EL 121N AOU ‘A Handful of Dates & Dead Men Path Stories Exam Questions The exam has TWO parts as in the following table Part A Close Reading: answer 1

EL 121N AOU ‘A Handful of Dates & Dead Men Path Stories Exam Questions The exam has TWO parts as in the following table

Part A

Close Reading: answer 1 question (mandatory)

10 marks

Part B

Choice of Questions: choose 1 out of 2 questions

10 marks

Total

20 marks

Allow time to read these instructions and the whole examination paper
Clearly write the number of the question which you decide to answer
Cross out any rough notes you make which you do not wish to be marked
Justify your answers and give evidence to prove your points
Make sure your answers are error-free, clear, and well-organized (part of each mark is for language and organization)
Allow some time at the end to revise your grammar, spelling and punctuation.

Good Luck

PLEASE ANSWER IN THE FILE BELOW.

answers are close reading just write the answer in 250 words in each question Faculty of Language Studies
Course Code: EL121N
Course Title: Literary Appreciation and Critique
Take Home Exam (KSA Main)
2019-2020/ Second
Tuesday 28-April-2020 12:00am
Tuesday 5-May-2020 12:00am
Number of Exam Pages: 3
(including this cover sheet(
Time Allowed:
One Week
Instructions:
Time Allowed: One week
The exam has TWO parts as in the following table
Part A
Part B
Total
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Close Reading: answer 1 question (mandatory)
Choice of Questions: choose 1 out of 2 questions
10 marks
10 marks
20 marks
Allow time to read these instructions and the whole examination paper
Clearly write the number of the question which you decide to answer
Cross out any rough notes you make which you do not wish to be marked
Justify your answers and give evidence to prove your points
Make sure your answers are error-free, clear, and well-organized (part of each mark is for language and organization)
Allow some time at the end to revise your grammar, spelling and punctuation.
Good Luck
EL121N
Page 1 of 3
Second 2019-2020
PART A: Close Reading (around 250 words)/ (10 marks)
‘Dead Men’s Path’ by Chinua Achebe: Read the passage below and answer the
following question:
Question 1: According to this passage, should we support Mr. Obi’s decision concerning
the path? Use this passage to justify your answer.
‘Dead Men’s Path’ by Chinua Achebe
Ndume School was backward in every sense of the word. Mr. Obi put his whole life
into the work, and his wife hers too. He had two aims. A high standard of teaching
was insisted upon, and the school compound was to be turned into a place of
beauty. Nancy’s dream-gardens came to life with the coming of the rains, and
blossomed….
One evening as Obi was admiring his work he was scandalized to see an old
woman from the village hobble right across the compound, through a marigold
flowerbed and the hedges. On going up there he found faint signs of an almost
disused path from the village across the school compound to the bush on the other
side.
“It amazes me,” said Obi to one of his teachers who had been three years in the
school, “that you people allowed the villagers to make use of this footpath. It is
simply incredible.” He shook his head.
“The path,” said the teacher apologetically, “appears to be very important to them.
Although it is hardly used, it connects the village shrine with their place of burial.”
“And what has that got to do with the school?” asked the headmaster.
“Well, I don’t know,” replied the other with a shrug of the shoulders.
“But I remember there was a big row some time ago when we attempted to close
it.”
“That was some time ago. But it will not be used now,” said Obi as he walked
away. “What will the Government Education Officer think of this when he comes
to inspect the school next week? The villagers might, for all I know, decide to use
the schoolroom for a pagan ritual during the inspection.”
Heavy sticks were planted closely across the path at the two places where it entered
and left the school premises. These were further strengthened with barbed wire.
EL121N
Page 2 of 3
Second 2019-2020
(Exam continues next page)
PART B: (around 250 words)/ (10 marks)
Answer only ONE of the two questions below.
Don’t forget to mention which question you are answering:
Question 2: ‘A Handful of Dates’ by Tayeb Salih (10 marks)
What are the young boy’s feelings towards his grandfather? Support your answer with
evidence from this short story.
OR
Question 3: ‘The Necklace’ (10 marks)
‘The Necklace’ by Guy de Maupassant
Were Mr. Loisel and Mrs. Loisel happy before the necklace was lost? Justify your
answer.
(End of Exam)
EL121N
Page 3 of 3
Second 2019-2020
A Handful of Dates…by Tayeb Saleh
This short story is by a famous Sudanese author, Tayeb Saleh. It is about a young
boy who idols his grandfather as a God. The boy thinks that his grandpa is ‘pure’,
and wants to grow up and be just like him. Their neighbor Masood has inherited a
large land from his father, and is forced to sell a part of it to the grandfather every
time he gets married. However, the grandfather wants the whole land. As a result,
the boy is depressed, feels disgust to his idol because of his greed and hostility
towards the neighbor.
The rising action in the story is when the boy notices that Masood is not eating
any of the dates from his own property during the harvesting time. While the
climax is when the boy realized how selfish his grandfather is, and his idolization
turns to hatred. The falling action is clear when the boy sees Masood in a state of
pain, and wants to reach out to touch him. Masood is frustrated after being
informed about the dept by the grandfather. The story concludes with the boy
puking out the dates in the river.
The main three characters are: the unnamed boy and the favorite grandson; the
grandfather is overwhelmed with jealousy towards Masood the neighbor; Masood
is the real owner of the land, and is forced to give it up to the grandfather.
The main conflict in the story is human vs. human as between the grandfather
and Masood. But also between the grandfather and the grandson. The main theme
here is money changes people, and power makes them go crazy losing their
humanity. This is clearly illustrated through the grandfather’s actions which makes
the boy in a total despair.
There are some literary devices in the story:
Simile as in “his beard…..as white as cotton wool”
Symbolism “I put my finger into my throat and spewed up the dates”
Flashback “I must have been very young at the time”
A Closed Path…..a poem by Tagore
Tagore was born in 1861 in Calcutta, India to affluent family. His
mother has died when he was a young boy. He began composing poetry
at eight. His first collection became at the age of 17 which was
published by one of his friends as a gift. He wrote in the common
dialects of the locals than the Indian traditional language.
In this poem, the narrator tells the reader about his life journey, its ups
and downs, its trials, and the triumphs and victories that he achieved.
However, towards the end of the journey, the narrator finds that the path
is completely closed. Yet, he thinks that God knows that there will be a
new journey to a new life after death.
He realizes that every man has a pre-determined path by a divine power
beyond his own understanding. So, even if at some point of life finds
that there is a powerful obstacle, he needs not to fear for God always
provide an alternative way out.
This poem is written in trochaic pentameter. It consists of two stanzas
and nine lines. The rhyme scheme is aaaxxxbbx. It is full of punctuation
marks, using lexical repetition to emphasize a significant image.
Tagore published this poem in 1912, exploring the emotions of the
narrator when approaching the end of his life. The essence of the text
addresses adversity, and how one can draw strength from faith, from
being rooted in something. The poem exposes the poet’s wisdom in the
later years of his life
Trifles…… by Susan Glaspell
Trifles is a one-act play by the American novelist, journalist and actress,
Susan Glaspell. In this play, John Wright has been strangled to death in
his farmhouse. The main suspect of the crime is his wife Minnie. The
country attorney, the Sheriff, and a neighboring farmer investigate the
house for clues. The real sleuths who crack the case are Mrs. Hale and
Mrs. Peter, the canary is in its broken cage with its neck wrung. The two
ladies put the mystery together. They both know the harsh attitude of
Mr. Wright and expected that he who snapped the canary’s neck, the
wife in return gives him a lesson in letting him taste what her bird got.
These two ladies hide the evidence from the male authorities who think
that all these are trifles. They hide it to avoid a conviction against Mrs.
Wright, and to set her free from prison.
The play is told and acted through a dialogue and does not have any
narrator. The setting is in the Wright’s farmhouse, mainly in the messy
kitchen which is a bad sign on how Mrs. Wright runs her house. This
piece of drama is a mystery because the husband is strangled in bed, and
the wife is sleeping soundly in the same bed and feels nothing.
The main themes are:
Justice: the two ladies hide the evidence after realizing how the husband
abuses his wife, believing that he deserves such a punishment.
Isolation: Minnie- the wife- lives in a remote farmhouse far away from
friends and family, and just under her controlling abusive husband.
Gender inequality: females suffer many inequalities in life such as
spousal abuse, marital expectation, patriarchal structure and isolation.
The play ends with many open questions about females and their roles,
and the oppressive conditions they live.
The Necklace…..by Maupassant
While it is okay to wish for more, sometimes it is important to stop and reflect on
what we currently have in our lives. Mathilde Loisel lives in an apartment in Paris.
She is unhappy and dissatisfied with her social status. She is invited to a ball
through her husband. She starts nagging regarding buying a new dress. After
purchasing the dress, she borrows a necklace from Mme Forestier to complete the
scene. She discovers that she loses it after coming back home, therefore, she
borrows a huge amount of money to compensate the lost necklace, and lives in
poverty to cover the debt. Ten years later, Mme Forestier confesses to her that the
necklace was fake.
There are two conflicts in the story, internal and external. As an internal conflict,
Mathilde Loisel vs. herself as she is after material things and luxury which gives
her emotional sufferings. The external conflict is Loisel vs. her husband’s
different values. Although she keeps on nagging , the husband is tolerant of her
behavior, and still wants to please her.
Character analysis
Mathilde’s character: charming and dynamic but class ambitious, complex,
daydreamed, selfish, envious of the rich, spoiled, proud, unhappy, unable to accept
her life conditions. She is married to a minor clerk. She never does her housework
and aims for more.
The husband’s character can be summarized as a clerk from the middle class,
kind, generous, loyal, hardworking, patient and loving. However, he is static.
Point of view: the story is told from the third person limited point of view,
focusing mostly on Mathilde’s thoughts and feelings. The story belongs to the
Realism genre in literature.
Symbolism: the necklace symbolizes wealth and high social status. The fake
necklace symbolizes the desire for what one cannot have, and that appearance can
be deceiving.
Main themes are
• People should be happy and contented with what they have.
• People may pay a terrible price for greed.
This story has a dramatic irony
• Mathilde borrows a diamond necklace to look like the rich, but the loss of
the necklace results in her being poorer than before.
• The husband and wife work harder for ten years for a fake necklace.
Dead Men’s Path…..by Chinua Achebe
Michael Obi became the headmaster of Ndume Central School. He was very happy
with his new job and wanted to change the school to a modern one with the help of
his wife Nancy. He has two aims for the new school: a high standard of teaching
and a beautiful schoolyard. Nancy planted flowers of many different colours that
blossomed when the rain set in. After seeing an old woman walk across the
planted area in the schoolyard, he walked up to the place and realized that there
was an old road used by the villagers. He sets up a big fence around the school to
stop them from using that path. Three days later the village’s priest contacted Obi
to remove the fence because they believe that the spirits of dead people depart by it
and babies who are born come through it. Obi informs the priest that his job as a
teacher is to destroy these old myths, and therefore he does not remove the fence.
The villagers become outraged and destroy the garden along with the fence. When
a Supervisor comes on an inspection, he is not impressed with the tribal war
between the school and the villagers. He believes that this is a direct result of an
enthusiastic new headmaster.
Regarding the style and technique, Achebe – Nigerian author- blends a folktale
with impartiality, and is achieved by allusion rather than explicit explanation. He
uses irony and paradox to portray the conflict between Christianity and Igbo
traditional culture and belief. Themes are condensed in this story such as change,
tradition, progress, arrogance, ignorance of other people’s customs and tribal
culture meets modern ideologies.
The story is told in the third person by unnamed narrator revealing how Mike
Obi-the headmaster- is driven by his need to make a change without minding the
local people’s tradition and beliefs. He looks like a colonizer who considers
himself to be better than others, and causes many problems by blocking off the
path.
Setting: the story takes place on Igbo village in Nigeria, January 1949, Ndume
Central School, which is not a progressive one. It belongs to social realism genre.
The title of the story foreshadows the series of events that are about to take place.
“Dead Men’s Path” does not only refer to the ancestral pathway in the schoolyard,
but also refers to Obi’s choice of action. By not compromising, this has made him
a dead man. Dead in this context is not death, but meansfailure and dead dreams.
The title also foreshadows the dark events and the unhappy ending of the story.

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