Unseen prose - social and political protest writing

Question 1

Features of postmodern literature

Answer 1

Free verse
Metafiction
Intertextuality
Unreliable narration
Realism
Relativism
Fragmentation
Themes of capitalisation and globalisation
Subjectivity
Vernacular language

Question 2

AO5 - Fredric Jameson

Answer 2

Postmodernism is ‘the cultural logic of late capitalism’

Question 3

5 key contextual events of the 1970s

Answer 3

1 - The rise of Thatcherism during a time of socioeconomic unrest
2 - Industrial strikes were villainised by the media and politicians
2 - Subcultures such as Punk were established as a response to socioeconomic unrest
3 - Violence and political unrest continued throughout the 70s, particularly in Northern Ireland where unarmed protesters were killed by British troops in a civil rights march
4 - The beginning of the feminist movements
5 - Worldwide inflation

Question 4

5 key contextual events of the 1980s

Answer 4

1 - A time of political conservatism
2 - Thatcherism which resulted in increases in socioeconomic and health inequalities
3 - Ronald Reagan becomes president of the US and pushes Christian right-wing conservatism
4 - An era defined by conservative politics
5 - 1984 to 1985 was a period of bitter industrial dispute amongst miner strikes

Question 5

5 key contextual events of the 1990s

Answer 5

1 - Public outrage at the behaviour of politicians
2 - Thatcher resigns
3 - Second generation of the feminist movements; sexual liberalism, postponing marriage, pursuit of higher education
4 - An increased pride in the British culture with Cool Britannia as a leading motto
5 - An emerging drug pandemic which was strongly reflected in literature (‘Trainspotting’ by Irvine Welsh)

Question 6

5 key contextual events of the 2000s

Answer 6

1 - Financial crash in early 2008 which resulted in a rise in unemployment, debt and home repossession
2 - Social media and technology
3 - Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2014
4 - Increasingly liberal society causes political conflict
5 - Economic impact of Brexit

Question 7

5 key contextual events of the 1960s

Answer 7

1 - Emerging social movements regarding civil rights, gay rights and feminism
2 - The Swinging Sixties sought a liberal society, driven by the youth seeking new individualism
3 - The Cuban Missile Crisis (1962) highlighted Cold war tensions and politics
4 - The Vietnam War

Question 8

5 key contextual events of the 1950s

Answer 8

Elizabeth II queen of England in 1952
Television with adverts begins - first on ITV channel
Churchill resigns
Influenza pandemic reaches Britain in 1957
The beginning of the Korean war when North Korea invades South Korea

Question 9

5 key contextual events of the 1940s

Answer 9

Roosevelt dies 1945
WW2
The holocaust
Beginning of cold war tensions
Wartime production pulled the US out of the great depression
Women replaced men in workforce labour
Literature reminisced on the tumult of two world wars and ongoing global tensions

Question 10

AO4 - Elizabeth Laird

Answer 10

‘Oranges in No Man’s land’ (2006)
Family seeking refuge during war

Question 11

AO4 - George Orwell

Answer 11

‘1984’ (1949)

Question 12

AO4 - Margret Atwood

Answer 12

‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ (1985)

Question 12

AO4 - Tennessee Williams

Answer 12

‘The Glass Menargarie’ (1944)
‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ (1947)

Question 13

Key words/themes for unseen prose

Answer 13

Setting and location
Oppression
Corruption
Control
Government and state power
Rebellion
Invasion
Economy
Enfranchisement

Question 14

Key things to think about

Answer 14

The text as a whole - What changes from the beginning to the end?
Resolutions
‘Throughout the extract’
Focus on connotations and semantic fields
How are meanings shaped?

Question 15

Mark Earley -

Answer 15

Postmodernism ‘denies that truth exists independently of our perspective’
(Meanings are shaped by the narrator)

Question 16

AO4 - ‘White Teeth’

Answer 16

By Zadie Smith
Written 2000
Focuses on the lives of two wartime friends
The novel centres on Britain’s relationship with immigrants from the British Commonwealth
Familial disputes reckoning with societal forces

Question 17

Miguel Syjuco

Answer 17

Where Modernism was about objectivity, postmodernism was about subjectivity