Paper 2

Question 1

A Streetcar Named Desire - Personal Context

Answer 1

Father was an alcoholic, abused his mother.
Sister (Rose) accusing father of attacking her sexually, became mentally unstable.

Question 2

Feminine Gospels - Context

Answer 2

Lesbian unmarried mother.
First female British Poet Laureate (not anon anymore).
Grew up 1960s, ‘sexual revolution’, hippy lifestyles, rebellious era.

Question 3

The Handmaid’s Tale - Context

Answer 3

Atwood lived in West Berlin, encircled by Berlin Wall.
Atwood growing up in WW1; “It can’t happen here [can’t] be depended upon”.
Gilead satires extreme American New Right (1980s) religious ideology.

Question 4

Kolin on Streetcar

Answer 4

“Mitch is both Blanche’s victim and oppressor”.

Question 5

Carol Ann Duffy on the concept of FG

Answer 5

“the gospels are a tall story (unbelievable elements) told as truth, so these poems are about trying to find the truth about particularly female issues, but doing it within tall stories.”
“poetry and prayer are very similar”.

Question 6

Atwood on THT as science fiction

Answer 6

“science fiction… from current trends and events to a near-future that’s half prediction, half satire”.

Question 7

Who made “The Death of the Author”

Answer 7

Roland Barthes

Question 8

The four waves of feminism

Answer 8

1) Freedom to suffrage (voting rights), work, have own money and property, read. Freedom from domestic abuse (alcohol).
2) Fight against objectification. Worth more than fertility.
3) Females unrestricted, free, outspoken. Often say that patriarchy hurts men, too.
4) 2010 onwards - empowerment over norms and marginalisation, and focus on intersectionality (inclusive).

Question 9

Streetcar - Setting

Answer 9

Became homosexual in New Orleans.
New Orleans = Free, self-success, American Dream, industrialised immigrated America.
South = Segregation, racism, old tradition.

Question 10

THT - Dystopian parallels

Answer 10

Orwell’s ‘1984’ - warning against totalitarian states. They try to control lives and thoughts: “Big Brother is watching you”.

Question 11

THT - Setting

Answer 11

Massachusetts - Witch hunt trials, women burned.
Her ancestor, Mary Webster (like Offred) survived the Puritan state (forms Atwood’s ‘Dedication’ part of book).

Question 12

THT - Canada/America link

Answer 12

Links to Canadian literature theme of survival, but sets in America where such thought is more common

Question 13

Tynan on Streetcar

Answer 13

(on 1951 film) Stanley played “with such poetic charm that you find yourself on his side”.

Question 14

Susan Koprince on Streetcar

Answer 14

“submissive, self-depreciating wife who tolerates and excuses her husband’s behaviour”.

Domestic violence ignored (as norm) until 1970s - post-modernism.

Question 15

Bloom on Streetcar

Answer 15

“[Stella] feels helpless to change the way he treats her”

Question 16

Helene Deutsch (Freudian) on domestic violence

Answer 16

(Freudian) victims of abuse are “masochists”.

Question 17

Burkes (aligned with Marxism)

Answer 17

“social Darwinist struggle for survival between two species of human beings”.

Question 18

Helene Cixous - FG and THT

Answer 18

Écriture féminine.
“women write in white ink”.
‘The Laugh of the Medusa’; “female writing” about sexuality should breaking down linear logic of male discourse.

–> Yin-Yang. Embrace Yin because society is our of balance, dominated by Yang.

Question 19

Freud on THT

Answer 19

“anatomy is destiny”, crossed over with ‘Pen is envy’.

Question 20

Foucault on THT

Answer 20

Modern society creates “docile bodies”, surveillance - ‘Gilead is within you’.

Question 21

Karl Marx on religion

Answer 21

Religion is the “opium of the people”; in THT religion is used as means of controlling the masses.

Question 22

Beran on THT

Answer 22

“Offred’s power is in language”.

Question 23

Atwood on feminism

Answer 23

Atwood hesitant to be termed ‘feminist’. Rather for “women are human beings”

Question 24

Laura Mulvey on FG and THT

Answer 24

“male gaze”
“bearer, not maker, of meaning”.

Question 25

Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird cross reference to FG

Answer 25

Societal pressures to conform to being “ladylike”, conflict when unable to.

Question 25

Duffy on The Virgin’s Memo

Answer 25

“TVM is a direct nod to the idea of the gospel. The poem consists of notes written to God: it’s the way that mothers always stand by their children regardless, and there’s your son inventing something as useless as the jellyfish.”

Question 26

Lenore Walker’s book on domestic violence

Answer 26

‘The Battered Woman’

Cycle of (i) tension building, (ii) acute incident, (iii) loving contrition.

Question 27

Macpherson on THT Offred

Answer 27

“She is not heroic. She is, instead, a passive everywoman, awaiting rescue”

Question 28

Keynote texts of 1960s (starting point for 2nd wave feminism)

Answer 28

The Feminine Mystique - Betty Friedan
women want “something more than my husband and my child and my home”. Reflected in The Laughter of SGH with heroic escapes.

The Second Sex - Simone de Beauvoir

Both look at history of women’s rights and identity.