IGCSE English Literature- Past paper Questions and Guide (Essay Plan) on answering them

ESSAY PLAN OF PAST PAPER QUESTIONS by Aditi Prasad

1. Reservist: 
   1. How does Boey Kim Cheng powerfully convey his feelings about military service in this poem?
   2. Explore the ways in which Boey uses language to memorable effect in this poem. 
2. Becuase I Could Not Stop For Death: 
   1. Explore the ways in which Dickinson makes Because I Could Not Stop For Death such a disturbing poem.
   2. How does Dickinson vividly portray the figure of Death in Because I Could Not Stop For Death?
   3. Why does Dickenson personify Death in the the poem?
3. For Heidi with Blue Hair: 
   1. How does Adcock’s writing make this poem both amusing and serious?
   2. How does Adcock’s writing create sympathy for Heidi in For Heidi With Blue Hair?
   3. How does Adock vividly convey the theme of teenage rebellion in the poem “Heidi with Blue Hair”
4. The Trees Are Down: 
   1. Explore the ways in which Mew movingly writes about her feelings of loss in The Trees Are Down. 
   2. What feelings about nature does Mew’s writing convey in The Trees Are Down?
5. One Art: 
   1. How does Bishop create a tone that is both serious and amusing in this poem?
   2. Explore in which ways Bishop uses language to have a memorable effect in the poem One Art
   3. How effectively has style and form of the villanelle been used by Elizabeth Bishop to deal with the theme of loss in the poem, “One Art”
6. Praise Song for My Mother: 
   1. In what ways does Nichols use imagery to memorable effect in Praise Song For My Mother?
   2. How does Nichols memorably express a sense of admiration for her mother in this poem?
7. Song: Tears, Idle Tears: 
   1. How does Tennyson powerfully convey a sense of grief in this poem?
   2. Explor.e the ways in which Tennyson creates deep feelings of sadness in this poem
8.  Elegy For My Father’s Father: 
   1. How does Baxter use words and images to create striking effects in Elegy For My Father’s Father?
   2. How does Baxter convey a sense of admiration for his grandfather in Elegy For My Father’s Father?
   3. To what extent is this a moving poem?
9. The Trees: 
   1. Explore the ways in which Larkin creates a feeling of hope in this poem
   2. How does Larkin strikingly convey feelings of uncertainty in this poem?
10.  Anthem for Doomed Youth: 
    1. In what ways does Owen convey powerful emotions in Anthem For Doomed Youth?
    2. How does Owen powerfully communicate feelings about war in Anthem for Doomed Youth?
    3. How does the speaker voice his dissaporval of public funreal in the poem.
11. Cold In the Earth: 
    1. Explore the ways in which Brontë vividly expresses her thoughts and feelings (of grief) in Cold In The Earth.
    2. How does Br ontë’s writing make the memories described in this poem so moving?
12. Attack: 
    1. How does Sassoon create a profound feeling of anger in this poem?
    2. How does Sassoon vividly depict his experience of war in Attack?
    3. How does the poet convey the horror of warfare in the poem
13. My Parents:
    1. What striking impressions of the speaker does Spender create for you in My Parents?
    2. Explore how Spender conveys his feelings about his childhood in this poem
    3. How doe Spender convey a powerful experience in the poem?
14. Friend:
    1. In what ways does Tuwhare vividly convey the speaker’s memories in this poem?
    2. How does the poet create an emotive potrayal of childhood in the poem?
15. Meeting at Night:
    1. How does Browning memorably portray the longing for his beloved?
    2. How does Browning vividly communicate a sense of excitement in Meeting At Night  ?

Meeting at Night: 

How does Browning use nature imagery to memorably portray the longing for his beloved?

I
The grey sea and the long black land;
And the yellow half-moon large and low;
And the startled little waves that leap
In fiery ringlets from their sleep,
As I gain the cove with pushing prow,
And quench its speed i’ the slushy sand.

II
Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach;
Three fields to cross till a farm appears;
A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch
And blue spurt of a lighted match,
And a voice less loud, thro’ its joys and fears,
Than the two hearts beating each to each!

Topic sentences:

• The poet uses portray the lovers passion and exuberance to unite with his lover using symbolic chromatic images.
  • Little waves that leap
  • Fiery ringlets 
  • Pushing prow
  • Quench its speed
  • Blue spurt of a lighted candle 
  • Two hearts beating each to each
• The illicit nature of the meeting underscored by the dim visual imagery highlights the fervent pursuit to meet his beloved
  • Long black island 
  • Yellow half moon large and Low – well into the night 
  • Blue spurt of a lighted candle – contrast of that flickering small light to the moon bring out secrecy 
• The elaborate description of the lovers Long journey through the elements to snag a few precious moments with his love portray his passion.
  • Grey sea – Color connotes mystery and hardship 
  • Mile of sea-scented beach – the distance doesn’t bother him to much as he is fixated on meeting his lover.
  • Three fields – specifying – expexgesis 
• The nature images are used as metaphors for the body of his beloved, depicting his longer for her as he gets closer
  • Warm sea scented beach
  • Quench its speed
  • Pushing prow
  • Slushy sand 

Praise Song For My Mother:

You were
water to me
deep and bold and fathoming

You were
moon’s eye to me
pull and grained and mantling

You were
sunrise to me
rise and warm and streaming

You were
the fishes red gill to me
the flame tree’s spread to me
the crab’s leg/the fried plantain smell
                              replenishing replenishing 

Go to your wide futures, you said

(Grace Nichols )

 Q.In what ways does Nichols use imagery to memorable effect in Praise Song For My Mother ?

Topic Sentences:

• The poet uses nature epithets to symbolise and praise certain aspect of the mother’s personality, which arouses a lasting awe over the mother.
  • Water to me – life-giving, essential in her life for her upbringing and nourishment.
  • Moon’s eye to me – watchful and protective of her child, also the phrase connotes a deeps sense of elegance and beauty to the mother
  • sunrise to me – Passionate for life, the phrase also symbolises goodness, and hope, positivity and purity
  • Fishes red gill – this phrase combines the cool connotations of the sea by the fish and the vitality of the mother through the chromatic red image.
  • Flame tree – like the tree the mother offers shade and protection to poet, the word flame also carries heavy connoations of the mothers passion and energy while she was alive.
  • the crab’s leg/the fried plantain smell – the olfactory image is striking and unique. The complexity of this image expresses how special the mother was, and again how she was lifegiving by being metaphorically compared to being as important as food for the poet.
• There are many cool and serene images and then there are powerful and messianic images – the contrast highlights the duality of the mother giving her character more depth and making her unforgettable.
  • deep and bold and fathoming
    • depth – deep personality
    •  Bold – vitality andasertive nature
    • Fathiming – understanding, compassionate and also highlights the trong physical stature of the mother
  • pull and grained and mantling
    • Pulling, magnetic personality
    • Mantling – her love is encompassing 
  • rise and warm and streaming
    • Excudes love and care
    • Streaming creates a glorious image of the mother

Friend 

Do you remember

that wild stretch of land

with the lone tree guarding the point

from the sharp-tongued sea?

The fort we built out of branches

wrenched from the tree, is dead wood now.

The air that was thick with the whirr of

toetoe spears succumbs at last to the grey gull’s wheel.

Oyster-studded roots

of the mangrove yield no finer feast

of silver-bellied eels, and sea-snails

cooked in a rusty can

Allow me to mend the broken ends

of shared days:

but I wanted to say

that the tree we climbed

that gave food and drink

to youthful dreams, is no more.

Pursed to the lips her fine-edged

leaves made whistle – now stamp

no silken tracery on the cracked

clay floor.

Friend,

in this drear

dreamless time I clasp

your hand if only for reassurance

that all our jewelled fantasies were

real and wore splendid rags.

Perhaps the tree

will strike root again:

give soothing shade to a hurt and

troubled world.

How does the poet create an emotive potrayal of childhood in the poem?

Topic Sentenses:

• The poets nostalgic tone brings out the emotinal significance and important of this period in his life.
  • Do you remember?
  • The fort we built
  • Is no more
• The poet describes it to be a time before he was then burdened by the difficulties of life, this longing heightens the other feelings of loss and pain from losing ones hildhood haven.
  • lone tree guarding the point from the sharp-tongued sea – the sea was adulthood and the cruel harsh world // or just represenatative of the struggles and roughness in their friendhsip to come
  • Jewelled fantasies
  • Soothing shade to a troubled world
• By contrasting the tree he remmebered in his childhood to what had become of it now, hihglihts what he had lost and sheds sentimental value to the tree and thus his childhood.
  • The “branches” are “dead wood now”
  • The air had now “succumbs at last to the grey gull’s wheel’
  • “Fine-edged leaves made whistle – now stamp no silken tracery on the cracked clay floor.” – they tree cannot shed as the tree simply is no more.
  • “Maybe itll strike roots again” – he is hopeful
• By romanticizing that period of time it expresses the deep emotionally fuelled longing about the tree of his boyhood.
  • Oyster-studded roots of the mangrove yield no finer feast
  • cooked in a rusty can
  • silken tracery
  • Splendid rags
  • Jewelled fantasies
  • Soothe to a troubled world
• His childhood is manifested in the person he shared it with as well. Upon realising this he becomes desperate to become intimate again with his childhood associate upon loss of the physical symbol of his childhood, the tree. The lines highlight his longing to still keep reminders of childhood show the emotional importance of this period to him
  • I clasp your hand
  • Allow me to mend

How is pity evoked for the poet in this poem?

The poem is centred around the cutting down and destruction of the tree from the poets childhoood. But his childhood was “shared” with someone else as well, thus the poem symbolically shows that the bond to between the childhood friend has detoriated as well. This evokes pity for the nostalgic and  poet as he is losing key parts of his chilldhood, both in a physcial sense with the tree and in the abstract sense in memory of those happy times.

Song: Tears, Idle Tears: 

Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,

Tears from the depth of some divine despair

Rise in the heart, and gather in the eyes,

In looking on the happy autumn-fields,

And thinking of the days that are no more.

   Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail,

That brings our friends up from the underworld,

Sad as the last which reddens over one

That sinks with all we love below the verge;

So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more.

   Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns

The earliest pipe of half-awakened birds

To dying ears, when unto dying eyes

The casement slowly grows a glimmering square;

So sad, so strange, the days that are no more.

   Dear as remembered kisses after death,

And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feigned

On lips that are for others; deep as love,

Deep as first love, and wild with all regret;

O Death in Life, the days that are no more!

How does Tennyson powerfully convey a sense of grief in this poem?

Thesis:Tennyson mourn the time and experiences he will never get back which brings out the futility of life. This creates the tone and arouses feelings of sadness, dejection and grief.

• He doesnt understand the source of his existential saddness but paradoxially he compares it to several things to express the extent of his despondency thus effectively conveying a sense of grief.

Attack:

Q. How does Sassoon create a profound feeling of anger in this poem?

Topic sentences:

1. Sassoon creates a profound feeling of anger by erasing the individual entity of the soldiers, instead referring to them as simply in unit. This dehumanises and lessens their worth. Their deaths are commodities of war not human lives lost. 
2. The meaningless of the war and thus the loss of the lives is highlighted by the monosyllabic words, arousing anger for the suffering.
   1. Blank 
   2. Busy
3. Anger is evoked in readers by the poet portraying how the physical and emotional burden they shoulder on the battle field. 
4. The ecphonesis in the last line arouses sympathy as it encompasses all the suffering soldiers thoughts. 
   1. Oh Jesus make it stop

How does the poet convey the horror of warfare in the poem.

Topic sentences:

1. The poet uses depressing chromatic imagery to highlight the meaninglessness and dread the soldiers feel on the battlefield 
   1. At dawn …. Massed and dun – depressing Color evokes dread and mystery. Sunrise is connoted normally as hopeful but here the soldiers regret it as they are now forced to confront the enemies
   2. Wild purple – fear of unknown and the violence to occur.
2. Horror of war is emphasised by the usage of sibilance, for describing the burning, hopeless battle field
   1. Smouldering through spouts of drifting smoke that shroud – visual – auditory sound of burning embers – also metaphor – entire field is shrouded, destined to die. Horror of war is that you really never know if you will make it out alive.
3. The portrayal of the shaken, scared and disoriented soldiers highlight the horrifying and pitiful effect of warfare in war.
   1. Muttering faces
   2. Clumsily bowed
   3. Jostle
   4. Furtive eyes
   5. Flounders
4. Considering that this poem was written during the First World War, the horror of warfare is greatly accentuated due to the fact that in this time period war was often romantisiced. The poem challenged the common gung-ho of war by portraying the truth thus this conveys the real horrors faced by actual soldiers on field
5. By personifying the landscape and tank it symbolically represents the physical trauma on the soldiers which elicits horror.

For Heidi with Blue Hair:

When you dyed your hair blue

(or, at least ultramarine

for the clipped sides, with a crest

of jet-black spikes on top)

you were sent home from school

because, as the headmistress put it,

although dyed hair was not 

specifically forbidden, yours

was, apart from anything else,

not done in the school colours.

Tears in the kitchen, telephone calls

to school from your freedom-loving father:

“She’s not a punk in her behaviour;

it’s just a style.” (You wiped your eyes,

also not in a school colour.)

“She discussed it with me first – 

we checked the rules.” “And anyway, Dad,

it cost twenty-five dollars.

Tell them it won’t wash out – 

not even if I wanted to try.

It would have been unfair to mention

your mother’s death, but that

shimmered behind the arguments.

The school had nothing else against you;

the teachers twittered and gave in.

Next day your black friend had hers done

in grey, white and flaxen yellow –

the school colours precisely:

an act of solidarity, a witty

tease. The battle was already won.

How does Adcock’s writing create sympathy for Heidi in For Heidi With Blue Hair?