Twentieth Century Prose & Fiction

Semester IV – 2024-25

Part – A

Reference to Context (Any Four)

  1. At the same time, there is, perhaps, a special pleasure in re-learning the names of many of the flowers every spring. It is like re-reading a book that one has almost forgotten. Montaigne tells us that he had so bad a memory that he could always read an old book as though he had never read it before.
  2. The conditions, as they say, are eminently suitable. Here, one may indeed go in search of one’s youth and reconstruct in the tranquility of a sunny afternoon the emotions of a very small boy.
  3. With all its faults, Monday has a positive character. Monday brings a feeling or revolt; Tuesday, the base craven, reconciles us to machine. I am not surprised that the recent American revivalists held no meetings on Mondays.
  4. Tragedy is too valuable to be allowed to die. There is no reason, after all, why the two kinds of literature – the Chemically Impure and the Chemically Pure, the literature of the Whole Truth and the literature of Partial Truth-should not exist simultaneously, each in its separate sphere. The human spirit has need to both.
  5. There is a dignity in people, a solitude; even between husband and wife, a gulf.
  6. It was common enough during the first year of the war to meet people who took an aesthetic pleasure in the darkness of the streets at night. It gave them un nouveau frisson.
  7. No, it is impossible, it is impossible to convey the life-sensation of any given epoch of one’s existence – that which makes its truth, its meaning – its subtle and penetrating essence. It is impossible. We live, as we dream alone.
  8. A really efficient totalitarian state would be one in which the all-powerful executive of political bosses and their army of managers control a population of slaves who do not have to be coerced, because they love their servitude.
  9. If you get attached to your roots in the old sense, you might actually become unrooted, fossilised. At least in form, at least in style, you must get into the new stream, get the new roots.

Part – B

Attempt any two questions from the following (Word Limit – 150 words):

Q1. In. the Town Week, E.V. Lucas satirises the experiences of a young boy visiting the town. What commentary does he offer on city life?

Q2. Examine how Virginia Woolf portrays time and consciousness through the character of Clarissa in Mrs Dalloway.

Q4. How does Naipual depict the complexities of Indian identity in India: A Million Mutinies Now?

Q5. How does Huxley use satire in Brave New World to criticise contemporary trends in science, politics, or consumerism?

Part – C

Essay Type Questions

Q1. How does Aldous Huxley explore the contrast between romanticising tragedy and accepting reality in Tragedy and the Whole Truth?

OR

What does R. Lynd mean by “The Pleasure of Ignorance”? How does he use irony to defend his arguement?

Q2. How does Conrad use the Journey into the Congo in Heart of Darkness as a metaphor for the darkness within the human soul?

OR

Discuss the psychological depth of Clarissa Dalloway as a character. How do her thoughts and memories reveal her inner conflicts?

Q3. Examine the ways in which Naipaul explores the tension between tradition and modernity in India: A Million Mutinies Now.

OR

Discuss the theme of racial and cultural misunderstanding in A Passage to India. How does Forster portray colonial tensions?

Q4. Explore why the society in Brave New World is more dystopian than utopian and share your thoughts.

OR

Justify the significance of the title Brave New World by Aldous Huxley.