Adele Juda in 1944. Juda found that there were more suicides and more ‘insane and neurotic’ individuals in this group than could be found in the normal population, and that the same predisposition existed in many of the artists’ family members. Seen this way, madness might be a blessing of sorts, a kind of portal into a unique vision of the world.
Yet suffering can be alleviated through the discipline of creative practices that serve to weave formless, unarticulated pain into something tangible, ordered and ultimately pleasurable. As Jamison writes: ‘Creative work can act not only as a means of escape from pain, but also as a way of structuring chaotic emotions and thoughts, numbing pain through abstraction and the rigors of disciplined thought, and creating a distance from the source of despair.’ Thus some artists with mental health problems might have partly sought out their profession because of the relief it provides, consciously or not. For poets or painters, the outlet for these emotions is individual, while a shared theatrical or musical experience has the potential to effect a collective catharsis[3] and transformation.
- Answer the following in about TWO or THREE paragraphs each. (4 x 10 = 40)
- What role, according to this article, can theatre play in the lives of ‘psychotic, schizophrenic and depressed patients’? What other roles do you think theatre plays in our society?
- What is the criticism levelled against Pordeus’ method of dealing with the patients? What is your view on Pordeus’ method of treating his patients?
- What have you understood by the term ‘divine madness’? Is there a method in madness? Comment on the link, if any exists, between creativity and madness.
- Write about a performance (theatre, dance, singing, rituals, magic, cinema or any other performance) that you have seen and which has transformed the way you look at life and the world or has given a cathartic experience.
SECTION – B
- Answer any FOUR of the following questions in about FOUR or FIVE paragraphs each. (4x 15 = 60)
- In V. S. Naipaul’s ‘India: A Wounded Civilization’ what is the ‘wound’ that has still not healed in Indian civilization? Comment on the method of using works of fiction like R. K. Narayan’s novel Sampath in trying to understand the Indian society. Is it possible to understand a society through fiction?
- Compare the writing styles of Harriet Jacob’s A Lover and Siddalingaiah’s Ooru Keri. What might be the reason for writers to adopt different writing styles? Is it possible for autobiographies to reveal more than the writer’s life? What are the other things that you got to know while reading excerpts from the autobiographies?
- According to Mario Vargas Llossa what is the function of literature in a society? What are his views on technology and its impact on the physical book? Do you share his views or do you choose to disagree with him? Provide evidences and examples to defend your position.
- You have read and discussed a few essays which deal with reason, rationality, faith, belief and religion. Write about any two ideas from the essays which either interested you or irritated you very much. Which essay did you like the most and why?
- “The best moments in reading are when you come across something – a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things – which you had thought special and particular to you. Now here it is, set down by someone else, a person you have never met, someone even who is long dead. And it is as if a hand has come out and taken yours.” ― Alan Bennett. Have you had any such experience when you were reading a book, an article or an essay? Write about your reading life: the kind of books you read, how you choose books and your experience of reading books.
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
[1]Catatonia: abnormality of movement and behaviour arising from a disturbed mental state (typically schizophrenia). It may involve repetitive or purposeless over-activity, or catalepsy, resistance to passive movement, and negativism
[2]Belligerent: hostile and aggressive
[3]Catharsis: the process of releasing, and thereby providing relief from, strong or repressed emotions.
Latest Govt Job & Exam Updates: