920/3 Novels STPM 2013

SECTION A : Critical Appreciation

(25 marks)

Answer only one question from this section.

 1     

JANE AUSTEN: Pride and Pejudice

    'My dear Mr. Bennet,' said his lady to him one day, 'have you heard that Netherfield Park is let at last?'

Mr. Bennet replied that he had not.

     'But it is,' returned she; 'for Mrs. Long has just been here, and she told me all about it.'

Mr. Bennet made no answer.

     'Do not you want to know who has taken it?' cried his wife impatiently.

     'You want to tell me, and I have no objection to hearing it.'

This was invitation enough.

     'Why, my dear, you must know, Mrs. Long says that Netherfield is taken by a young man of large fortune from the north of England; that he came down on Monday in a chaise and four to see the place, and was so much delighted with it that he agreed with Mr. Morris immediately; that he is to take possession before Michaelmas, and some of his servants are to be in the house by the end of next week.'

     'What is his name?'

     'Bingley.'

. . . . .

     'Mr Bennet, how can you abuse your own children in such way? You take delight in vexing me. You have no compassion on my poor nerves.'

     'You mistkae me, my dear. I have high respect for your nerves. They are my old friends. I have heard you mention them with consideration these twenty years at least.'

     'Ah! you do not know what I suffer.'

Discuss the use of dialogue in this excerpt.

Or

2   

AMY TAN: The Joy Luck Club

     As I remember it, the dark side of my mother sprang from the basement in our old house in Oakland. I was five and my mother tried to hide it from me She barricaded the door with a wooden chair, secured it with a chain and two types of key locks. And it became so mysterious that I spent all my energies unraveling this door, until the day I was finally able to pry it open with my small fingers, only to immediately fall headlong into the dark chasm. And it was only after I stopped screaming - I had seen the blood of my nose on my mother's shoulder - only then did my mother tell me about the bad man who lived there for thousands of years, she said, and was so evil and hungry that had my mother not rescued me so quickly, this bad man would have planted five babies in me and then eaten us all in a six-course meal, tossing our bones on the dirty floor.

. . . . . 

     I have a photo of my mother with this same scared look. My father said the picture was taken when Ma was first released from Angel Island Immigration Station. She stayed there for three weeks, until they could process her papers and determine whether she was a War Bride, a Displaced Person, a Student, or the wife of a Chinese-American citizen. My father said they didn't have rules for dealing with the Chinese wife of a Caucasian citizen. Somehow, in the end, they declared her a Displaced Person, lost in a sea of immigration categories.

Examine how the narrator perceives her identity in this extract.

Section B: JANE AUSTEN: Pride and Prejudice

(25 marks)

Answer the question below.

3 Examine Jane Austen's use of irony in Pride and Prejudice.

Section C: AMY TAN: The Joy Luck Club

(25 marks)

Answer the question below.

4 Examine the narrative structure used by Amy Tan in The Joy Luck Club. Why is it significant?

© Majlis Peperiksaan Malaysia 2013