ENG3705 MAY/ JUNE 2024
ENG3705
EXAM ANSWERS
ENG3705 ANSWERS
MAY/JUNE
2024
Question 1: The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter
In the traditional “Beauty and the Beast” fairy tale, Beauty restores the Beast’s humanity
through her love for him. However, in “The Tiger’s Bride” by Angela Carter, the Tiger saves
the Bride by stripping away her humanity. Do you agree with this statement? Conduct a
close reading of the extract below to justify your answer in an essay of at least 1000
words.
He was pacing backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards, the tip of
his heavy tail twitching as he paced out the length and breadth of his
imprisonment between the gnawed and bloody bones.
He will gobble you up.
Nursery fears made flesh and sinew; earliest and most archaic of fears, fear
of devourment. The beast and his carnivorous bed of bone and I, white,
shaking, raw, approaching him as if offering, in myself, the key to a
peaceable kingdom in which his appetite need not be my extinction.
He went still as stone. He was far more frightened of me than I was of him.
1
, ENG3705 MAY/ JUNE 2024
I squatted on the wet straw and stretched out my hand. I was now within the
field of force of his golden eyes. He growled at the back of his throat,
lowered his head, sank on to his forepaws, snarled, showed me his red
gullet, his yellow teeth. I never moved. He snuffed the air, as if to smell my
fear; he could not.
Slowly, slowly he began to drag his heavy, gleaming weight across the floor
towards me.
A tremendous throbbing, as of the engine that makes the earth turn, filled the
little room; he had begun to purr.
The sweet thunder of this purr shook the old walls, made the shutters batter
the windows until they burst apart and let in the white light of the snowy
moon. Tiles came crashing down from the roof; I heard them fall into the
courtyard far below. The reverberations of his purring rocked the
foundations of the house, the walls began to dance. I thought: 'It will all fall,
everything will disintegrate.'
He dragged himself closer and closer to me, until I felt the harsh velvet of
his head against my hand, then a tongue, abrasive as sandpaper. 'He will
lick the skin off me!'
And each stroke of his tongue ripped off skin after successive skin, all the
skins of a life in the world, and left behind a nascent patina of shining hairs.
My earrings turned back to water and trickled down my shoulders; I
shrugged the drops off my beautiful fur.
(50 marks)
OR
ONLY TAKE THE POINTS YOU NEED
Question 2: The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot
Think about what you have learned in this course and select a poetic device that you are
familiar with. Write an essay of at least 1000 words in which you discuss how Eliot uses
this poetic device in any 10 consecutive lines from The Waste Land. (You can refer to
fewer or more lines but try to keep it brief and focused).
Remember that you need to formulate a thesis statement in relation to your argument
and include it in your introduction.
2
ENG3705
EXAM ANSWERS
ENG3705 ANSWERS
MAY/JUNE
2024
Question 1: The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter
In the traditional “Beauty and the Beast” fairy tale, Beauty restores the Beast’s humanity
through her love for him. However, in “The Tiger’s Bride” by Angela Carter, the Tiger saves
the Bride by stripping away her humanity. Do you agree with this statement? Conduct a
close reading of the extract below to justify your answer in an essay of at least 1000
words.
He was pacing backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards, the tip of
his heavy tail twitching as he paced out the length and breadth of his
imprisonment between the gnawed and bloody bones.
He will gobble you up.
Nursery fears made flesh and sinew; earliest and most archaic of fears, fear
of devourment. The beast and his carnivorous bed of bone and I, white,
shaking, raw, approaching him as if offering, in myself, the key to a
peaceable kingdom in which his appetite need not be my extinction.
He went still as stone. He was far more frightened of me than I was of him.
1
, ENG3705 MAY/ JUNE 2024
I squatted on the wet straw and stretched out my hand. I was now within the
field of force of his golden eyes. He growled at the back of his throat,
lowered his head, sank on to his forepaws, snarled, showed me his red
gullet, his yellow teeth. I never moved. He snuffed the air, as if to smell my
fear; he could not.
Slowly, slowly he began to drag his heavy, gleaming weight across the floor
towards me.
A tremendous throbbing, as of the engine that makes the earth turn, filled the
little room; he had begun to purr.
The sweet thunder of this purr shook the old walls, made the shutters batter
the windows until they burst apart and let in the white light of the snowy
moon. Tiles came crashing down from the roof; I heard them fall into the
courtyard far below. The reverberations of his purring rocked the
foundations of the house, the walls began to dance. I thought: 'It will all fall,
everything will disintegrate.'
He dragged himself closer and closer to me, until I felt the harsh velvet of
his head against my hand, then a tongue, abrasive as sandpaper. 'He will
lick the skin off me!'
And each stroke of his tongue ripped off skin after successive skin, all the
skins of a life in the world, and left behind a nascent patina of shining hairs.
My earrings turned back to water and trickled down my shoulders; I
shrugged the drops off my beautiful fur.
(50 marks)
OR
ONLY TAKE THE POINTS YOU NEED
Question 2: The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot
Think about what you have learned in this course and select a poetic device that you are
familiar with. Write an essay of at least 1000 words in which you discuss how Eliot uses
this poetic device in any 10 consecutive lines from The Waste Land. (You can refer to
fewer or more lines but try to keep it brief and focused).
Remember that you need to formulate a thesis statement in relation to your argument
and include it in your introduction.
2
