M.A-M.A English 4th Sem Paper - 4.4 : Fiction - II(University of Pune, Pune-2013)

M.A. (Part - II) (Semester - IV)

ENGLISH

Paper - 4.4 : Fiction - II

(2008 Pattern) (Optional)

Time : 3 Hours]                                                                                               [Max. Marks : 80

Instructions to the candidates:

1) All questions are compulsory.

2) All questions carry equal marks.

Q1) Read the following passages and comment on them critically with the help of

the points given below:

a) “Kenchamma is our goddess. Great and bounteous is she. She

killed a demon ages, ages ago, a demon that had come to ask our young sons as food and our young women as wives. Kenchamma came from the heavens – it was the sage Tripura who had made penances to bring her down – and she waged such a battle and she fought so many a night that the blood soaked and soaked into the earth, and that was why the Kenchamma Hill is all red. If not, tell me, sister, why should it be red only from the Trippur stream onwards, for a foot down on the other side of the stream you have mud, black and brown, but never red. Tell me, how could this happen, if I were not for Kenchamma and her battle? Thank haven, not only did she slay the demon, but she even settled down among us, and this much I shall say, never has she failed us in our grief. If rains come not, you fall at her feet and say, “Kenchamma, goddess, you are not kind to us. Our fields are full of younglings and you have given us no water. Tell us, Kenchamma, why do you seek to

make our stomachs burn”?

i)        Tone

ii)       Deification of a human being

iii)      The rise of a folktale.

P.T.O.

b)  To achieve anything, to become anything, you’ve got to be hard

and ruthless. Yes, even if you want to be a saint, if you want to love the whole world, you’ve got to stop loving individual human beings first. And if they love you, and they bleed when you show them you don’t love them, not specially, well, so much the worse for them! There’s just no other way of being a saint. Or a painter. A writer.

Why am I thinking of these things now? Is it because I find myself

struggling for words? Strange – I’ve always found writing easy. Words came to me with a facility that pleased me; sometimes shamed me, too – it seemed too easy. But now, for some reason, I am reminded of the process of childbirth. The only memory of it that remains with me is that of fear – a fear that I was losing control over my own body. And so I resisted.

Am I resisting now? Perhaps. For I’m not writing of all those innocent

young girls I’ve written of till now; girls who ultimately mated themselves with the right men. Nor am I writing a story of a callous, insensitive, suffering wife. I’m writing of us. Of Mohan and me. And I know this – you can never be the heroine of your own story. Self-revelation is a cruel process. The real picture, the real ‘you’ never emerges. Looking for it is as bewildering as trying to know how you really look. Ten different mirrors show you ten different faces.

i)        Narrative

ii)       Style

iii)      Jaya’s attitude towards writing, love and relationship.

Q2) a)      Answer anyone of the following:

i)        Comment on the microcosmic presentation of India in Kanthapura.

ii)       Discuss Kanthapura as a portrait gallery.

OR

b)       Write short notes on any two of the following:

The ending of Kanthapura.

The Indianess in Kanthapura. Gandhian Freedom Struggle.

The Indianess in Kanthapura.

2

Q3) a)      Answer anyone of the following:

i)        Comment on the theme of Man Woman relationship in That Long

Silence.

ii)       Comment on narrative technique in That Long Silence.

OR

b)       Write short notes on any two of the following:

i)        Significance of the Title That Long Silence.

ii)       Mohan.

iii)      Jaya’s children.

iv)      Search for identity in That Long Silence.

Q4) a)      Answer anyone of the following:

i)        Explain the significance of the title-The Outsider. ii)    Discuss the theme of Alienation in The Outsider.

OR

b)       Write short notes on any two of the following:

i)        Images and symbols in The Outsider.

ii)       Salamano.

iii)      Meursault-Hero or Anti hero.

iv)      The funeral of Meursault’s mother.

Q5) a)      Answer any one of the following:

i)        Comment on the narrative strategy in A House for Mr. Biswas.

ii)       Attempt a character sketch of Mr. Mohun Biswas.

OR

b)       Write short notes on any two of the following:

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