920/2 Plays STPM 2013

SECTION A : Critical Appreciation

(25 marks)

Answer only one question from this section.

 1     

SHAKESPEARE: Twelfth Night

Maria	.. here comes my lady: make your excuse wisely, you were best. [Exit]
	Enter Lady OLIVIA [attended,] with MALVOLIO
Feste	Wit, and’t be thy will, put me into good fooling! Those wits that think they have thee do very oft prove fools, and I that am sure I lack thee may pass for a wise man. For what says Quinapalus? “Better a witty fool than a foolish wit’ – God bless thee, lady.
Olivia	Take the fool away.
Feste	Do you not hear, fellows? Take away the lady.
Olivia	Go to, y’are a dry fool: I’ll no more of you; besides, you grow dishonest.
Feste	Two faults, Madonna, that drink and good counsel will amend: for give the dry fool drink, then is the fool not dry; bid the dishonest, if he cannot, let the botcher mend him. Anything that’s mended is but patched: virtue that transgresses is but patched with sin, and sin that amends is but patched with virtue. If that this simple syllogism will serve, so; if it will not, what remedy? As there is no true cuckold but calamity, so beauty’s a flower. The lady bade take away the fool; therefore I say again, take her away.
Olivia	Sir, I bade them take away you.
Feste	Misprison is the highest degree! Lady, cucullus non facit monachum: that’s as much to say as I wear not motley in my brain. Good madonna, give me leave to prove you a fool.
Olivia	Can you do it?
Feste	Dexteriously, good madonna.
Olivia	Make your proof.
Feste	I must catechise you for it, madonna. Good my mouse of virtue, answer me.
Olivia	Well, sir, for want of other idleness, I’ll bide your proof.
Feste	Good madonna, why mourn’st thou?
Olivia	Good fool, for my brother’s death.
Feste	I think his soul is in hell, madonna.
Olivia	I know his soul is in heaven, fool.
Feste	The more fool, madonna, to mourn for your brother’s soul being in heaven. Take away the fool, gentlemen.
Olivia	What think of you this fool, Malvolio? Doth he not mend?
Malvolio	Yes, and shall do, till the pangs of death shake him; infirmity, that decays the wise, doth ever make the better fool.
Feste	God send you, sir, a speedy infirmity, for the better increasing your folly!...
	Twelfth Night Act 1 Scene V

Analyse how Feste, Lady Olivia's jester (or 'fool'), provides entertainment as well as criticism in this passage, and how Olivia and Malvolio respond to him. 

Or

2   

LORRAINE HANSBERRY: A Raisin in the Sun

RUTH (studying her mother-in-law furtively and concentrating on her ironing, anxious to encourage without seeming to): Well, Lord knows, we’ve put enough rent into this here rat trap to pay for four houses by now …

MAMA (looking up at the words “rat trap” and then looking around and leaning back and sighing – in a suddenly reflective mood - ): “Rat trap” – yes, that’s all it is. (Smiling) I remember just as well the day me and Big Walter moved in here. Hadn’t been married but two weeks and wasn’t planning on living here no more than a year. (She shakes her head at the dissolved dream) We was going to set away, little by little, don’t you know, and buya little place out in Morgan Park. We had even picked out the house (Chuckling a little Looks right dumpy today. But Lord, child, you should know all the dreams I had ‘bout buying that house and fixing it up and making me a little garden in the back – (She waits and stops smiling) And didn’t none of it happen.

(Dropping her hands in a futile gesture)

…

MAMA: I guess that’s how come that man finally worked himself to death likehe done. Like he was fighting his own war with this here world that took his baby from him. […] Crazy ‘bout his children! God knows there was plenty wrong with Walter Younger – hard-headed, mean, kind of wild with women – plenty wrong with him. But he sure loved his children. Always wanted them to have something – be something. That’s where Brother gets all these notions, I reckon. Big Walter used to say, he’d get right wet in the eyes sometimes, lean his head back with the water standing in his eyes and say, “Seem like God didn’t see fit to give the back man nothing but dreams- but He did give us children to make them dreams seems worth while.” (She smiles) He could talk like that, don’t you know.

How does this passage reflect the idea of a dream deferred?

Section B: SHAKESPEARE: Twelfth Night

(25 marks)

Answer the question below.

3 What effects does Viola have on Duke Orsino and Countess Olivia? Discuss with close reference to the play.

Section C: LORRAINE HANSBERRY: A Raisin in the Sun

(25 marks)

Answer the question below.

4 Discuss the different responses to money of the major characters in this play.

© Majlis Peperiksaan Malaysia 2012