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Question 4: Evaluating the Extract Practice Questions

Question 1

15 marks

This extract is from a novel published in 1847. Jane, a ten-year-old orphan, lives with her aunt, Mrs Reed, and her cousins at Gateshead Hall. Mrs Reed's late husband, Mr Reed, was Jane's uncle and took her in as a baby. Jane has fought back against her bullying cousin John, and as a punishment two servants have dragged her into the 'red-room', a grand spare bedroom, and left her there.

1They went, shutting the door, and locking it behind them.
A bed supported on massive pillars of mahogany, hung with curtains of deep
red damask, stood out like a tabernacle in the centre; the two large
windows, with their blinds always drawn down, were half shrouded in
5festoons and falls of similar drapery; the carpet was red; the table at
the foot of the bed was covered with a crimson cloth; the walls were a
soft fawn colour with a blush of pink in it; the wardrobe, the
toilet-table, the chairs were of darkly polished old mahogany.
This room was chill, because it seldom had a fire; it was silent, because
10remote from the nursery and kitchen; solemn, because it was known to be so
seldom entered.
Mr. Reed had been dead nine years: it was in this chamber he breathed his
last; here he lay in state; hence his coffin was borne by the undertaker’s
men; and, since that day, a sense of dreary consecration had guarded it
15from frequent intrusion.
I was not quite sure whether they had locked the door; and when I dared
move, I got up and went to see. Alas! yes: no jail was ever more secure.
Returning, I had to cross before the looking-glass; my fascinated glance
involuntarily explored the depth it revealed. All looked colder and darker
20in that visionary hollow than in reality: and the strange little figure
there gazing at me, with a white face and arms specking the gloom, and
glittering eyes of fear moving where all else was still, had the effect of
a real spirit: I thought it like one of the tiny phantoms, half fairy,
half imp, Bessie’s evening stories represented as coming out of lone,
25ferny dells in moors, and appearing before the eyes of belated travellers.
I returned to my stool.
Daylight began to forsake the red-room; it was past four o’clock, and the
beclouded afternoon was tending to drear twilight. I heard the rain still
beating continuously on the staircase window, and the wind howling in the
30grove behind the hall; I grew by degrees cold as a stone, and then my
courage sank.
A singular notion dawned upon me. I doubted not—never doubted—that if Mr.
Reed had been alive he would have treated me kindly; and now, as I sat
looking at the white bed and overshadowed walls—occasionally also turning
35a fascinated eye towards the dimly gleaming mirror—I began to recall what
I had heard of dead men, troubled in their graves by the violation of
their last wishes, revisiting the earth to punish the perjured and avenge
the oppressed; and I thought Mr. Reed’s spirit, harassed by the wrongs of
his sister’s child, might quit its abode—whether in the church vault or in
40the unknown world of the departed—and rise before me in this chamber. I
wiped my tears and hushed my sobs, fearful lest any sign of violent grief
might waken a preternatural voice to comfort me, or elicit from the gloom
some haloed face, bending over me with strange pity. Shaking my hair from
my eyes, I lifted my head and tried to look boldly round the dark room; at
45this moment a light gleamed on the wall. Was it, I asked myself, a ray
from the moon penetrating some aperture in the blind? No; moonlight was
still, and this stirred; while I gazed, it glided up to the ceiling and
quivered over my head. I can now conjecture readily that this streak of
light was, in all likelihood, a gleam from a lantern carried by some one
50across the lawn: but then, prepared as my mind was for horror, shaken as
my nerves were by agitation, I thought the swift darting beam was a herald
of some coming vision from another world. My heart beat thick, my head
grew hot; a sound filled my ears, which I deemed the rushing of wings;
something seemed near me; I was oppressed, suffocated: endurance broke
55down; I rushed to the door and shook the lock in desperate effort.

From "Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Brontë (1847).

Glossary

  • damask: a rich, heavy fabric with a pattern woven into it
  • tabernacle: a sacred tent or shrine used for worship
  • festoons and falls: curtains hanging in loops and folds
  • toilet-table: a dressing table
  • breathed his last: died
  • lay in state: had his body laid out for people to visit before the funeral
  • consecration: being made holy; here, a solemn respect for the dead man
  • looking-glass: a mirror
  • visionary: dreamlike, unreal
  • specking: making small pale spots in
  • dells: small, hidden valleys
  • belated: caught out late, after dark
  • forsake: abandon, leave
  • beclouded: cloudy, overcast
  • drear: dreary, gloomy
  • grove: a small wood
  • singular notion: strange idea
  • perjured: people who have broken a solemn promise
  • abode: home, dwelling place
  • preternatural: supernatural
  • elicit: draw out
  • haloed: surrounded by a ring of light, like a saint or angel
  • aperture: a small gap or opening
  • conjecture: guess
  • herald: a messenger announcing that something is coming
  • deemed: believed, judged

In this extract, there is an attempt to create a sense of fear.

Evaluate how successfully this is achieved.

Support your views with detailed reference to the text.

Question 2

15 marks

This extract is from the opening chapter of a novel published in 1861. The narrator, Pip, is looking back on his childhood. As a small boy, he is alone one evening in the country churchyard where his parents and his five baby brothers are buried, on the edge of the marshes near the sea.

1My first most vivid and broad impression of the identity of things seems
to me to have been gained on a memorable raw afternoon towards evening.
At such a time I found out for certain that this bleak place overgrown
with nettles was the churchyard; and that Philip Pirrip, late of this
5parish, and also Georgiana wife of the above, were dead and buried; and
that Alexander, Bartholomew, Abraham, Tobias, and Roger, infant children
of the aforesaid, were also dead and buried; and that the dark flat
wilderness beyond the churchyard, intersected with dikes and mounds and
gates, with scattered cattle feeding on it, was the marshes; and that the
10low leaden line beyond was the river; and that the distant savage lair
from which the wind was rushing was the sea; and that the small bundle of
shivers growing afraid of it all and beginning to cry, was Pip.
“Hold your noise!” cried a terrible voice, as a man started up from among
the graves at the side of the church porch. “Keep still, you little
15devil, or I’ll cut your throat!”
A fearful man, all in coarse grey, with a great iron on his leg. A man
with no hat, and with broken shoes, and with an old rag tied round his
head. A man who had been soaked in water, and smothered in mud, and lamed
by stones, and cut by flints, and stung by nettles, and torn by briars;
20who limped, and shivered, and glared, and growled; and whose teeth
chattered in his head as he seized me by the chin.
“Oh! Don’t cut my throat, sir,” I pleaded in terror. “Pray don’t do it,
sir.”
“Tell us your name!” said the man. “Quick!”
25“Pip, sir.”
The man, after looking at me for a moment, turned me upside down, and
emptied my pockets. There was nothing in them but a piece of bread. When
the church came to itself,—for he was so sudden and strong that he made
it go head over heels before me, and I saw the steeple under my
30feet,—when the church came to itself, I say, I was seated on a high
tombstone, trembling while he ate the bread ravenously.
“You young dog,” said the man, licking his lips, “what fat cheeks you ha’
got.”
“Darn me if I couldn’t eat ’em,” said the man, with a threatening shake
35of his head, “and if I han’t half a mind to’t!”
After darkly looking at his leg and me several times, he came closer to
my tombstone, took me by both arms, and tilted me back as far as he could
hold me; so that his eyes looked most powerfully down into mine, and mine
looked most helplessly up into his.
40“Now lookee here,” he said, “the question being whether you’re to be let
to live. You know what a file is?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And you know what wittles is?”
“Yes, sir.”
45After each question he tilted me over a little more, so as to give me a
greater sense of helplessness and danger.
“You get me a file.” He tilted me again. “And you get me wittles.” He
tilted me again. “You bring ’em both to me.” He tilted me again. “Or I’ll
have your heart and liver out.” He tilted me again.
50I was dreadfully frightened, and so giddy that I clung to him with both
hands, and said, “If you would kindly please to let me keep upright, sir,
perhaps I shouldn’t be sick, and perhaps I could attend more.”
He gave me a most tremendous dip and roll, so that the church jumped over
its own weathercock.

From "Great Expectations" by Charles Dickens (1861).

Glossary

  • identity of things: what things really were
  • late of this parish: who used to live in this parish (and has since died)
  • the aforesaid: the people just mentioned
  • intersected with dikes: crossed by ditches and banks built to drain the land
  • leaden: dull grey, the colour of lead
  • lair: a wild animal's den
  • Hold your noise: be quiet
  • coarse grey: rough grey cloth
  • a great iron: a heavy metal ring and chain locked round the leg, as worn by prisoners
  • flints: sharp stones
  • briars: thorny, prickly bushes
  • steeple: the tall, pointed tower of a church
  • ravenously: extremely hungrily
  • ha’: have
  • Darn me: a mild swear word
  • han’t half a mind to’t: haven't half a mind to it: I'm tempted to do it
  • lookee here: look here; listen
  • file: a metal tool with a rough edge, used to cut through or smooth metal
  • wittles: victuals: food
  • attend: pay attention
  • weathercock: a weathervane shaped like a cockerel, on top of the church steeple

In this extract, there is an attempt to create a frightening encounter.

Evaluate how successfully this is achieved.

Support your views with detailed reference to the text.

Question 3

15 marks

This extract is from a short story published in 1866. The narrator, out walking, has stopped at the top of a deep railway cutting and calls down to the signalman who works at the bottom, beside the entrance to a tunnel.

1“Halloa! Below there!”
When he heard a voice thus calling to him, he was standing at the door of
his box, with a flag in his hand, furled round its short pole. One would
have thought, considering the nature of the ground, that he could not
5have doubted from what quarter the voice came; but instead of looking up
to where I stood on the top of the steep cutting nearly over his head, he
turned himself about, and looked down the Line. There was something
remarkable in his manner of doing so, though I could not have said for my
life what. But I know it was remarkable enough to attract my notice, even
10though his figure was foreshortened and shadowed, down in the deep
trench, and mine was high above him, so steeped in the glow of an angry
sunset, that I had shaded my eyes with my hand before I saw him at all.
“Is there any path by which I can come down and speak to you?”
He looked up at me without replying, and I looked down at him without
15pressing him too soon with a repetition of my idle question. Just then
there came a vague vibration in the earth and air, quickly changing into
a violent pulsation, and an oncoming rush that caused me to start back,
as though it had force to draw me down.
I repeated my inquiry. After a pause, during which he seemed to regard me
20with fixed attention, he motioned with his rolled-up flag towards a point
on my level, some two or three hundred yards distant.
The cutting was extremely deep, and unusually precipitate. For these
reasons, I found the way long enough to give me time to recall a singular
air of reluctance or compulsion with which he had pointed out the path.
25When I came down low enough upon the zigzag descent to see him again, I
saw that he was standing between the rails on the way by which the train
had lately passed, in an attitude as if he were waiting for me to appear.
I resumed my downward way, and stepping out upon the level of the
railroad, and drawing nearer to him, saw that he was a dark, sallow man,
30with a dark beard and rather heavy eyebrows. His post was in as solitary
and dismal a place as ever I saw. On either side, a dripping-wet wall of
jagged stone, excluding all view but a strip of sky; the perspective one
way only a crooked prolongation of this great dungeon; the shorter
perspective in the other direction terminating in a gloomy red light, and
35the gloomier entrance to a black tunnel, in whose massive architecture
there was a barbarous, depressing, and forbidding air. So little sunlight
ever found its way to this spot, that it had an earthy, deadly smell; and
so much cold wind rushed through it, that it struck chill to me, as if I
had left the natural world.
40Before he stirred, I was near enough to him to have touched him. Not even
then removing his eyes from mine, he stepped back one step, and lifted
his hand.
He directed a most curious look towards the red light near the tunnel’s
mouth, and looked all about it, as if something were missing from it, and
45then looked at me.
That light was part of his charge? Was it not?
He answered in a low voice,—“Don’t you know it is?”
The monstrous thought came into my mind, as I perused the fixed eyes and
the saturnine face, that this was a spirit, not a man.
50“You look at me,” I said, forcing a smile, “as if you had a dread of me.”
“I was doubtful,” he returned, “whether I had seen you before.”
“Where?”
He pointed to the red light he had looked at.
“There?” I said.
55Intently watchful of me, he replied (but without sound), “Yes.”

From "The Signal-Man" by Charles Dickens (1866).

Glossary

  • box: the small hut beside the railway where the signalman works
  • furled: rolled up
  • from what quarter: from which direction
  • cutting: a deep, narrow channel dug through high ground so that a railway can pass through it
  • the Line: the railway line
  • foreshortened: looking shorter than it really is, because it is seen from above
  • idle: casual, unimportant
  • precipitate: very steep
  • singular: strange, unusual
  • compulsion: being forced to do something
  • sallow: with unhealthy, yellowish skin
  • perspective: view
  • prolongation: extension
  • barbarous: savage, brutal
  • charge: responsibility
  • perused: studied closely
  • saturnine: gloomy and serious-looking

In this extract, there is an attempt to create a mysterious and unsettling atmosphere.

Evaluate how successfully this is achieved.

Support your views with detailed reference to the text.

Question 4

15 marks

This extract is from a detective story published in 1892. A young woman, Helen Stoner, has come to London to ask the detective Sherlock Holmes for help. She lives with her stepfather, Dr. Roylott, in an old manor house in the country. Here she tells Holmes about the night, two years earlier, when her twin sister, Julia, died.

1“Pray be precise as to details,” said he.
“It is easy for me to be so, for every event of that dreadful time is
seared into my memory. The manor-house is, as I have already said,
very old, and only one wing is now inhabited. The bedrooms in this
5wing are on the ground floor, the sitting-rooms being in the central
block of the buildings. Of these bedrooms the first is Dr. Roylott’s,
the second my sister’s, and the third my own. That fatal night Dr.
Roylott had gone to his room early, though we knew that he had not
retired to rest, for my sister was troubled by the smell of the
10strong Indian cigars which it was his custom to smoke. She left her
room, therefore, and came into mine, where she sat for some time,
chatting about her approaching wedding. At eleven o’clock she rose to
leave me, but she paused at the door and looked back.
“‘Tell me, Helen,’ said she, ‘have you ever heard anyone whistle in
15the dead of the night?’
“‘Never,’ said I.
“‘I suppose that you could not possibly whistle, yourself, in your
sleep?’
“‘Certainly not. But why?’
20“‘Because during the last few nights I have always, about three in
the morning, heard a low, clear whistle. I am a light sleeper, and it
has awakened me. I cannot tell where it came from—perhaps from the
next room, perhaps from the lawn. I thought that I would just ask you
whether you had heard it.’
25“‘No, I have not. It must be those wretched gipsies in the
plantation.’
“‘Very likely. And yet if it were on the lawn, I wonder that you did
not hear it also.’
“‘Ah, but I sleep more heavily than you.’
30“‘Well, it is of no great consequence, at any rate.’ She smiled back
at me, closed my door, and a few moments later I heard her key turn
in the lock.
“I could not sleep that night. A vague feeling of impending
misfortune impressed me. It was a wild night. The wind was howling
35outside, and the rain was beating and splashing against the windows.
Suddenly, amid all the hubbub of the gale, there burst forth the wild
scream of a terrified woman. I knew that it was my sister’s voice. I
sprang from my bed, wrapped a shawl round me, and rushed into the
corridor. As I opened my door I seemed to hear a low whistle, such as
40my sister described, and a few moments later a clanging sound, as if
a mass of metal had fallen. As I ran down the passage, my sister’s
door was unlocked, and revolved slowly upon its hinges. I stared at
it horror-stricken, not knowing what was about to issue from it. By
the light of the corridor-lamp I saw my sister appear at the opening,
45her face blanched with terror, her hands groping for help, her whole
figure swaying to and fro like that of a drunkard. I ran to her and
threw my arms round her, but at that moment her knees seemed to give
way and she fell to the ground. She writhed as one who is in terrible
pain, and her limbs were dreadfully convulsed. At first I thought
50that she had not recognised me, but as I bent over her she suddenly
shrieked out in a voice which I shall never forget, ‘Oh, my God!
Helen! It was the band! The speckled band!’ There was something else
which she would fain have said, and she stabbed with her finger into
the air in the direction of the Doctor’s room, but a fresh convulsion
55seized her and choked her words.”

From "The Adventure of the Speckled Band" by Arthur Conan Doyle (1892).

Glossary

  • precise: exact
  • seared: burned
  • wing: one side section of a large house
  • retired to rest: gone to bed
  • it was his custom: it was his habit
  • gipsies: an old word, now considered offensive, for travelling Romany people
  • plantation: an area of planted trees
  • impending misfortune: something bad about to happen
  • impressed: affected, filled
  • hubbub: loud, confused noise
  • issue: come out
  • blanched: drained of colour, white
  • convulsed: shaking violently and uncontrollably
  • would fain have said: wanted to say

In this extract, there is an attempt to create tension.

Evaluate how successfully this is achieved.

Support your views with detailed reference to the text.

Question 5

15 marks

This extract is from a short story published in 1843. The narrator lives in the same house as an old man. He speaks directly to the reader, insisting that he is not mad, as he tells what happened over eight nights.

1True!—nervous—very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will
you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses—not
destroyed—not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. How,
then, am I mad? Hearken! and observe how healthily—how calmly I can tell
5you the whole story.
It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain; but once
conceived, it haunted me day and night. I loved the old man. He had never
wronged me. I think it was his eye! yes, it was this! He had the eye of a
vulture—a pale blue eye, with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my
10blood ran cold; and so by degrees—very gradually—I made up my mind to take
the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever.
You fancy me mad. You should have seen how wisely I proceeded—with what
caution—with what foresight—with what dissimulation I went to work! And
every night, about midnight, I turned the latch of his door and opened
15it—oh, so gently! And then, when I had made an opening sufficient for my
head, I put in a dark lantern, all closed, closed, that no light shone out,
and then I thrust in my head. Ha!—would a madman have been so wise as this?
And this I did for seven long nights—every night just at midnight—but I
found the eye always closed; and so it was impossible to do the work; for
20it was not the old man who vexed me, but his Evil Eye.
Upon the eighth night I was more than usually cautious in opening the door.
A watch’s minute hand moves more quickly than did mine. To think that there
I was, opening the door, little by little, and he not even to dream of my
secret deeds or thoughts. I fairly chuckled at the idea; and perhaps he
25heard me; for he moved on the bed suddenly, as if startled.
I had my head in, and was about to open the lantern, when my thumb slipped
upon the tin fastening, and the old man sprang up in bed, crying out—“Who’s
there?”
I kept quite still and said nothing.
30When I had waited a long time, very patiently, without hearing him lie
down, I resolved to open a little—a very, very little crevice in the
lantern. So I opened it—you cannot imagine how stealthily,
stealthily—until, at length a single dim ray, like the thread of the
spider, shot from out the crevice and fell full upon the vulture eye.
35It was open—wide, wide open—and I grew furious as I gazed upon it. I saw it
with perfect distinctness—all a dull blue, with a hideous veil over it that
chilled the very marrow in my bones; but I could see nothing else of the
old man’s face or person: for I had directed the ray as if by instinct,
precisely upon the damned spot.
40And have I not told you that what you mistake for madness is but
over-acuteness of the sense?—now, I say, there came to my ears a low, dull,
quick sound, such as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton. I knew that
sound well, too. It was the beating of the old man’s heart. It increased my
fury, as the beating of a drum stimulates the soldier into courage.
45But even yet I refrained and kept still. I scarcely breathed. I held the
lantern motionless. Meantime the hellish tattoo of the heart increased. It
grew quicker and quicker, and louder and louder every instant. The old
man’s terror must have been extreme! It grew louder, I say, louder every
moment!—do you mark me well? I have told you that I am nervous: so I am.
50And now at the dead hour of the night, amid the dreadful silence of that
old house, so strange a noise as this excited me to uncontrollable terror.
Yet, for some minutes longer I refrained and stood still. But the beating
grew louder, louder! I thought the heart must burst. And now a new anxiety
seized me—the sound would be heard by a neighbour! The old man’s hour had
55come! With a loud yell, I threw open the lantern and leaped into the room.
He shrieked once—once only.

From "The Tell-Tale Heart" by Edgar Allan Poe (1843).

Glossary

  • Hearken: listen
  • conceived: formed in the mind
  • vulture: a large bird that feeds on dead animals
  • dissimulation: hiding your real intentions
  • dark lantern: a lantern with a sliding cover that can hide its light
  • vexed: troubled, annoyed
  • tin fastening: the metal catch on the lantern's cover
  • crevice: a narrow gap
  • distinctness: clearness
  • marrow: the soft tissue inside bones
  • over-acuteness: being too sharp or sensitive
  • enveloped: wrapped
  • refrained: held back
  • tattoo: a steady drumbeat
  • mark: listen to, pay attention to

In this extract, there is an attempt to create tension.

Evaluate how successfully this is achieved.

Support your views with detailed reference to the text.

Question 6

15 marks

This extract is from a novel published in 1818. Victor Frankenstein, a young student at the university in Ingolstadt, Germany, has spent nearly two years secretly building a creature in his lodgings, which he hopes to bring to life through science. Elizabeth, who is mentioned later, is the young woman he loves, who is at home in Switzerland.

1It was on a dreary night of November, that I beheld the accomplishment of
my toils. With an anxiety that almost amounted to agony, I collected the
instruments of life around me, that I might infuse a spark of being into
the lifeless thing that lay at my feet. It was already one in the morning;
5the rain pattered dismally against the panes, and my candle was nearly
burnt out, when, by the glimmer of the half-extinguished light, I saw the
dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive
motion agitated its limbs.
How can I describe my emotions at this catastrophe, or how delineate the
10wretch whom with such infinite pains and care I had endeavoured to form?
His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful.
Beautiful!—Great God! His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles
and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his
teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more
15horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same colour
as the dun white sockets in which they were set, his shrivelled complexion,
and straight black lips.
The different accidents of life are not so changeable as the feelings of
human nature. I had worked hard for nearly two years, for the sole
20purpose of infusing life into an inanimate body. I had desired it with
an ardour that far exceeded moderation; but now that I had finished, the
beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled
my heart. Unable to endure the aspect of the being I had created, I
rushed out of the room, and continued a long time traversing my
25bed-chamber, unable to compose my mind to sleep. At length lassitude
succeeded to the tumult I had before endured; and I threw myself on the
bed in my clothes, endeavouring to seek a few moments of forgetfulness.
But it was in vain: I slept indeed, but I was disturbed by the wildest
dreams. I thought I saw Elizabeth, in the bloom of health, walking in
30the streets of Ingolstadt. Delighted and surprised, I embraced her; but
as I imprinted the first kiss on her lips, they became livid with the
hue of death; her features appeared to change, and I thought that I held
the corpse of my dead mother in my arms; a shroud enveloped her form,
and I saw the grave-worms crawling in the folds of the flannel.
35I started from my sleep with horror; a cold dew covered my forehead, my
teeth chattered, and every limb became convulsed; when, by the dim and
yellow light of the moon, as it forced its way through the window-shutters,
I beheld the wretch—the miserable monster whom I had created. He held up
the curtain of the bed; and his eyes, if eyes they may be called, were
40fixed on me. His jaws opened, and he muttered some inarticulate sounds,
while a grin wrinkled his cheeks. He might have spoken, but I did not hear;
one hand was stretched out, seemingly to detain me, but I escaped, and
rushed down stairs. I took refuge in the court-yard belonging to the house
which I inhabited; where I remained during the rest of the night, walking
45up and down in the greatest agitation, listening attentively, catching and
fearing each sound as if it were to announce the approach of the demoniacal
corpse to which I had so miserably given life.
Oh! no mortal could support the horror of that countenance. A mummy again
endued with animation could not be so hideous as that wretch.
50I passed the night wretchedly. Sometimes my pulse beat so quickly and
hardly, that I felt the palpitation of every artery; at others, I nearly
sank to the ground through languor and extreme weakness. Mingled with this
horror, I felt the bitterness of disappointment: dreams that had been my
food and pleasant rest for so long a space, were now become a hell to me;
55and the change was so rapid, the overthrow so complete!

From "Frankenstein" by Mary Shelley (1818).

Glossary

  • accomplishment: completion
  • toils: hard work
  • infuse: put into, fill with
  • convulsive: jerking, uncontrollable
  • agitated: shook, disturbed
  • catastrophe: disaster
  • delineate: describe in detail
  • wretch: a miserable or hateful creature
  • luxuriances: rich, attractive features
  • dun: dull greyish-brown
  • accidents of life: things that happen to us by chance
  • inanimate: lifeless
  • ardour: passion, eagerness
  • moderation: sensible limits
  • aspect: appearance, sight
  • traversing: pacing across
  • lassitude: tiredness
  • tumult: turmoil, confusion
  • in vain: useless
  • livid: bluish-grey, like a bruise
  • shroud: a cloth wrapped round a dead body for burial
  • flannel: soft woollen cloth
  • inarticulate: not forming clear words
  • detain: hold back, stop from leaving
  • demoniacal: devilish
  • countenance: face
  • endued with animation: given life
  • palpitation: rapid throbbing
  • languor: weakness, lack of energy

In this extract, there is an attempt to show Victor's changing emotions.

Evaluate how successfully this is achieved.

Support your views with detailed reference to the text.

Question 7

15 marks

This extract is from a novel published in 1897. Jonathan Harker, a young English solicitor, is travelling by night through the mountains of Transylvania to the castle of a client, the Count, who has promised to send a carriage to meet the public coach. Harker's fellow passengers, local peasants, have been nervous all through the journey.

1Then the mountains seemed to come nearer to us on each side and to frown
down upon us; we were entering on the Borgo Pass. There were dark,
rolling clouds overhead, and in the air the heavy, oppressive sense of
thunder. It seemed as though the mountain range had separated two
5atmospheres, and that now we had got into the thunderous one.
Then, amongst a chorus of screams from the peasants and a universal
crossing of themselves, a calèche, with four horses, drove up behind us,
overtook us, and drew up beside the coach. They were driven by a tall
man, with a long brown beard and a great black hat, which seemed to hide
10his face from us. I could only see the gleam of a pair of very bright
eyes, which seemed red in the lamplight, as he turned to us.
Then I descended from the side of the coach, as the calèche was close
alongside, the driver helping me with a hand which caught my arm in a
grip of steel; his strength must have been prodigious. Without a word he
15shook his reins, the horses turned, and we swept into the darkness of the
Pass. By-and-by, however, as I was curious to know how time was passing,
I struck a match, and by its flame looked at my watch; it was within a
few minutes of midnight. I waited with a sick feeling of suspense.
Then a dog began to howl somewhere in a farmhouse far down the road—a
20long, agonised wailing, as if from fear. The sound was taken up by
another dog, and then another and another, till, borne on the wind which
now sighed softly through the Pass, a wild howling began, which seemed to
come from all over the country, as far as the imagination could grasp it
through the gloom of the night. Then, far off in the distance, from the
25mountains on each side of us began a louder and a sharper howling—that of
wolves—which affected both the horses and myself in the same way—for I
was minded to jump from the calèche and run, whilst they reared again and
plunged madly, so that the driver had to use all his great strength to
keep them from bolting.
30At last there came a time when the driver went further afield than he had
yet gone, and during his absence, the horses began to tremble worse than
ever and to snort and scream with fright. I could not see any cause for
it, for the howling of the wolves had ceased altogether; but just then
the moon, sailing through the black clouds, appeared behind the jagged
35crest of a beetling, pine-clad rock, and by its light I saw around us a
ring of wolves, with white teeth and lolling red tongues, with long,
sinewy limbs and shaggy hair. They were a hundred times more terrible in
the grim silence which held them than even when they howled. For myself,
I felt a sort of paralysis of fear.
40All at once the wolves began to howl as though the moonlight had had some
peculiar effect on them. I called to the coachman to come, for it seemed
to me that our only chance was to try to break out through the ring and
to aid his approach. How he came there, I know not, but I heard his voice
raised in a tone of imperious command, and looking towards the sound, saw
45him stand in the roadway. As he swept his long arms, as though brushing
aside some impalpable obstacle, the wolves fell back and back further
still. Just then a heavy cloud passed across the face of the moon, so
that we were again in darkness.
When I could see again the driver was climbing into the calèche, and the
50wolves had disappeared. This was all so strange and uncanny that a
dreadful fear came upon me, and I was afraid to speak or move. Suddenly,
I became conscious of the fact that the driver was in the act of pulling
up the horses in the courtyard of a vast ruined castle, from whose tall
black windows came no ray of light, and whose broken battlements showed a
55jagged line against the moonlit sky.

From Dracula by Bram Stoker (1897).

Glossary

  • Borgo Pass: a pass (a route through the mountains) in Transylvania, now part of Romania
  • crossing of themselves: making the sign of the cross, a Christian gesture asking God for protection
  • calèche: a light horse-drawn carriage
  • prodigious: enormous, amazing
  • By-and-by: after a while
  • was minded to: was tempted to
  • bolting: running away out of control
  • afield: away from the carriage
  • beetling: overhanging, jutting out
  • sinewy: lean and muscular
  • coachman: the driver of the carriage
  • imperious: commanding, expecting to be obeyed
  • impalpable: that cannot be touched or felt
  • battlements: the wall with gaps along the top of a castle

In this extract, there is an attempt to create a sense of danger.

Evaluate how successfully this is achieved.

Support your views with detailed reference to the text.

Question 8

15 marks

This extract is from a short story published in 1896. The narrator, a confident young man who does not believe in ghosts, has chosen to spend the night alone in a room of an old castle that is said to be haunted. To keep the shadows away, he has lit seventeen candles and placed them all around the room.

1The room was now quite brightly illuminated. There was something very
cheering and reassuring in these little silent streaming flames, and to
notice their steady diminution of length offered me an occupation and
gave me a reassuring sense of the passage of time.
5Even with that, however, the brooding expectation of the vigil weighed
heavily enough upon me. I stood watching the minute hand of my watch
creep towards midnight.
Then something happened in the alcove. I did not see the candle go out,
I simply turned and saw that the darkness was there, as one might start
10and see the unexpected presence of a stranger. The black shadow had
sprung back to its place. “By Jove,” said I aloud, recovering from my
surprise, “that draft’s a strong one;” and taking the matchbox from the
table, I walked across the room in a leisurely manner to relight the
corner again. My first match would not strike, and as I succeeded with
15the second, something seemed to blink on the wall before me. I turned my
head involuntarily and saw that the two candles on the little table by
the fireplace were extinguished. I rose at once to my feet.
“Odd,” I said. “Did I do that myself in a flash of absent-mindedness?”
I walked back, relit one, and as I did so I saw the candle in the right
20sconce of one of the mirrors wink and go right out, and almost
immediately its companion followed it. The flames vanished as if the
wick had been suddenly nipped between a finger and thumb, leaving the
wick neither glowing nor smoking, but black. While I stood gaping the
candle at the foot of the bed went out, and the shadows seemed to take
25another step toward me.
“This won’t do!” said I, and first one and then another candle on the
mantelshelf followed.
“What’s up?” I cried, with a queer high note getting into my voice
somehow. At that the candle on the corner of the wardrobe went out, and
30the one I had relit in the alcove followed.
“Steady on!” I said, “those candles are wanted,” speaking with a
half-hysterical facetiousness, and scratching away at a match the while,
“for the mantel candlesticks.” My hands trembled so much that twice I
missed the rough paper of the matchbox. As the mantel emerged from
35darkness again, two candles in the remoter end of the room were
eclipsed. But with the same match I also relit the larger mirror
candles, and those on the floor near the doorway, so that for the moment
I seemed to gain on the extinctions. But then in a noiseless volley
there vanished four lights at once in different corners of the room, and
40I struck another match in quivering haste, and stood hesitating whither
to take it.
As I stood undecided, an invisible hand seemed to sweep out the two
candles on the table. With a cry of terror I dashed at the alcove, then
into the corner and then into the window, relighting three as two more
45vanished by the fireplace, and then, perceiving a better way, I dropped
matches on the iron-bound deedbox in the corner, and caught up the
bedroom candlestick. With this I avoided the delay of striking matches,
but for all that the steady process of extinction went on, and the
shadows I feared and fought against returned, and crept in upon me,
50first a step gained on this side of me, then on that. I was now almost
frantic with the horror of the coming darkness, and my self-possession
deserted me. I leaped panting from candle to candle in a vain struggle
against that remorseless advance.

From "The Red Room" by H. G. Wells (1896).

Glossary

  • illuminated: lit up
  • diminution: gradual shrinking
  • vigil: a night spent staying awake to keep watch
  • alcove: a recess, a part of a room set back from the main wall
  • By Jove: an old-fashioned exclamation of surprise
  • draft: draught, a current of air (this edition uses the American spelling)
  • sconce: a candle holder fixed to a wall or, here, to the frame of a mirror
  • mantelshelf / mantel: the shelf above a fireplace
  • queer: strange, odd
  • facetiousness: joking at a moment that is not funny
  • eclipsed: blotted out, put into darkness
  • extinctions: the putting out of lights
  • volley: a number of shots fired at the same moment
  • whither: where
  • deedbox: a strong box for keeping important papers
  • self-possession: calmness and self-control
  • remorseless: without pity; never stopping

In this extract, there is an attempt to create tension as the candles go out.

Evaluate how successfully this is achieved.

Support your views with detailed reference to the text.