LOYOLA COLLEGE (AUTONOMOUS), CHENNAI – 600 034
M.A DEGREE EXAMINATION – ENGLISH LITERATURE
I SEMESTER – NOV. 2004
EL 1951–LITRATURE BY WOMEN
Date : 01.11.04 Max : 100 marks
Duration : 9 – 12 noon Hours : 3 hrs
Answer the following in about 50 to 75 words each. (2 x 10 = 20 marks)
- Few men about her would and could do more,
Hence she was labeled harpy, shrew and whore.
How does the story of Mary Wollstonecraft anticipate the fate of the “thinking woman?”
- She’s long about her coming, who must be
More merciless to herself than history.
What must the New Woman be equipped with in order to be in full command of her energy and power?
- My God, father, each Christmas day
With your blood, will I drink down your glass of wine?
Show how Christmas becomes an occasion when blood ties are celebrated. What is the ritual significance of wine?
- But suicides have a special language.
Like carpenters they want to know which tools.
They never ask why build.
What is the special language of the suicide? What are they communicating through this act of self-destruction?
- He kept brooding over the insult,
Over the trick They played on us, over the scolding.
List the many ways Adam tries to come to terms with his exile. How does Eve react?
- . . . It was necessary
To be more beautiful than ever.
The beautiful wife.
For sometimes she fancied he looked at her as though
Measuring her. As if he considered, Had she been worth it?
Comment on the effect of the lynching on the relationship between the man and his wife. What is the fall out?
- Dress in sarees, be girl
Be wife, they said. Be embroiderer, be cook
Be a quarreller with servants.
Why does the speaker reject the advice of her well-wishers to conform to tradition? What is the price demanded of her for her decisions.
- There is a house now far away where once
I received love…. That woman died,
The house withdrew into silence, snakes moved
Among books I was then too young
To read, and my blood turned cold like the moon.
How does the silence of the house reflect the speaker’s withdrawal from life?
Comment on the imagery.
- But when the web is pulled askew, hooked up at the edge, torn in the middle, one remembers that these webs are not spun in mid air by incorporeal creatures, but are the work of suffering human beings, and are attached to grossly material things, like health and money and the houses we live in.
Comment on the near absence of women writers in the literary firmament.
- For one often catches a glimpse of them in the lives of the great, whisking away into the background, concealing, I sometimes think, a wink, a laugh, perhaps a tear.
The woman’s contribution in the shaping of reality has seldom been acknowledged in books of history. What strategies for visibility does the author suggest?
Answer any FOUR of the following in about 300 to 400 words each.
(4 x 20 = 80 marks)
- A Bronzeville Mother Loiters in Mississippi portrays a close relationship between literature and reality in which literature influences behaviour and shapes reality. Show how Gwendolyn Brooks weaves bitter irony into fantasy to portray the human cost of actions motivated by hate. How does the white woman redeem herself?
- Write an essay on the myth of motherhood in any one of the short stories prescribed for study.
- The culture of the past is a predator to the sensitive woman and the intellectual woman who absorbs it becomes her own enemy. Elaborate on Snapshots of a Daughter-in-law as a record of the anxiety of middle age which also challenges the woman to recognize and reject self-destructive emotional responses to life.
- Judith Wright’s poem takes up the Biblical myth of the first human tragedy, lends it a comic twist to make a point on marriage and married relationships. Comment on the case she makes for feminine intuition.
- If Shakespeare had a sister… What are some of the challenges that women writers face? To what extent are these material/social/psychological?
- Jane Eyre’s life falls apart at the seams on the day she nearly marries Rochester. Show how she joins the compulsions of conventional morality with passion to take on the world. Do you think Jane is an acceptable prototype for a liberated woman?
- Jaya is a failed writer, haunted by her past and tormented by the claustrophobia of a loveless marriage. What is the significance of silence in a woman’s life? Comment on Sashi Despande’s novel as a portrayal of the imbalances in marriage.