1

QP Code: 22103177 Scheme of Valuation

Under Graduate (CBCS) Regular/ Improvement/ Reappearance Examinations, October 2022

Second Semester

Common Course I - EN2CCT03 - ENGLISH- ISSUES THAT MATTER

(For Regular Candidates: 2017 Admission Onwards;

For Private Candidates: 2021 Admission Only)

SECTION I

Part A

Answer any 10 questions

1. What was the calculation, according to Oe, that led to the decision of dropping an A-bomb?
The A- bomb planners must have trusted too much in the strength of the enemy to cope with the
hell which would be the aftermath of the dropping of the bomb.
2. In the story War, what is the ‘Country’ compared to?
Country is a natural necessity like bread of which each of us must eat in order not to die of hunger.
3. How do the young ones die according to the stoic traveler in the short story ‘War’?
The young ones die inflamed and happy.
4. What is censorship according to Rushdie?
Censorship is anti-creation, negative energy, uncreation and the bringing into being of non-being.
5. How did the authorities, in the story ‘The Censors’, reward him for his devotion to duty?
His devotion to duty forced him to condemn his own letter. The reward was his execution.
6. Why did the Chandrabhaga River dry up, according to Patil?
The Chandrabhaga River dried up as the Mahars and Mangs have profaned religion, abandoned
caste and have defied Lord Vithoba of Pandharpur.
7. Where is the author going in the story, ‘A Trip Westward’?
The author is going to visit her mother.
8. Why does the mother in the story, ‘A Trip Westward’, live in an uncemented house?
Her brother Dawee has lost his government job to a white man. They have no better means of
living.
9. What is the first and most immediate message given by fossil records?
Major catastrophic collapses of biological diversity can and do occur.
10. ‘It takes much time to kill a tree/Not a single jab of the knife/Will do it…’ Explain the lines.
It is not easy to kill a tree. A single cut with a knife will not kill it. New sprouts will appear and will
become branches soon. A tree can be killed only after the roots are pulled out and exposed to
sunlight for getting withered and dry.
11. What does the word ‘Rangzen’ mean in Tibetan tongue?
Freedom. (Give full credit to this answer)
12. Name the poet who wrote the poem ‘Refugee Blues’.
W. H. Auden (Give full credit to this answer)
 2

(10x2=20)

Part B
Answer any six questions

13. According to Oe, in what ways did human goodwill act?

The bombing survivors faced the dehumanizing cataclysm with courage and resolve. Even when
the smoke still rose from the wasteland, human goodwill began started action. The started their
first moves towards recovery and restoration. This is because the injured had a will to live.
Doctors, even with very limited resources started treatment.

14. Explain the different opinions shared by the passengers in the short story ‘War’?
The couple that sent their only son to the warfront considered themselves as the unluckiest ones.
There was a passenger who has sent his son several times to the battle field. Another one had five
relatives in the war. An old man was proud that his son had died in the war. He was of the opinion
that young ones should fight for their country.

15. Explain the different types of peril that Toni Morrison speaks about in the essay ‘Peril’?
She speaks about the peril faced by the authoritarian regimes, writers and the common man.
When writers disturb the regimes through their works, the regimes are at peril. As a response to
that the authoritarian regimes try various methods which become a peril to the writers. These
methods include surveillance, censorship, arrest, exile, banning of works and even execution. A
writer’s life and work are not the gifts of mankind but its necessity. So, we are also in peril.

16. How did Mhadeva react to Bapu Patil’s sarcastic comments?

Mhadeva was raging with fury. He interrupted Patil and asked him what he meant by the
accusation of forgetting religion and abandoning caste. He retaliated by telling Patil about the
uselessness of religion if it cannot tolerate one human being treating another as a human being. If
a mere touch pollutes the gods, they should not have created the lower castes. He asked if there
was a single god who the Mahars and Mangs can claim as their own.

17. Describe Sentila’s visit to the old pot maker’s shed.

Whenever Sentila was left at home by her mother, to look after her younger brother, she visited
the old pot maker’s shed. She would strap her 10 month old brother to her back with a cloth and
climb up the steep hill with great difficulty. She used to carry some cooked rice in a leaf packet.
When her brother was hungry, she would chew the rice to make it soft and then feed it to the
baby. After that she would sing a lullaby to put him to sleep. All the while she watched the women
making pots keenly.

18. What did Sentila experience while making pots after Arenla left her alone in the shed?
Arenla asked Sentila to make as many pots as she could when she left. Sentila was surprised at this.
She reluctantly started the work with mixed feelings. As she started working, Sentila felt as if
another pair of hands had taken over and directing her movements. She was in a trance. The clay
seemed to transform itself into another shape and in no time many pots were ready. She sat there
transfixed. The moment was epiphanic for her.
 3

19. Why should human beings be concerned about the preservation of diversity in the face of the
‘sixth extinction’?
History is an ample proof of an imminent sixth extinction. The previous five extinctions were the
result of natural causes. But the agent of the sixth extinction is man and his activities. Human
beings have a great responsibility towards all the other creatures. He is part of the earth's biota
and has a duty to protect it. Homo sapiens is on an equal footing with all the other creatures. We
have to understand earth’s biota as something holistic.

20. What according to Gieve Patel needs to be done to kill a tree permanently?
Killing a tree is not an easy task. To kill a tree permanently, one has to attack the root of the tree.
The source of its existence has to be destroyed by taking it out of its place of security and stability.
The root must be pulled out entirely. The root which is the source of strength of the tree should
be exposed to sunlight for drying and withering.

21. Why were the family members in the story ‘The Child Goes to the Camp’ waiting for the
narrator?
Having picked up the money, the narrator started running. He reached home after dark. A furious
Isam had convinced his family that it was he who had found the money and that the narrator had
snatched it from him. Isam had complained that the narrator had made him carry the heavy
basket. In such a ‘hostile’ time, no one bothered about the truth. Everyone had been waiting to
see the money. The whole family was against him.
6x5=30

Part C
Answer any two questions

22. Enumerate the gloomy imagery in the poem and the important figures of speech.
Judith Wright’s poem “The Old Prison” conveys the depressive atmosphere of a dilapidated prison
through gloomy imagery and fitting figures of speech. The poem begins with an image of a row of
unroofed cells, which suggests an empty space where many were tortured in the past. The wind,
compared to ‘an angry bee’ and has a ‘breath of ice,’ denoting both severe and painful
punishment and loneliness leading to death. Words like ‘shadow,’ ‘hollow,’ ‘bone,’ ‘bitter,’ and
‘empty’ create a feeling of desolation. The poet employs a number of similes and metaphors,
comparing the cells to a ‘cold nest’, the wind to an angry bee hunting for black honey in the pits of
the hollow sea and a bone washed ashore singing a bitter song like a skeleton in a dark closet.
Carefully chosen words like ‘mouth,’ ‘flute,’ ‘sings,’ ‘song,’ ‘cried’ suggestive of sound create the
impression of ghostly voices of the former prisoners howling with the wind.

23. Describe how Rushdie puts forward an effective proposition against censorship using
comparisons and literary references.
Rushdie compares writing under censorship to the air around us. Air is easily available and we take
it for granted. He asks us to imagine air as coming from taps in the sky. When these taps are
turned off, we would start gasping. He says that liberty is the air we breathe. Creative art requires
 4

freedom. If censorship interrupts art, it becomes ‘censored art’. Such works are given various
labels. Rushdie points to certain literary works with such labels. These works are
Lady Chatterley’s Lover, Tropic of Capricorn, Last Tango in Paris and A Clockwork Orange.

24. Describe how Hagar, the abandoned woman, rose up to be the protector and caretaker of
waters in the desert and of a whole tribe of people.
“Hagar: A Story of Woman and Water” is the second chapter of Sara Joseph’s novel Gift in Green.
A ritual story teller visiting the community in Aathi, narrates the story of Hagar and Ishmael and
their survival in the hostile desert where her husband Abraham had abandoned her. A mysterious
bird appeared and revealed them a water spring that became the elixir of life for her. Hagar and
her son wandered aimlessly until their food and water was completely consumed. Hagar and her
son struggled hard to survive in that hostile desert. The water was almost completely used up and
she squeezed out the last remaining drops and moistened the dry lips of the baby. She was
shuddered by the thought of imminent death that might happen to herself and her child. If she
died then her son would cry in terror and helplessly watch the vultures feasting on her dead body
and searching for her. This thought gave her strength to fight against all odds. She struggled
against hopelessness and the elements of nature that hit her mercilessly.

25. Critically analyse The Child Goes to the Camp as a story highlighting the constraints and
conditions of refugees.
The story is set in a refugee camp in Palestine. It is a time of hostility. Human values like honesty
and friendship have no relevance. Eighteen people belonging to two families huddle up in the
camp. No one has work. Hunger is their constant worry. The narrator and his cousin Isam have
to go every afternoon to the market to collect left over vegetables and fruits. That is what they
have to eat. One day the narrator finds a five-pound bill under a police man’s shoes. He grabs it
and runs to protect it. At night he reaches the camp. There all his family members blame him for
snatching the note from Isam. He had to protect it from all the members, even his bribing
mother and grandfather. After sometime, on their way to the market, a truck hits the narrator
and he was unconscious. When he regained consciousness, the note was gone. He knew Isam
had stolen it. But it was a time of hostility and hunger and Isam could not be blamed for stealing
it.

2x15=30