Test Papers / Previous Question Papers of IGNOU MEG2 British Drama December 2005

MASTER'S DEGREE PROGRAMME IN ENGLISH
Term-End Examination

December, 2005

MEG-2 : BRITISH DRAMA

Time: 3 hours
Maximum Marks: 100

Note : Answer question 1 (which is compulsory), and Answer any four from the remaining questions. All questions carry equal marks.

1. Critically comment on any four of the folloing passages with reference to the context in not more than 150 words each : (4x5=20)

(i) Vladimir : Suppose we repented ?
Extragon : Repented what ?
Vladimir : Oh ... (He reflects.) We wouldn't have to go into the details.
Estragon : Our being born ?

(ii) Thomas : They know and do not know. what it is to act or suffer
                  They know and do not know, that action in suffering
                      And suffering is action.

(iii) Jimmy : I am not talking about Webster, stupid. He's all right though, in his way. A sort of female Emily Bronte. He is                   the only one of your friends (to Alison) who's worth tuppence, anyway. I am surprised you got on with him.

(iv) Puck : Thou speak'st aright;
                I am that merry wanderer of the night.
                I jest to Oberon, and make him smile
                When I a fat and bean-fed horse beguile.

(v) Hamlet: What is Hecuba to him or he to Hecuba that he should weep for her ? What would he do Had he the motive                    and the cue for passion That I have

2. Discuss the significance of the Mechanicals (the characters of the lower order) in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. (400 words) (20)
OR
Analyse the structure of Ben Jonson's The Alchemist. (400 words).

3. Analyse Shakespeare's Hamlet as a Revenge play. (400 words) (20)
OR
Critically comment on the theme of fantasy versus reality in John Synge's play, The Playboy of the Western World. (400 words)

4. Discuss the significance of Synge's title, The Playboy of the Western World. (400 words) (20)
OR
Would you define Dr. Faustus as a Renaissance man ? Discuss. (400 words)

5. Jimmy Porter's anger in John Osbome's Look Back in Anger intersects gender and class. Do you agree ? Give reasons in support of your answer (400 words) (20)
OR
Bring out the significance of the Chorus in T.S. Eliot's Murder in the Cathedral. (400 words)

6. Discuss Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot as an absurd play. (400 words) (20)
OR
Do you agree that Eliza in Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion represents the new woman ? (400 words)

7. Write short notes on any two of the following in not more than 200 words each : (2x10=20)
(i) Lucky's monologue in Beckett's Waiting for Godot
(ii) Female figures in Jonson's The Alchemist
(iii) Thomas Becket's fourth tempter in Murder in the Cathedral
(iv) Cliff Lewis in Look Back in Anger
(v) Rosencrantz and Guildernstern in Hamlet