Unseen prose in a topic area

Section A — American Literature 1880–1940 Read the following extract, from 'The Grain Elevator' (written for this paper, set in Kansas, 1931). The dust came in at noon. Ruth saw it first as a brown line under the sky, like the edge of a blanket somebody was pulling over the whole county. By the time she had the washing in, the line had become a wall. Her father came up from the fields walking slow, the way he walked now, as if the land had got heavier. He did not look at the sky. He looked at the house, and at her, and at the boards he had nailed across the east windows the week before. 'Bank man came by,' he said. Ruth folded a shirt. The cotton was warm and smelled of the wind. 'What did he want?' 'Same as last time.' Her father sat on the step and took off his hat and turned it in his hands. 'Says the elevator's paying twenty-five cents. Says that's the market.' He laughed, a dry sound. 'Market. Like it's weather. Like nobody makes it.' The wall of dust reached the barn and swallowed it. Then the light went brown, and then it went out. Discuss ways in which the writer presents hardship and the failure of the American Dream in this extract. In your answer you should consider the writer's use of narrative techniques and make connections with ideas and contexts from your wider reading in this topic area.

Section A — The Gothic Read the following extract, from 'The Glass House' (written for this paper). The house had not expected visitors. That was the first thing Eleanor understood about it, standing in the hall with her suitcase while the rain went on outside like a conversation in another room. Every surface held a faint film, not dust exactly, but the grey bloom of things left too long behind glass. The housekeeper, Mrs Vane, did not offer to take her coat. 'The master's study is closed,' she said. 'And the conservatory. And the east stair.' She paused. 'You'll find the house prefers it that way.' That night Eleanor woke to the sound of tapping, small and patient, as if someone were testing the glass of the conservatory with a fingernail, pane by pane. She lay very still. The tapping moved along the wall towards her room. At the door it stopped. In the morning there were marks on the inside of the window: a row of small, clear ovals in the grey bloom, as if someone had pressed their fingertips there, and breathed, and waited. Discuss ways in which the writer creates a sense of unease in this extract. In your answer you should consider the writer's use of narrative techniques and make connections with ideas and contexts from your wider reading in this topic area.

Section A — Dystopia Read the following extract, from 'Allocation Day' (written for this paper). On Allocation Day the whole of Sector Nine wore grey. It was not a rule. It did not need to be. Mira stood in the queue between a boy she had known since nursery and a girl she had never seen before, though the girl's file number was only two digits from her own. Above them the screens showed the Index rising, green and steady, as it had risen every morning of Mira's life. 'Contribution builds community,' said the voice from the speakers, warmly. 'Community builds contribution.' At the desk a woman with tired eyes scanned Mira's wrist. The machine thought for a moment. Then it printed a slip of paper, which the woman folded once, neatly, before handing it over, as if the folding were a kindness. Mira did not open it. Around her, people were opening theirs and smiling, the smiles arriving a fraction of a second late, like the sound of thunder after lightning. Discuss ways in which the writer presents control and conformity in this extract. In your answer you should consider the writer's use of narrative techniques and make connections with ideas and contexts from your wider reading in this topic area.

Section A — Women in Literature Read the following extract, from 'The Assistant' (written for this paper, set in London, 1958). Mr Harding called her 'my girl' in front of clients, which Joan understood was meant as a compliment, in the way that a man might praise a reliable umbrella. She had been at Harding and Lowe for six years. She knew the files better than either partner. She knew which clients took sugar and which took offence, and which letters needed to go out on Friday so that the bad news would arrive on Monday when nobody could do anything about it. When young Mr Lowe joined from university he was given the office with the window. Joan was asked to show him where everything was. 'You've been very helpful,' he said at the end of the first week, and she saw that he meant it, and that he would forget it, and that both of these things were true at the same time. On the bus home she took off her gloves and looked at her hands, and thought, quite calmly, that she would like to set fire to something. Discuss ways in which the writer presents a woman's frustration in this extract. In your answer you should consider the writer's use of narrative techniques and make connections with ideas and contexts from your wider reading in this topic area.

Section A — The Immigrant Experience Read the following extract, from 'Arrivals' (written for this paper). At the airport my mother practised her English on the signs. 'Baggage reclaim,' she read, carefully, as if the words might break. 'Nothing to declare.' I was nine. I declared everything: the cold, the grey, the carpet in the hotel that smelled of other people's shoes. My mother told me to be quiet. She had a folder with our papers in it and she held it against her chest the way she used to hold my baby brother. In the first school they gave me a new name because the old one was 'a bit of a mouthful'. I took it home like a coat that didn't fit. My mother said it was a nice name. My father said nothing, but that night he wrote my real name in the condensation on the window, very large, and we watched it run. Twenty years later I still answer to both. Neither of them is a mouthful. Both of them are mine. Discuss ways in which the writer presents identity and belonging in this extract. In your answer you should consider the writer's use of narrative techniques and make connections with ideas and contexts from your wider reading in this topic area.