emily dickinson - dublin school of grinds

6th Year

English Higher Level

Michael Ruaidhri Deasy

Emily Dickinson

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Ref: 6/eng /h/mrd/Narrative Writing

©The Dublin School of Grinds 2 Michael Ruaidhri Deasy

The Comprehension section is worth 50 marks (12.5% of the exam) and will be the first section on Paper 1. The composition section is worth 100 marks (25% of the exam). This course focuses on Narrative writing as a whole. Contents: Pages Narrative Writing introduction and elements……………….………………………..….3-12 Narrative Writing in context………….………………………………………………………..3 Narrative writing and the exam…........………………………………………………………4 The Marking Scheme……………………………..……………………..…………………….5 Elements of Narrative..…………………………………………………………………..…6-11 Exemplar Material………………..……………………………………………………..…12-28


Narrative writing in Context:

The five major language types:

Argument

Persuasion

Aesthetic

Information

Narrative

“Short stories, Novels, drama texts, autobiographies, biographies, travel books, and films.” DES 4.4

Why does it matter?

Your exam paper and it’s marking scheme is created to reflect the guidelines that are set out by the Department.

The examiner needs to see that you can both, understand and compose a piece of narrative writing.

Here are 2 important quotes from the guidelines:

1. “Indicate aspects of the narrative which they found significant

and attempt to explain fully the meaning thus generated.”(DES English Syllabus 4.4.1.)

2. “Outline the structure of the narrative and how it achieves

coherence within its genre.”

So Quote 1 tells us they are looking to see that students understand what makes up these stories and how they are fitted together to make meaning.

Quote 2 tells us that they want you to understand what type of a story you are reading and be able to explain how it works.


Narrative Writing and the Structure of the Exam: When will they ask you to analyse and then to use narrative writing?

Paper 1: Language - Comprehension and Composition.

Comprehension (100marks):

Part A (50 marks). There will be a piece of narrative writing (fiction or non-fiction) that you will generally answer 3 questions on. Two x 15 marks and 1x20 marks = 50

The 20 mark Question will ask you to give your opinion on the quality of the narrative writing. Clearly a knowledge of what constitutes (makes up) a narrative is critical in being able to judge whether it is successfully achieved by the author.

Part B (50 marks). This section often gives an opportunity to write a narrative piece often non-fiction. Think diary entries, etc.

Composition (100 marks):

There are generally 2 short story titles but with very specific criteria in order to prevent pre-scripted material. Potentially nonfiction narrative title there as well.

Paper 2: Literature – Single Text, Comparative and Poetry.

Single text (60 marks) Narrative: understanding of the elements that we are expected to be able to analyse will allow you organise your notes and especially quotes needed. Identify quotes that are multipurpose. I.E. identify a quote that can be used for a large number of different purposes.

Comparative (70 marks): Comparing texts focusing on elements will allow you to make your own links between texts.

Poetry (20 unseen and 50 for a studied poet): This is the only section of the course where we are not expected to use narrative fiction. Consider closely how much time you spend in class and at home working on this part of course.

Why? Are we expected to just naturally know how stories work?


The Marking Scheme and Narrative Writing: Common questions:

How do we judge the worth of a piece of narrative writing?

How can we judge The creative process? Is it a subjective reaction?

I prefer to see it as the reintegration of existing forms. We then aren’t stating whether we like something or not. We are assessing how well the writer has made use of the various techniques at his/her disposal. These are the existing forms.

These are based on all of the stories that have gone before us. Stories follow rules there are structures that writers follow by coping from the writers that have gone before them.

When judging a students work your examiner will ask her self the following questions:

Purpose 30%– Has she succeeded in writing a good story?

Composition: Has the student demonstrated an awareness of, and an ability to

employ, the various techniques that are at the disposal of the story writer.

Comprehension: Can the student identify how the writer has used techniques and find

examples in the piece that prove the points made.

Coherence 30%– Can I understand it quickly?

Composition: Has the student made use of a structure that complements the piece of

writing. (Linear or Non Linear narrative structure) Is it readily comprehensible?

Comprehension: Is the answer organised into a comprehensible structure. What is the

quality of student’s paragraphing? Are points delineated and substantiated?

Language 30% – Is there evidence of students ability to use language appropriate (right) for the purpose?

Composition: Is there evidence that the student understands how to move between

different registers? Is the use of dialogue appropriate for characters? Are descriptive

passages well developed? What is the quality of the vocabulary? Is it forced?

Comprehension: Does student have technical vocabulary required to analyse

material?

Mechanics 10% - Spelling and grammar?


The 4 Elements of Narrative: So when working out whether a student has written an average, good or excellent short story a good examiner will ask herself has the student shown an understanding of what makes an excellent short story.

What do you need?

Characters+ Setting + Plot = Theme.

C.S.P.T = CSPE less half a stroke.

What do you understand by those 4 terms?

Character:_________________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________________

Setting:__________________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________________

Plot:_____________________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________________

Theme: _________________________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________________

(Remember: One never ever ‘uses’ a theme. Rather we explore, examine, illuminate, provide insight into... )

There are rules as to how to make each one of these. This is the science behind narrative.


Elements of Character:

You will have seen lists like the one below before. Just remember that writers understand how to show you their characters by giving you these bits of information in as natural a way as possible. The key is to show readers characters rather than telling readers what they are like. You can split character into personality and appearance but be aware that they are closely related.

1. Personality:

Favourite possession_______________________________________________________________________

School/Profession_________________________________________________________________

Friends__________________________________________________________________________

Family___________________________________________________________________________

Accent___________________________________________________________________________

Outlook on life _________________________________________________________________________________

Clothing__________________________________________________________________________

2. Appearance:

Height/Weight_____________________________________________________________________

Hair/Eye Colour____________________________________________________________________________

Defining physical characteristic

_____________________ ____________________________________________________________

Voice_____________________________________________________________________________


Setting:

This is created using the three key descriptive writing techniques. (ACS)

Adjectives and adverbs

E.g.______________________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________________

Comparisons

E.g.______________________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________________

Sensuous imagery

E.g_______________________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________________


Plot: (TSC)

Exposition_________________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________________

Complication______________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________________

Tension___________________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________________

Suspense__________________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________________

Conflict___________________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________________

Climax____________________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________________

Resolution________________________________________________________________________


The Language of Narration:

Narrative voice

A narrator is a storyteller

1st person (I walked into the bank…) - Effect is to bring the reader closer to the

events as we see the perspective of one character. Perspective especially by a

flawed narrator can help build character more subtly.

3rd person (He walked into the bank…) – Allows multiple perspectives as third

person is omniscient (All – knowing). This can help sustain interest by moving

between different strands of narrative. Reader’s interest is sustained by curiosity

in how these strands will be brought together.

Plot structure

Plot can be either:

linear- A,B,C… Conventional structure. Reader is interested in seeing how events

play out. This is especially useful for thriller genre.

Or

Non-Linear – C,A,B,C… Reader knows where story is going (or thinks so) and is

interested to see how events led to the end point. Author may continue narrative

beyond starting end point. (Nice Oxymoron!) Most commonly this is used for

psychological drama. Here we are interested in how characters develop and

consequently how they get themselves into various situations.

Types of narrative texts

1. Novel

2. Play

3. Short story

4. Film

5. Biography/autobiography

6. Travel writing

7. Memoir

8. Some forms of poetry


Atmosphere

Aesthetic writing is writing aimed at creating an emotional response. This is mostly commonly

used in narrative writing to create atmosphere. To comment on atmosphere in another writers

work do the following. Decide what emotion the author intended you to feel based on:

vocabulary (especially patterned/repeated words), sensuous imagery, and comparisons

employed. If the author succeeded in provoking the desired emotional response then the

atmosphere was well created. If not then it is a legitimate source of criticism.


Examples of narrative Writing

Points to note:

• The description of the setting- use of adjectives and adverbs, sensual descriptions

• How story develops- writer outlines what he sees as he enters the shrine.

• Use of dialogue and characterisation of the woman

• What we learn of the central character

• How we get a sense of the place- it is a travel piece so needs to express that as well as

tell a story.

Also notice how it develops to a reflective paragraph at the end-

Colin Thubron: The Shadow of the Silk Route

In the dawn the land is empty. A causeway stretches across the lake on a bridge of silvery

granite, and beyond it, pale on its reflection, a temple shines. The light falls pure and still. The

noises of the town have faded away, and the silence intensifies the void—the artificial lake, the

temple, the bridge—like the shapes for a ceremony which has been forgotten.

As I climb the triple terrace to the shrine, a dark mountain bulks alongside, dense to the skyline

with ancient trees. My feet sound frail on the steps. The new stone and the old trees make a

soft confusion in the mind. Somewhere in the forest above me, among the thousand-year-old

cypresses, lies the tomb of the Yellow Emperor, the mythic ancestor of the Chinese people.

A few pilgrims are wandering in the temple courtyard, and vendors under yellow awnings are

offering yellow roses. It is quiet and thick with shadows. Giant cypresses have invaded the

compound and now stand, grey and aged, as if turning to stone. One, it is said, was planted by

the Yellow Emperor himself; another is the tree where the great emperor Wudi, founder of the

shrine two thousand years ago, hung up his armour before prayer.

The pilgrims are taking photographs of one another. They pose gravely, accruing prestige from

the magic of the place. Here their past becomes holy. The only sound is the rustling of the

bamboo and the murmuring of the visitors. They pay homage in this temple to their own


inheritance, their pride of place in the world. For the Yellow Emperor invented civilisation itself.

He brought China—and wisdom—into being.

The woman is gazing at a boulder indented by two huge footprints. Slight and girlish, she jumps

at the sight of a foreigner. Foreigners don't come here—she laughs through her fingers—she is

sorry. The footprints, she says, belong to the Yellow Emperor.

'Not really?'

'Yes. One of his concubines used them to make boots. He invented boots.'

We walk for a moment where memorial stones are carved with the tribute of early emperors,

and come at the court's end to the Hall of the Founder of Human Civilisation. Its altar is ablaze

with candles and incense, and heaped with plastic fruit. The woman's gaze, when I question

her, stays candid on mine. The Yellow Emperor invented writing, music and mathematics, she

says. He discovered silk. This was where history began. People had been coming here

generation after generation. 'And now you too. Are you from your government?' But her eyes

dip to my worn trousers and dusty trainers. 'A teacher?'

'Yes,' I lie. Already a new identity is unfurling: a teacher with a taste for history, and a family

back home. I want to go unquestioned.

So that's why you speak Mandarin, she says (although it is poor, almost toneless). 'And where

are you going?'

I think of saying Turkey, the Mediterranean, but it sounds preposterous. I hear myself answer:

'Along the Silk Road to the north-west, to Kashgar.' And this sounds strange enough. She

smiles nervously. She feels she has already reached out too far, and turns silent. But the

unvoiced question Why are you going? Gathers between her eyes in a faint, perplexed fleur-de-

lis. This Why?, in China, is rarely asked. It is too intrusive, too internal. We walk in silence.


Sometimes a journey arises out of hope and instinct, the heady conviction, as your finger

travels along the map: Yes, here and here . . . and here. These are the nerve-ends of the world

. . .

A hundred reasons clamour for your going. You go to touch on human identities, to people an

empty map. You have a notion that this is the world's heart. You go to encounter the protean

shapes of faith. You go because you are still young and crave excitement, the crunch of your

boots in the dust; you go because you are old and need to understand something before it's too

late. You go to see what will happen.

Reaction to Thubron’s piece:


Richard Ford: Canada

Points to note:

• The description of the setting- use of adjectives and adverbs, sensual descriptions.

Watch how comparison is made between movement in the setting and how events are to effect

central character.

• How does Ford maintain our interest in the Plot. Watch how non linear narrative is used.

• Limited use of dialogue and characterisation of the woman especiallynote the sescription

of her appearance and how it helps create opinion on her personality – V common thriller

technique where author wants quick characterisation.

• The use of 1st person narrator to capture the perspective of the central character

In the novel, Canada, Richard Ford tells how a bank robbery committed by Bev and Neeva

Parsons influenced the lives of their children, Dell and his twin sister, Berner, who were fifteen

years old at the time of the crime. In this edited extract Dell remembers his escape to Canada with

his mother’s friend, Mildred Remlinger.

First, I’ll tell about the robbery our parents committed. Then about the murders, which

happened later. The robbery is the more important part, since it served to set my and my

sister’s lives on the courses they eventually followed. Nothing would make complete sense

without that being told first.

Our parents were the least likely two people in the world to rob a bank. They weren’t strange people, not

obviously criminals. No one would’ve thought they were destined to end up the way they did. They were

just regular – although, of course, that kind of thinking became null and void the moment they did rob a

bank...

Mildred Remlinger drove up to our house in her battered old brown Ford, came straight up the walk, up

the steps and knocked on the front door, behind which I was waiting alone. She came right inside and

told me to pack my bag. She asked where my sister Berner was. I told her she’d left the day before.

Mildred said we didn’t have time to go and look for her. Juvenile officials representing the State of

Montana would be coming soon to take us into custody. It was a miracle, she said, they hadn’t come

already. Then with me in the car seat beside her, Mildred drove us out of Great Falls that late morning of

August 30, 1960, and straight north up the 87 highway.

Mildred didn’t much speak at first, as Great Falls settled into the landscape behind us. Up on the

benchland north and west of the Highwoods, it was nothing but hot yellow wheat and grasshoppers and

snakes crossing the highway and the high blue sky, and the Bear’s Paw

Mountains out ahead, blue and hazy but with bright snow on their peaks. Havre, Montana, was the town

farther north. Our father had delivered someone a new Dodge there earlier in the summer. He’d


described it as a “desolate place, down in a big hole. The back of beyond”. I couldn’t imagine why

Mildred would be driving us there. On the map Havre was nearly as far north as you could go in

Montana. Canada was just above it. But I felt I was doing what our mother had planned for me.

Mildred was a large square-hipped, authoritative woman, with short black curly hair, snapping small

dark eyes, red lipstick, a fleshy neck, and powder on her face that masked a bad complexion, though not

very well. She and her car both smelled like cigarettes and chewing gum, and her ashtray was full of

lipstick butts and matches and spearmint wrappers, though she hadn’t smoked while we were driving.

In Havre, we drove down the hill to the main street and found a sandwich shop. We sat at the

counter inside, and I ate cold meat loaf and a soft roll with butter and a pickle and lemonade,

and felt better. Mildred smoked while I ate and watched me and cleared her throat a lot and

talked. She said she was forty-three, though I’d thought she was sixty or more. She said I

should go to sleep in the back seat after lunch, and this was what let me know we weren’t just

going to Havre that day but were travelling farther on.

From Havre, we drove north, across a wooden railroad viaduct over the tracks and the muddy

river and along a narrow highway that angled up the rimrock grade high enough to let me look back to

the town, low and dismal and bleak in the baking sunlight. I was farther north than I’d ever been and felt

barren and isolated, becoming unreachable. Wherever Berner was, I thought, was better than this.

The land north of Havre was the same as we’d been driving through: dry, unchanging cropland – a sea

of golden wheat melting up into the hot unblemished blue sky crossed only by electrical wires. There

were very few houses or buildings. Low green hills lay far out ahead in the shimmering distance. It was

improbable we were going there, since I speculated those hills would be in Canada, which was all that

lay ahead of us.

At a certain point, Mildred took in a deep breath and let it out as if she’d decided something she’d been

keeping silent about. She was staring firmly ahead. “I’m taking you to Saskatchewan to live for a little

while with my brother, Arthur. It won’t have to be this way completely forever. But right now it does. I’m

sorry. It’s what your mother wants.”

“I don’t want to do that.” I said this with absolute certainty. Mildred’s brother. Canada. I felt sure I

didn’t have to do any of that. I had a say-so.

Mildred drove on for a time without speaking. Finally she said, “Well, if I have to take you back, they’ll

arrest me for kidnapping you and put me in jail. They’re looking for you to put you in an orphanage. You

better think on that. I’m trying to save you here.” The black road seemed to be my life shooting away

from me at a terrible speed, with no one to stop it.

QUESTION A

(i) From your reading of Text 1 what impression do you form of the landscape in which the extract

is set? In your answer you should refer to both the book cover and the written passage above.

(15)

(ii) The first two paragraphs above are the opening of Richard Ford’s novel, Canada.

In your view, is this an effective opening? Give reasons for your answer with reference to the

first two paragraphs of the text. (15)

(iii) Ford’s writing is characterised by its engaging narrative, lyrical beauty and concrete realism.

Based on your reading from paragraph three onwards of the above extract, to what extent do you think

this statement is accurate? Refer to features of Ford’s writing style evident in the extract in support of

your viewpoint. (20)


QUESTION B

Imagine that the story of the disappearance of Dell Parsons, outlined in Text 1 above, has captured the

public’s imagination. You are a reporter with a national radio station. Write the text of a news report, on

the Dell Parson’s story, to be delivered on the station’s main evening news bulletin. In your report you

should communicate the facts of the case as known (based on Text 1) and further speculate as to Dell’s

whereabouts and possible developments in the story. (50)


James Joyce: The Dead. Points to note:

• The description of the setting- use of aesthetic language captures the atmosphere in the

room. Watch how Joyce uses almost cinematic technique to pull the story away from the room

and to try and capture a much broader context for the story. This adds to the theme moving

from the local to the universal.

• How does Joyce maintain our interest in the plot. Watch how non linear narrative is

used. We get flash back in order to tell a long buried story.

• Extensive use of dialogue adds substantially to the characterisation of the woman.

Through dialogue we learn about her history – the history that her husband had not suspected

or considered before. Here dialogue is crucial to the development of the plot. Watch how tone

of voice is used to add emotion to the piece.

• The use of 3rd person narrator captures the perspective of the central character but also

allows Joyce to move away from the confines of the bedroom setting to create a universal

setting.

He stood, holding her head between his hands. Then, slipping one arm swiftly about her body and drawing her towards him, he said softly: "Gretta, dear, what are you thinking about?" She did not answer nor yield wholly to his arm. He said again, softly: "Tell me what it is, Gretta. I think I know what is the matter. Do I know?" She did not answer at once. Then she said in an outburst of tears: "O, I am thinking about that song, The Lass of Aughrim." She broke loose from him and ran to the bed and, throwing her arms across the bed-rail, hid her face. Gabriel stood stockstill for a moment in astonishment and then followed her. As he passed in the way of the cheval-glass he caught sight of himself in full length, his broad, well-filled shirt-front, the face whose expression always puzzled him when he saw it in a mirror, and his glimmering gilt-rimmed eyeglasses. He halted a few paces from her and said: "What about the song? Why does that make you cry?" She raised her head from her arms and dried her eyes with the back of her hand like a child. A kinder note than he had intended went into his voice. "Why, Gretta?" he asked. "I am thinking about a person long ago who used to sing that song." "And who was the person long ago?" asked Gabriel, smiling. "It was a person I used to know in Galway when I was living with my grandmother," she said. The smile passed away from Gabriel's face. A dull anger began to gather again at the back of his mind and the dull fires of his lust began to glow angrily in his veins. "Someone you were in love with?" he asked ironically. "It was a young boy I used to know," she answered, "named Michael Furey. He used to sing that song, The Lass of Aughrim. He was very delicate."


Gabriel was silent. He did not wish her to think that he was interested in this delicate boy. "I can see him so plainly," she said, after a moment. "Such eyes as he had: big, dark eyes! And such an expression in them—an expression!" "O, then, you are in love with him?" said Gabriel. "I used to go out walking with him," she said, "when I was in Galway." A thought flew across Gabriel's mind. "Perhaps that was why you wanted to go to Galway with that Ivor’s girl?" he said coldly. She looked at him and asked in surprise: "What for?" Her eyes made Gabriel feel awkward. He shrugged his shoulders and said: "How do I know? To see him, perhaps." She looked away from him along the shaft of light towards the window in silence. "He is dead," she said at length. "He died when he was only seventeen. Isn't it a terrible thing to die so young as that?" "What was he?" asked Gabriel, still ironically. "He was in the gasworks," she said. Gabriel felt humiliated by the failure of his irony and by the evocation of this figure from the dead, a boy in the gasworks. While he had been full of memories of their secret life together, full of tenderness and joy and desire, she had been comparing him in her mind with another. A shameful consciousness of his own person assailed him. He saw himself as a ludicrous figure, acting as a pennyboy for his aunts, a nervous, well-meaning sentimentalist, orating to vulgarians and idealising his own clownish lusts, the pitiable fatuous fellow he had caught a glimpse of in the mirror. Instinctively he turned his back more to the light lest she might see the shame that burned upon his forehead. He tried to keep up his tone of cold interrogation, but his voice when he spoke was humble and indifferent. "I suppose you were in love with this Michael Furey, Gretta," he said. "I was great with him at that time," she said. Her voice was veiled and sad. Gabriel, feeling now how vain it would be to try to lead her whither he had purposed, caressed one of her hands and said, also sadly: "And what did he die of so young, Gretta? Consumption, was it?" "I think he died for me," she answered. A vague terror seized Gabriel at this answer, as if, at that hour when he had hoped to triumph, some impalpable and vindictive being was coming against him, gathering forces against him in its vague world. But he shook himself free of it with an effort of reason and continued to caress her hand. He did not question her again, for he felt that she would tell him of herself. Her hand was warm and moist: it did not respond to his touch, but he continued to caress it just as he had caressed her first letter to him that spring morning. "It was in the winter," she said, "about the beginning of the winter when I was going to leave my grandmother's and come up here to the convent. And he was ill at the time in his lodgings in Galway and wouldn't be let out, and his people in Oughterard were written to. He was in decline, they said, or something like that. I never knew rightly."


She paused for a moment and sighed. "Poor fellow," she said. "He was very fond of me and he was such a gentle boy. We used to go out together, walking, you know, Gabriel, like the way they do in the country. He was going to study singing only for his health. He had a very good voice, poor Michael Furey." "Well; and then?" asked Gabriel. "And then when it came to the time for me to leave Galway and come up to the convent he was much worse and I wouldn't be let see him so I wrote him a letter saying I was going up to Dublin and would be back in the summer, and hoping he would be better then." She paused for a moment to get her voice under control, and then went on: "Then the night before I left, I was in my grandmother's house in Nuns' Island, packing up, and I heard gravel thrown up against the window. The window was so wet I couldn't see, so I ran downstairs as I was and slipped out the back into the garden and there was the poor fellow at the end of the garden, shivering." "And did you not tell him to go back?" asked Gabriel. "I implored of him to go home at once and told him he would get his death in the rain. But he said he did not want to live. I can see his eyes as well as well! He was standing at the end of the wall where there was a tree." "And did he go home?" asked Gabriel. "Yes, he went home. And when I was only a week in the convent he died and he was buried in Oughterard, where his people came from. O, the day I heard that, that he was dead!" She stopped, choking with sobs, and, overcome by emotion, flung herself face downward on the bed, sobbing in the quilt. Gabriel held her hand for a moment longer, irresolutely, and then, shy of intruding on her grief, let it fall gently and walked quietly to the window. She was fast asleep. Gabriel, leaning on his elbow, looked for a few moments unresentfully on her tangled hair and half-open mouth, listening to her deep-drawn breath. So she had had that romance in her life: a man had died for her sake. It hardly pained him now to think how poor a part he, her husband, had played in her life. He watched her while she slept, as though he and she had never lived together as man and wife. His curious eyes rested long upon her face and on her hair: and, as he thought of what she must have been then, in that time of her first girlish beauty, a strange, friendly pity for her entered his soul. He did not like to say even to himself that her face was no longer beautiful, but he knew that it was no longer the face for which Michael Furey had braved death. Perhaps she had not told him all the story. His eyes moved to the chair over which she had thrown some of her clothes. A petticoat string dangled to the floor. One boot stood upright, its limp upper fallen down: the fellow of it lay upon its side. He wondered at his riot of emotions of an hour before. From what had it proceeded? From his aunt's supper, from his own foolish speech, from the wine and dancing, the merry-making when saying good-night in the hall, the pleasure of the walk along the river in the snow. Poor Aunt Julia! She, too, would soon be a shade with the shade of Patrick Morkan and his horse. He had caught that haggard look upon her face for a moment when she was singing Arrayed for the Bridal. Soon, perhaps, he would be sitting in that same drawing-room, dressed in black, his silk hat on his knees. The blinds would be drawn down and Aunt Kate would be sitting beside him, crying and blowing her nose and telling him how Julia had died. He


would cast about in his mind for some words that might console her, and would find only lame and useless ones. Yes, yes: that would happen very soon. The air of the room chilled his shoulders. He stretched himself cautiously along under the sheets and lay down beside his wife. One by one, they were all becoming shades. Better pass boldly into that other world, in the full glory of some passion, than fade and wither dismally with age. He thought of how she who lay beside him had locked in her heart for so many years that image of her lover's eyes when he had told her that he did not wish to live. Generous tears filled Gabriel's eyes. He had never felt like that himself towards any woman, but he knew that such a feeling must be love. The tears gathered more thickly in his eyes and in the partial darkness he imagined he saw the form of a young man standing under a dripping tree. Other forms were near. His soul had approached that region where dwell the vast hosts of the dead. He was conscious of, but could not apprehend, their wayward and flickering existence. His own identity was fading out into a grey impalpable world: the solid world itself, which these dead had one time reared and lived in, was dissolving and dwindling. A few light taps upon the pane made him turn to the window. It had begun to snow again. He watched sleepily the flakes, silver and dark, falling obliquely against the lamplight. The time had come for him to set out on his journey westward. Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.


Margaret Forster: Hidden Lives – A Family Memoir.

Points to note:

• The description of the setting- use of adjectives and adverbs, sensual descriptions,

especially focus on use of tactile imagery to convey the physicality of Margaret Ann’s life as a

servant.

• How does Forster maintain our interest? Are the events themselves of interest? The

characters almost become a vehicle through which She describes the social history of the era.

• Dialogue is not used. It would have detracted from the authenticity of the piece. Some

dialogue is reported. It adds to the characterisation of both characters. Note the use of contrast

in describing both central characters. One refrains from banter ad one keeps his stall unusually

clean. The piece is largely a portrayal of a time and the characters that inhabit it. As such the

characters are very gradually made.

Margaret Forster writes about her grandmother, Margaret Ann Hind, a domestic servant in Carlisle, a

town in the north of England, in the 1890s. Her book is called Hidden Lives – A Family Memoir.

The life of Margaret Ann, my grandmother, was narrow. The physical hardship, the sheer energy and

strength needed to get through each day, was commonplace. She expected to be down on her knees

scrubbing, up to her elbows in boiling or freezing water, washing and rinsing dishes, rocking on her feet

with weariness after hours of running up and down stairs. When she reminisced in later life, it was

always without any trace of resentment. Her expectations were low. She was expected to carry on as she

was until she dropped. Or married.

Marriage was always an option. Marriage was possibly, but not definitely, or even probably, an escape

from servitude. If she married, she knew she’d still have to cook and clean and wash and mend, and

without the help of the kind of servant she was to the Stephensons unless she married a rich man. The

chances of this happening were nil. Who, in Carlisle, among the servant class, married rich men? Rich,

eligible men were few and far between, and girls like Annie Stephenson from good families ever on the

lookout for them. But there was rich and rich after all. Plenty of tradesmen around who did quite well for

themselves, who could afford to rent or even to buy decent houses and to lead comfortable enough lives.

The market was full of them. Plenty of money there, especially among the butchers, with Carlisle being

such a big meat-eating place. On Saturday afternoons Margaret Ann would go to the market to buy the

meat for Sunday. She went through the glass doors and down the little cobbled hill where the butchers’

stalls now were. Some butchers had more than one stall. They had three or four together, positive

empires. The meat hung from the ceiling on hooks, whole carcasses of pig and lamb and beef, and on the

tiled counters below lay the cut-up portions; the bright red stewing steak, the dark slabs of liver, the great

coils of pale, putty-coloured sausage, the crimson mounds of mince, the stiff rows of chops.

Thomas Hind was proprietor of stall number 4. This stall was clean. The carcasses didn’t drip blood, the

meat on the counter did not lie in puddles of it, the bin for fat wasn’t nauseatingly visible. The floor

always seemed freshly sawdusted, the aprons of the assistants were spotless. Even though his prices were

not the cheapest, there was always a queue at Thomas Hind’s. Margaret was a patient queuer. She never

attempted to push herself forward but waited her turn calmly. She engaged in none of the banter that

other customers seemed to


like. She stated her requirement and that was that beyond a please and thank you.

These were exactly the qualities which aroused Thomas Hind’s interest. He noticed her precisely because

of her curious quality of stillness. In 1893, when she first began buying meat from him, he was thirty-five

years old and unmarried.

His father had been a butcher and so had his grandfather, and as the only son he was

always expected to take over the family business. His father had died when Thomas was a child and his

mother, Jane, had become a butcher herself in order to keep the business going for Thomas to inherit. His

debt to her was strong and he acknowledged it by now supporting not just her but two of his three sisters

(the third had married). He was prosperous enough by then to marry. He was notoriously hard to satisfy

and was teased about his high standards by his sisters who despaired of him ever approving of any girl.

For four years he observed Margaret Ann quite contentedly, and then, when his mother died in 1897,

decided the time had come for him to court her very seriously. Nothing impetuous about Tom.

So it was a slow affair, this courtship, three years of best boned and rolled sirloin, shoulder of lamb, leg

of pork, three years of pounds of sausage, best back bacon, ham on the bone. A lot of meat, a lot of

pleasantries, a lot of cap-doffing on Tom’s part and head-inclining on Margaret Ann’s. One Saturday,

towards the end of the afternoon, when there were no assistants to hear and smirk, no customer other than

Margaret Ann to hear and speculate, he asked her if she would care to go with him and his sisters out to

Burgh marsh for a breath of sea air. He was very much afraid she would refuse, even be offended, but no,

she smiled and said she knew his sisters from church and would be glad to accompany them if she could

get time off.

QUESTION A

(i) Write a paragraph in which you comment on the appropriateness of the title of this text, “An Ordinary

Life”. (15)

(ii) What impressions of the characters of Thomas Hind and Margaret Ann do you get from this passage?

Give reasons for your answer. (15)

(iii) Did the description of the market bring it to life for you as a reader? Support your answer by

reference to the text. (20)

QUESTION B

“On Saturday afternoons Margaret Ann would go to the market to buy the meat for Sunday.”

Write three diary entries that Margaret Ann might have written over a series of Saturday evenings.

Your writing should relate to her experience as described in the passage.

(50)


Clare Kilroy: Tenderwire

L.C. 2008 Higher level Section 1 – Comprehending Text 2, Question A

FALSE IDENTITY?

This text is taken from Clare Kilroy’s novel, “Tenderwire”, narrated in the voice of Eva

Tyne, an Irish violinist living and working in New York. The story involves Alexander who

has offered Eva the opportunity to buy a rare violin, a Stradivarius, at a fraction of its market

value. However, this violin comes without documents of identity or rightful ownership.

Nobody believed the real story of how I found the Magdalena (all old violins have names and Magdalena is

this one’s name). Her origins are suspicious at best. I got her from a Russian. At least I thought he was

Russian. He was a giant of a man and blond as a child. His name, he told me, was Alexander. I encountered

him in a bar done up like a KGB office, or a New York bar owner’s impression of one: red lights, black

walls, yellow scythes. I couldn’t say at what point Alexander started telling me about violins, about a very

special one, about a Stradivarius.

That name was all it took and I was in the passenger seat of a battered car driving at speed over the East

River to Alexander’s apartment, a few blocks away. Here he produced the violin, holding it out like a

cushion on which a crown is placed. “It is the real thing, I promise you,” he said. By agreeing there and

then to pay him 600,000 dollars, I confirmed that this violin was no ordinary instrument. As a musician

you instinctively sense when something is special and I heard something special when I put bow to string

and began to play. I heard something that unveiled an Aladdin’s cave of possibilities.

This is not what Zach, manager of the orchestra I played in, thought, when I related the encounter to him:

“The more I hear, the worse it gets,” he said. “It’s either fake, or worse – it’s the real thing and the Russian

doesn’t have a rightful claim on it; it’ll be seized within days of your first performance. Have you

considered what that will do to your career? Being linked with a stolen violin? You might be arrested?

You’ll be deported from the States at least.” The absoluteness of his voice, the surety of his manner:

everything Zach said was right. Logical, reasonable and right! And yet I couldn’t allow myself to agree

with him.

When Zach left, I organised the money that I had managed to get together. Everything my father had left

me and more for a violin! The cash formed an unwieldy bulk. How was I to transport it to Tompkins

Square Park where I had arranged to meet Alexander? What was to stop him from grabbing it and making

off? I swept the money into one large pile and made a big pyramid of it, a drift of autumn leaves, then

shoved it into a plastic bag. Now it had no separate identity. It was just counters in a game. A game of

high risk!

Saturday night’s blizzard had deposited an icing of snow. New York has a way of seeming brand-new

sometimes. I put on my runners in case I had to run and stepped out onto the street. The faces around me

looked fresh in the bracing whiteness. I tried not to look in their eyes lest they detect the alarm in mine. It

was natural to feel jittery as the pressure of walking around with such a large

sum was breathtaking. I took out my inhaler and wheezed piteously. There was a faint warmth in

the January sun that shone on my face.

I wiped snow off a bench and sat on it. My hands in my lap were like two dead puppies. Between

them was the plastic bag. I was happy, that was the odd thing. It was like sitting in a darkened


cinema waiting for a horror movie to begin.


Then I saw Alexander as he trudged doggedly through the snow. Shafts of sunlight spilled through the

trees onto his ash-blond hair, causing it to flicker like fire. He cut through the centre of the park, sat down

beside me and let out a companionable sigh as he placed the violin case by my feet. “Open it,” he grinned,

as if it were a carefully chosen gift.`

I put the plastic bag carefully on the ground and wedged it securely between my ankles, then lfted the lid

of the case. It looked like the same violin. My hands unstrapped it, fine-tuned the strings and then

hesitantly sounded the high notes. How ethereal they were on the icy air!

It was the first time since childhood that I’d played outdoors and in the frozen world of Tompkins Square

Park, the sound was startlingly pure. I was almost laughing, almost crying in wonder at the loveliness of

the sound. I listened to the laughter of the children in the playground, the cooing of the woodpigeons, the

barking in the dog run

If I was about to make the biggest mistake of my life, then so be it. Questions A

and B carry 50 marks each.

QUESTION A

(i) “A game of high risk!” Give three pieces of evidence from the text which suggest that Eva

was “about to make the biggest mistake” of her life. (15)

(ii) What impression of the character Eva Tyne is created in this extract? Support your answer with

reference to the text. (15)

(iii) One reviewer of the novel Tenderwire described it as “a compelling and well-written

thriller”. From your reading of the extract, do you agree with this view? Refer to the text in

support of your answer.

QUESTION B

Write two diary entries: one written by Alexander, recalling his encounter with Eva in Tompkins Square

Park and the second by Zach, giving his thoughts on hearing that Eva has purchased the violin. (50)

Chief examiners report on L.C. 2008 Higher level Section 1 – Comprehending

Text 2, Question A

(iii) One reviewer of the novel Tenderwire described it as “a compelling and well-written thriller”.

From your reading of the extract, do you agree with this view? Refer to the text in support of your

answer. (20)


Yes, I agree with the view that the novel ‘Tenderwire’ is both a “compelling” and “well-written” novel.

The extract clearly shows the thrilling and suspenseful style of the novel which [was] created by a number

of different techniques used.


Firstly, the author employs the use of rhetorical questions throughout the passage. This

technique is used to focus the reader on the story and also to bring the reader into the mind

and thoughts of Eva Tyne. By using rhetorical devices the author is able to build anticipation

and suspense by explicitly creating an atmosphere of tension. Eva constantly reassesses her

actions and possible outcomes which gives the writing suspense. “How was I to transport it to

Tompkins Square Park where I had arranged to meet Alexander?” “You might be arrested?”

These questions contribute to the overall effect which makes it a compelling and well-written

extract.

The author also employs the use of dialogue as a dramatic device. The well-written dialogue

between Eva and both Zach and Alexander makes this extract compelling as it makes the

reader feel as though they are witnessing the action. “It’ll be seized within days of your

performance”. The dialogue also adds to the thriller genre as the words of Zach are conflicting

with the promises of Alexander. “It is the real thing, I promise you!” In my opinion this

enhances the quality of the extract and makes it more interesting.

The author uses similes and metaphors along with well-written descriptive narrative to make

the extract intriguing. The author describes the violin in a majestic way to emphasize its

importance “holding it out like a cushion on which a crown is placed”. This, in turn, presented

the thrilling “high risk” atmosphere of the story as Eva decides whether or not to purchase it.

In my opinion, the authors use of excellent similes such as “flicker like fire” and “like two dead

puppies” added greatly to the extract and made it compelling to read as it appealed to the

imagination and was very cinematic. It is this cinematic quality which makes the story come

alive and become so thrilling.

In my opinion these aspects contribute to what is, undoubtedly a thrilling and well-written novel.

Marks awarded ex 20:

19 Comment: 1. Very good focus on relevant features of the writer’s style 2. Structured response well supported by

textual reference

3. Expression slightly repetitive

Note how the examiner referred to the “repetitive nature of answer.”

I suggest that you can improve on this answer if you keep in mind the different elements of narrative writing. That will naturally improve the paragraphing of your answer. Your Coherence would then beat this answer. That is what your examiner wants to see especially in this section of the paper. You can easily do this now!

By having it clear what it is that constitutes a narrative you will get all of these marks.

emily dickinson - dublin school of grinds

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