2023 CCEA AS-Level English Literature 5110 Practice Paper with Answers

A strong response will compare both poems' treatment of power and control with equal, detailed attention, supported by biographical context.

'Hawk Roosting': Hughes constructs the entire poem as a first-person dramatic monologue spoken by a hawk, a formal choice that immediately grants the creature an unearned, unsettling human interiority and rhetorical confidence; the opening declaration 'I sit in the top of the wood, my eyes closed' establishes stillness and total, unthreatened control from the first line, while the assertion 'The convenience of the high trees! / The air's buoyancy and the sun's ray / Are of advantage to me' presents the entire natural world as existing purely to serve the hawk's dominance, a solipsistic logic reinforced by the blunt, declarative syntax throughout; the central lines 'I kill where I please because it is all mine. / There is no sophistry in my body' reject any need for justification or moral reasoning, presenting power as instinctive, total and beyond argument, and the poem's chilling final assertion, 'I am going to keep things like this', extends this absolute control into an unchanging, permanent future, denying any possibility of change or challenge.

'Lady Lazarus': Plath also uses a first-person dramatic monologue, but one that dramatises power seized and reclaimed rather than power inherently possessed — the speaker repeatedly frames her survival of near-death (associated with Plath's own biographical history of suicide attempts) as a deliberate, skilled performance: 'Dying / Is an art, like everything else. / I do it exceptionally well', the flat, almost boastful tone converting vulnerability into control through irony and dark wit; the poem's escalating, confrontational address to an unspecified 'you' (read variously as a doctor, a male establishment, or death itself) — 'Do not think I underestimate your great concern' — reverses a conventionally passive, victimised position into one of defiant, sarcastic command; the poem builds to an explicitly vengeful, mythic assertion of reclaimed power in its final lines, 'Out of the ash / I rise with my red hair / And I eat men like air', in which the phoenix-like imagery of resurrection is turned into a direct threat against those (implicitly men, or a patriarchal audience) who have previously controlled or diminished her.

Comparison: both poets construct power through absolute, confident first-person declaration and short, blunt, end-stopped statements that brook no argument (Hughes's 'It took the whole of Creation'; Plath's 'I do it exceptionally well'), and both end their poems on a note of totalising, unchallengeable control; however, Hughes's hawk possesses power as an unreflective, amoral natural given, entirely untroubled by self-doubt or history, whereas Plath's speaker constructs her power actively and self-consciously out of prior suffering and survival, so that her control is reclaimed and vengeful rather than simply innate, and carries an explicitly gendered, confrontational edge largely absent from Hughes's more abstract predator.

Context: Hughes's poem reflects his broader poetic interest, evident across much of his work, in the amoral, instinctive violence of the natural world as a corrective to sentimental or anthropocentric views of nature; Plath's poem, written in the final intense creative period before her death in 1963 and widely read alongside her documented history of suicide attempts and her complex, publicly scrutinised marriage to Hughes himself, is frequently interpreted biographically as transforming personal trauma and a sense of being controlled or exhibited by others into a ferocious, performative assertion of reclaimed power, giving 'Lady Lazarus' a confessional intensity that contrasts with the more detached, mythic register of 'Hawk Roosting'.

[50 marks, AO2 (driving), AO1, AO3 (biographical), AO4] Marked in levels via a five-band grid: Band 1 (1–10): basic, largely narrative response with minimal reference to poetic methods; Band 2 (11–20): emerging, some relevant comment but underdeveloped, limited comparison; Band 3a (21–25): reasonably sustained response with relevant reference to both poems though development uneven; Band 3b (26–30): clearer, more consistently developed comparison with sound understanding of methods; Band 4 (31–40): coherent, secure response with detailed analysis of poetic methods in both poems, effective comparison, relevant biographical context; Band 5 (41–50): assured, perceptive response with sophisticated, sustained comparison, precise analysis of language/form/structure in both poems, well-integrated biographical context. Lack of external biographical context caps a response at a maximum of 40; limited comparison in poetry is capped at a maximum of 40, and no comparison is capped at a maximum of 30. Equal marks are available for treatment of each poem; a response substantially neglecting one poem cannot access the top of the range.

A strong response will construct a sustained, justified argument, weighing evidence on both sides.

Case for no sympathy: Williams stages Stanley from his first appearance in overtly physical, animalistic terms — his entrance carrying a 'red-stained package from a butcher's' and his later description as possessing 'animal joy in his being' establish a register of raw, sometimes threatening physicality that the play consistently associates with danger; his domestic violence towards Stella, most explicitly in the poker night scene where he strikes her, is staged without any softening, and his final act — the implied rape of Blanche in Scene Ten, staged through suggestive lighting, sound and Blanche's subsequent complete mental collapse — represents the play's most damning, unambiguous condemnation of him, an act of calculated cruelty and dominance that directly causes Blanche's committal to an institution; his casual cruelty in destroying Blanche's remaining illusions (revealing her past to Mitch, giving her a bus ticket back to Laurel as a birthday gift) shows a deliberate, unsympathetic desire to humiliate rather than merely defend his territory.

Case for some sympathy: candidates should also weigh evidence that Williams complicates a simple villain reading — Stanley's suspicion of Blanche is not without foundation, since she has lied about the loss of Belle Reve, about her past conduct in Laurel, and has disrupted his and Stella's marriage and household through prolonged, judgmental intrusion, referring to him in Blanche's own words as 'common' and 'bestial', so that some of Stanley's hostility can be read as a defensive response to genuine provocation and class-based condescension; Williams gives Stanley moments of real tenderness towards Stella (his desperate, anguished cry of her name after the poker night violence, and their evident sexual and emotional bond) that complicate any purely monstrous reading, and his blunt, unpretentious honesty is repeatedly contrasted favourably by the play's own logic against Blanche's evasions and self-deceptions, positioning him as a representative of an unglamorous but authentic new social reality that the play does not straightforwardly condemn.

Dramatic methods: Williams's use of expressionistic staging — the 'blue piano', the recurring polka music that intrudes on Blanche's mental state, the harsh, revealing lighting Blanche fears — consistently aligns the audience's sympathy with Blanche's fragility rather than Stanley's perspective, structurally weighting the play against him even where his grievances are understandable; the play's symbolic naming (the streetcar named Desire, the setting of Elysian Fields) associates Stanley with raw appetite and an inescapable, almost mythic destiny that overwhelms Blanche's more fragile, illusion-dependent world, reinforcing a reading of him as an elemental force rather than a nuanced individual, which can cut both ways — inspiring both dread and a kind of awed respect.

Context: writing in 1947, Williams dramatises a shifting post-war American society in which an older, genteel Southern aristocratic order (represented by Blanche and the lost plantation Belle Reve) is being displaced by a new, urban, immigrant, working-class vitality (represented by the Polish-American Stanley); Williams's own ambivalent, sometimes admiring treatment of Stanley's physical vitality, alongside unambiguous condemnation of his violence, reflects a genuine authorial tension rather than a simple moral verdict, complicating any claim that Stanley is presented as 'entirely' without sympathy.

Justified conclusion: the strongest answers weigh both readings and reach a supported judgement — typically that while Williams affords Stanley moments of vitality, legitimate grievance and even tenderness that prevent him from being a cartoonish villain, the play's structural and symbolic choices, and above all the devastating, unmitigated cruelty of his final act against Blanche, ultimately withhold full sympathy from him, making the statement largely, though not entirely, accurate.

[50 marks, AO5 (driving), AO1, AO2, AO3] Marked in levels via a five-band grid: Band 1 (1–10): basic assertion, little dramatic method or context; Band 2 (11–20): some relevant comment, limited development of argument or evidence; Band 3a (21–25): reasonably sustained argument, some reference to dramatic methods and context though unevenly developed; Band 3b (26–30): clearer, more consistent argument with sound reference to methods and context; Band 4 (31–40): coherent, secure argument with detailed discussion of dramatic methods, sound use of context, engagement with counter-argument; Band 5 (41–50): assured, perceptive and sustained critical evaluation, sophisticated discussion of dramatic methods and context, genuine engagement with alternative interpretations. No consideration of dramatic methods (AO2) is capped at a maximum of 30; lack of relevant context (AO3) is capped at a maximum of 40.

A strong response will construct a sustained, justified argument, weighing evidence on both sides.

Case for victimhood (origin): Brontë establishes Heathcliff's early suffering with considerable clarity — brought to Wuthering Heights as an unwanted orphan 'dark almost as if it came from the devil', he is immediately subjected to Hindley's jealous cruelty and systematic degradation after old Earnshaw's death, reduced to the status of a servant and denied education and status despite his earlier favoured treatment; his greatest wound, overhearing Catherine declare that it would 'degrade' her to marry him, precipitates his departure and directly precedes his transformation, strongly implying that his later cruelty originates in genuine, socially and personally inflicted suffering rather than innate villainy, inviting sympathy for the forces (class prejudice, favouritism, thwarted love) that shape him.

Case for tyranny: candidates should also weigh the extensive evidence of Heathcliff's calculated cruelty upon his return with newly acquired wealth — his systematic, patient revenge extends across a full second generation, deliberately degrading Hindley's son Hareton exactly as he himself was degraded, manipulating the sickly Linton Heathcliff as a tool to gain control of Thrushcross Grange, and coercing the young Catherine into a loveless, abusive marriage purely to extend his control over both families' property; his treatment of his own wife Isabella (whom Nelly Dean reports he abuses and torments with open contempt) and his continued cruelty even after achieving his material revenge suggest that his tyranny exceeds any proportionate response to his own earlier suffering, becoming self-perpetuating rather than merely reactive.

Narrative methods: Brontë's layered narrative structure — Lockwood's outsider frame narrative enclosing Nelly Dean's much longer, more intimate but not entirely neutral account — deliberately filters Heathcliff through unreliable, sometimes biased narrators, whose sympathies (Nelly's evident affection for the younger Catherine and Hareton, Lockwood's outsider bewilderment) shape how much sympathy or condemnation the reader extends to him at any given point, meaning judgement of Heathcliff shifts across the novel rather than remaining fixed; the novel's cyclical, two-generation structure (repeating names, repeating patterns of thwarted love and class conflict between Catherine/Heathcliff and Cathy/Hareton) invites direct comparison between Heathcliff's own suffering and the suffering he inflicts, reinforcing a reading of him as victim transformed into tyrant rather than either purely; the sustained Gothic elements (the supernatural yearning for Catherine's ghost, the wild moorland setting) elevate Heathcliff beyond simple social realism into a more mythic, elemental register, complicating a straightforward moral verdict.

Context: Brontë, writing in 1847, engages with contemporary anxieties about class mobility, inheritance and social status (Heathcliff's ambiguous, possibly mixed-race or foreign origins, and his dramatic rise from despised servant to landowner, unsettled Victorian assumptions about fixed social hierarchy), and the novel's Gothic and Romantic inheritance (wild landscape, doubling, supernatural yearning) provides a literary context in which extreme passion and revenge are conventionally as much an expression of thwarted, excessive feeling as of simple villainy.

Justified conclusion: the strongest answers weigh both readings and reach a supported judgement — typically that Brontë constructs a clear, deliberate transformation, in which Heathcliff's early, sympathetically presented suffering is gradually eclipsed by a self-perpetuating, disproportionate cruelty that extends well beyond any reasonable response to his own mistreatment, making him, by the novel's second generation, substantially more tyrant than victim, even as the narrative structure ensures some residual sympathy for his origins persists throughout.

[50 marks, AO5 (driving), AO1, AO2, AO3] Marked in levels via a five-band grid: Band 1 (1–10): basic assertion, little narrative method or context; Band 2 (11–20): some relevant comment, limited development of argument or evidence; Band 3a (21–25): reasonably sustained argument, some reference to narrative methods and context though unevenly developed; Band 3b (26–30): clearer, more consistent argument with sound reference to methods and context; Band 4 (31–40): coherent, secure argument with detailed discussion of narrative methods, sound use of context, engagement with counter-argument; Band 5 (41–50): assured, perceptive and sustained critical evaluation, sophisticated discussion of narrative methods and context, genuine engagement with alternative interpretations. No consideration of narrative methods (AO2) is capped at a maximum of 30; lack of relevant context (AO3) is capped at a maximum of 40.