WAEC Literature in English 1998 past questions and answers

Prose, drama and poetry all use language; a chorus, a narrator or stage action belong only to some forms.

Literature is divided into three genres: poetry, drama and prose. The other lists mix genres with sub-types.

What makes a poem beautiful is chiefly how it says things (expression) and its musical movement (rhythm).

The earth is described as 'tired of sitting' and as 'moving' like a person, so the figure is personification.

Crumbling houses and 'the work of a million years was lost' create a picture of destruction.

Things Fall Apart is a novel; the other three are poems.

The repeated vowel sound in 'fly high' is assonance (repetition of vowel sounds).

A panegyric is a poem or speech of praise for a person or thing. An elegy mourns; a lyric expresses personal feeling.

Every play is built on characters, the action they carry out (the plot) and the setting where it happens. 'Episode' and 'monologue' are parts of some plays, not basic elements.

Diction means a writer's choice of words.

Mood is the feeling or state of mind expressed in a poem.

Oral poetry is passed on by word of mouth, mainly through songs, chants and praise-singing, not through books.

Wole Soyinka has written plays (e.g. The Lion and the Jewel), poems (Idanre) and prose (The Interpreters, Aké).

The antagonist is the character who opposes the hero (protagonist).

'Pattering' imitates the sound of rain falling, so it is onomatopoeia.

The stream is given human actions: it 'whispers' and 'steals' away. That is personification.

Rhythm (metre) comes from the regular arrangement of stressed and unstressed syllables.

Dennis Brutus was a South African poet; Wordsworth was English, Frost American and Yeats Irish.

A farce is a comedy built on exaggerated, ridiculous situations meant only to cause laughter.

A monologue is a long speech by one character with others present; a soliloquy is spoken alone.

Tragedy, comedy and tragi-comedy are types of play; an epilogue is a closing speech, not a type of play.

The cast is the whole group of actors performing a play.

Novels are written in prose, ordinary sentences and paragraphs.

Both have characters, setting and theme, but a novel tells its story through a narrator, while a play uses dialogue and action.

Literature mirrors human life and society; it is not just history or fantasy.

'Shakespeare' stands for his books: naming the author for his works is metonymy.

A first-person narrator ('I') is usually the main character telling his or her own story.

The short story is prose fiction like the novel, only shorter.

The comparison uses 'like', so it is a simile.

Line 1 'first' rhymes with line 3 'worst', and line 2 'warmer' with line 4 'former': abab.

In abab the rhymes alternate from line to line, so it is alternate rhyme.

A quatrain is a stanza or poem of four lines.

A sonnet has fourteen lines.

Prose, poetry and drama are the three genres; tragedy is only a type of drama.

A pun is a play on words that sound alike or have two meanings.

A play is written to be performed; it comes fully alive on stage.

An epitaph is the short text written on a tombstone in memory of the dead.

Tragedy moves the audience to pity and fear (catharsis), making them reflect and feel deeply.

Mime tells a story through gestures and body movement without words.

An epigram is a short, clever, witty saying.

Being wise and foolish at the same time seems contradictory but makes sense: careful with small sums, careless with big ones. That is a paradox.

Imagery is language that creates pictures in the reader's mind.

'Buzzing', 'humming', 'cooing', 'chatter' and 'clatter' all imitate sounds: onomatopoeia.

'Chatter' and 'clatter' rhyme inside the lines rather than only at line ends: internal rhyme.

'Omniscient' means all-knowing: such a narrator knows every character's thoughts and all events.

The heroine is the main female character.

The antagonist opposes the hero (protagonist).

Sentence, paragraph and expression are units of language; fiction is a kind of literature.

She digs her heel in for a step, the moss tears and she falls: they are climbing a slope, a mountain.

Joseph runs to her, drops the water and says 'It was too simple, too easy, too quick': he is shocked by the sudden death.

The position of her neck and 'the grey stealing into her cheeks' show she is dead.

It recounts events one after another in time order, so it is narrative prose.

'The grey that was stealing into her cheeks' gives grey colour the human action of stealing: personification.

'Her love ... blossomed like spring flowers' compares with 'like': a simile.

In Africa her temper grew worse and she drifted away from him: she resented him.

Her world 'collapsing' means her happiness ended: she became unhappy.

Her world collapsed from the day it was announced the couple would go to Africa.

'They never had a child': the couple is childless.

The poet sings joyfully of love and of the wedding day: the feeling is gaiety.

'You are the papyrus reed' compares directly, without 'like' or 'as': a metaphor.

The lines do not rhyme, which is why the question calls it blank (unrhymed) verse.

Delay/stay and desire/aspire; truth/youth and lives/gives: the rhymes alternate (abab).

'O stealing time' addresses time directly as if it could hear: apostrophe.

The poet asks questions that expect no answer: rhetorical questions.

Old age is described as 'wise' and as having 'known' things: it is given human qualities.

The poet ends by praising old age as wise and honourable, a contented, happy mood.

Viola has just survived the shipwreck and asks where she is; her brother Sebastian is feared drowned.

The Captain of the wrecked ship tells Viola that this is Illyria.

Viola and Sebastian were separated when their ship was wrecked at sea.

'O, my poor brother' addresses someone absent: apostrophe.

Duke Orsino sends 'Cesario' (Viola in disguise) again to woo Olivia for him.

The Duke loves Olivia, the 'sovereign cruelty' who keeps rejecting him.

Duke Orsino, ruler of Illyria, is the leading male character; he finally marries Viola.

Orsino is restless and anxious with unanswered love, urging Cesario to try again.

It is a romantic comedy of disguise and mistaken identity that ends in marriages.

Antonio, who once fought Orsino's galleys at sea, explains why he is in danger in Illyria.

Sebastian replies 'Belike you slew great number of his people'; Antonio has followed him to Illyria.

'The Count' is Orsino, whose galleys Antonio fought.

Antonio says he does not walk the streets 'without danger': he fears arrest.

Antonio's offence was fighting the Count's ships at sea; Orsino calls him a pirate.

The king tells the people he is only doing his duty and asks what they have done to help themselves: Odewale.

Odewale is speaking to the crowd of suffering townspeople who came to beg him.

Kutuje is struck by a plague: people are 'ailing and dying'.

As king, Odewale's duty is to rule and protect his people.

The townspeople have come to the king's palace with their complaints.

'My Lord' is the form of address for King Odewale.

Odewale accuses others of plotting against him without proof: his charges rest on suspicion.

Baba Fakunle calls Odewale a 'bedsharer', hinting that he shares his mother's bed: forbidden sexual relations (the key's adultery).

Odewale insults the blind seer Baba Fakunle as a 'blind bat'.

Queen Ojuola gently tells her husband that he makes charges without grounds.

She calls Aderopo 'son' and he calls her 'mother': Speaker A is Queen Ojuola.

Kutuje is suffering a deadly sickness, an epidemic.

Aderopo returns from Ife with Ifa's word and is reluctant to say it in public.

Aderopo is sent to Ife, the home of the Ifa oracle.

The plague comes because the murderer of King Adetusa lives in the land, married to his own mother: incest and murder.

Mrs Hardcastle has just mentioned the two Miss Hoggs and Mrs Grigsby, who go to town every winter; Hardcastle says they bring back vanity.

Mrs Hardcastle complains that they never go to town; she longs to visit London.

The play opens in a chamber in Hardcastle's old-fashioned country house.

Hardcastle has chosen Young Marlow, son of his friend Sir Charles, as Kate's husband.

Mr Hardcastle tells his daughter Kate about the suitor.

Kate asks 'how shall I behave?' and fears the meeting will be too formal: she is anxious.

Kate dislikes a meeting arranged 'like a thing of business': she disapproves of arranged marriages.

Marlow and Hastings arrive at Hardcastle's house thinking it is an inn.

The house belongs to Mr and Mrs Hardcastle.

Hardcastle greets the two young men and says he likes to receive his friends with a hearty welcome in the old style, so he is happy to receive his friends.

Marlow, tricked by Tony, thinks the house is an inn and Hardcastle its keeper.

Young Marlow, believing he is at an inn, speaks aside about the 'landlord' Hardcastle.

Kate Hardcastle 'stoops' by posing as a barmaid to win Marlow.

Mrs Hardcastle is vain: she loves fashion, jewels and wants to look young.

She spoils her son Tony Lumpkin.

Ananse reminds his daughter that her school fees are owing and he is struggling to find the money.

Anansewa has stayed home because her fees are unpaid.

Ananse writes to a chief after visiting him, promising to keep his daughter safe for him.

The 'little affair' discussed with the chief is his interest in marrying Anansewa.

The chief's 'object of interest' is Anansewa herself.

Anansewa protests that she will not marry 'some old chief with fifty wives'.

Ananse cunningly paints a handsome picture of the chief to win her over.

Anansewa is Ananse's daughter.

Aya, Anansewa's grandmother, calls for the brass bowl 'for my child'.

The brass bowl is set out to receive gifts for the girl.

Gifts are collected at Anansewa's outdooring (puberty) ceremony, an Akan custom.

After the mock death, Chief-Who-Is-Chief proves his love and marries Anansewa.

Background: eleven years into Odewale's reign, Kutuje is struck by plague and death.
He visits and comforts the sick and speaks to the people himself; he shows he cares.
He sends Aderopo to Ife to consult the Ifa oracle about the cause.
He sends for the blind seer Baba Fakunle to reveal the murderer of King Adetusa.
He orders herbs to be gathered and boiled for the sick (people told to go to the bush for herbs).
He consults priests and offers sacrifices to the gods.
He curses the unknown murderer and swears to find and punish him.
He investigates the death of Adetusa, questioning Ojuola and the chiefs, until the truth comes out.
Finally he blinds himself and goes into exile so the land can be cleansed.
Good answers refer closely to scenes and show his determination and sincerity.

Give at least five efforts in the order they happen in the play.

(a) Baba Fakunle: the blind seer and Ifa priest; predicted the baby would kill his father and marry his mother; brought by a boy; reveals that the murderer is Odewale ('bedsharer'); stands firm and truthful though insulted; represents the voice of the gods/fate.
(b) Alaka: Odewale's old friend from Ijekun Yemoja; arrives with news that Odewale's 'parents' in Ijekun (Ogundele and Mobike) were not his real parents; his disclosures help to reveal Odewale's true identity; loyal and cheerful.
(c) Gbonka: King Adetusa's former bodyguard/messenger; was ordered to kill baby Odewale but gave him to a hunter (Ogundele); later witness to Adetusa's death; his testimony confirms that Odewale is Adetusa's son and killer.
For each: who the character is, what he does in the plot, and his importance.

Pick two and cover identity, actions and importance for each.

Ananse has collected gifts from four chiefs who all want to marry Anansewa; two announce they will come for the marriage the same day.
To escape, Ananse makes Anansewa pretend to be dead; he announces her 'death'.
Mourning: Ananse wails, relatives and the storyteller help; messengers of the chiefs arrive.
Each chief's messenger reacts: some only want gifts back or offer small sympathy; Chief-Who-Is-Chief's messenger brings rich funeral gifts and says the chief regarded her as his wife.
Ananse 'calls back' her spirit; Anansewa 'revives' because of the love of Chief-Who-Is-Chief.
Relevance: climax of the plot; resolves Ananse's dilemma; exposes the true lover; shows Ananse's cunning; satire on greed and on marriage customs; leads to the happy ending.

Narrate the event, then show what it does for plot, character and theme.

He has a photograph of Anansewa taken and sends it with flattering letters to four chiefs (Chief Sapa, Togbe Klu IV, Chief of the Mines, Chief-Who-Is-Chief).
He writes letters (typed by Anansewa) telling each chief that his daughter is reserved for him alone and asking for help with her needs.
He receives money and gifts from each (e.g. for her schooling, clothes) without telling them about the others.
He uses the outdooring ceremony to collect more gifts in the brass bowl.
He plays on each chief's pride and desire, lying to the messengers who visit.
He stages Anansewa's death to escape when they all come for her.
Answer must give three clear incidents and comment on Ananse's cunning and greed.

Choose three incidents and explain the trick in each.

(a) Catherine Petkoff: Raina's mother; snobbish, proud of the family's 'library' and electric bell; romantic about war; dominant in the home; quick-witted, helps hide Bluntschli and the coat.
Major Petkoff: her husband; easy-going, simple, rather foolish; proud of rank but not a real soldier; easily deceived (the coat episode).
Comparison: both pretentious and status-conscious; Catherine is cleverer and controls Petkoff.
(b) Louka: bold, ambitious, proud maid; refuses to be servile; flirts with Sergius and ends engaged to him; tells secrets to gain advantage.
Nicola: the cautious, servile manservant; practical and calculating, plans to open a shop; gives Louka up; Bluntschli praises his common sense.
Comparison: Louka rejects her station, Nicola accepts it; both shrewd but opposite in attitude.
Quote or refer to incidents for each.

Compare: similarities and differences, with incidents from the play.

Sergius returns as the 'hero' of the cavalry charge; Raina and he exchange 'higher love' speeches.
It reveals the hollowness of their romantic ideals; as soon as Raina leaves, he flirts with Louka.
It exposes his hypocrisy and his six-sided character.
Louka uses it to gain power over him; it starts the Sergius–Louka affair.
He tells the story of the Swiss officer who escaped (Bluntschli), adding comic irony.
It prepares for the breaking of the Raina–Sergius engagement and the final pairing (Raina–Bluntschli, Sergius–Louka).
Shows Shaw's anti-romantic theme on love and war.

Explain what happens during the visit and then what it changes in the plot and theme.

Mrs Hardcastle's spoilt son and Hardcastle's stepson; loves the alehouse and practical jokes.
At the Three Pigeons he tricks Marlow and Hastings into thinking Hardcastle's house is an inn; this starts the mistakes of the night.
Helps Hastings and Constance Neville to elope, since he does not want to marry Constance.
Steals the jewels for them; drives his mother round in circles and lands her in the horse pond.
Discovers he is of age and refuses to marry Constance, freeing her for Hastings.
Source of much comedy; drives the plot; contrasts with the polished town gentlemen.

Show what Tony does at each stage and how it moves the plot.

A clear stand (yes, largely).
Vain: dresses in fashion, wants to visit London, lies about her age.
Spoils Tony and blinds herself to his faults.
Greedy and scheming: wants Tony to marry Constance so as to keep her jewels; withholds the jewels.
Deceitful: pretends the jewels are lost.
Snobbish towards country neighbours; quarrelsome with her husband.
Three supported examples are needed.

Take a position and back it with three incidents.

A traditional Yoruba praise poem (ijala/oriki) to the elephant.
Content: the elephant's size and strength, its destructive power, the hunter's respect and fear; praise names.
Devices: apostrophe ('O elephant'), praise names/epithets ('Ajanaku', 'huge beast'), metaphor ('mountain of flesh'), hyperbole on its size, imagery of destruction, repetition, personification.
Effect of devices: create vivid pictures, show awe, give the chant rhythm and oral flavour.
Mood of admiration mixed with fear.

Describe the poem briefly, then name each device with an example and its effect.

Theme: fear and insecurity of black people in apartheid South Africa at night.
Night is personified as a 'mortal enemy' and compared to a dreaded disease.
Violence by criminals (and police raids) makes the townships unsafe.
Helplessness: the speaker cannot find refuge ('Where is my refuge?').
Protest against apartheid conditions and dehumanisation of blacks.
Supporting references and comment on imagery.

State the theme, then support it with images from the poem.

Poem by W. B. Yeats; an Irish pilot in World War I.
Fatalistic: he knows he will meet his fate in the clouds.
Not driven by hate or love of country: 'Those that I fight I do not hate, those that I guard I do not love'.
Detached from politics; his countrymen (Kiltartan's poor) will be no better or worse off.
Joined for 'a lonely impulse of delight', thrill and adventure, not duty or law.
Reflective, balancing past and future as 'waste of breath'; calm and brave in facing death.

Name each trait and support it from the poem.

Poem by John Keats addressed to an ancient urn.
The urn preserves scenes forever: the lovers who never kiss, the piper who never stops, trees that never lose leaves, the procession to the sacrifice.
Art is permanent while human life and passion are brief.
Paradox: the figures can never fulfil their desire, but their joy never fades.
Images: 'unravish'd bride of quietness', 'foster-child of silence and slow time', 'sylvan historian'.
Conclusion: 'Beauty is truth, truth beauty' — art outlasts generations.

Explain how the urn's frozen scenes show art lasting beyond human life.

(a) Pleasant side: friendships, his close friend Fanta; good learning.
Hard side: strict discipline and caning; senior boys bully juniors, make them do work and take their food.
The bullying by Himourana; Laye's father and Kouyate's father protest; the headmaster is dismissed.
Ends with Laye's success and move to Conakry.
(b) The little black snake, guiding spirit of his father's family.
His father's magic in gold-smithing (praise-singer, prayers).
His mother's powers: totem crocodile, making a stubborn horse obey, knowing things in advance.
Konden Diara, the 'lion' of the initiation; charms and spells; the harvest rituals.

Answer one option only; give concrete episodes.

(a) The snake is the guiding spirit of his father's race; must not be harmed.
Appears in dreams to warn him of visitors and events; gives him foreknowledge.
Source of his success and fame as a goldsmith/blacksmith; brings customers.
Protects the family; father strokes it and it responds.
Shows African belief in totems and ancestral spirits; Laye is unsure he can inherit it.
(b) Initiation (Konden Diara): boys gathered at night, taken to the bush, frightened by roaring of the 'lion', made to stay all night; secret revealed later.
Circumcision: public ceremony and dances (soli/coba) for a week; the operation in the bush; healing period in a hut; return as men.
Meaning: passage from childhood to manhood, courage, separation from mother.

Choose one option and give details from the novel.

(a) Ihuoma: beautiful, gentle, modest, hardworking, respectful; ideal wife of Emenike.
Avoids quarrels (with Madume); keeps up her husband's compound after his death.
Role: central figure; each man who loves her dies (Emenike, Madume, Ekwueme): she is the sea-king's wife.
Shows fate and the power of the gods over human life.
(b) The Sea-King is the jealous husband of Ihuoma in the spirit world; destroys her suitors.
Amadioha, Ojukwu, other gods punish wrongdoing (Madume's blindness by the cobra).
Dibias (Anyika, Agwoturumbe) interpret the gods; attempt to bind the sea-king fails.
Supernatural drives the plot and tragic ending.

Choose one and support with incidents.

(a) Tragic heroine Ihuoma: good woman doomed by fate; suitors die: Emenike, Madume, Ekwueme.
Fate beyond human control (spirit husband); efforts of dibias fail.
Ekwueme shot by Wolu's arrow at the climax; ends in sorrow.
Pity and fear in the reader; noble characters destroyed.
(b) Ahurole: Ekwueme's betrothed from childhood; moody, cries without cause, childish, sulky, quarrelsome.
Nags Ekwueme; on her mother Wonuma's advice obtains a love potion from a dibia, which makes him ill and mad.
Her bad behaviour drives Ekwueme away, so the marriage breaks and he returns to Ihuoma.

Choose one option; give examples from the novel.

(a) Old Major: old, respected prize boar; wise and visionary.
His dream and speech explain the animals' oppression by Man.
Teaches 'Beasts of England'; urges rebellion and equality.
His ideas become Animalism and the Seven Commandments; dies before the rebellion.
(b) Boxer: strong, loyal, hardworking cart-horse ('I will work harder', 'Napoleon is always right'); fights bravely; sold to the knacker when sick.
Clover: motherly mare; caring; senses the commandments are changed but cannot read well; protects weaker animals.
Both represent the loyal working class exploited by the pigs.

Choose one option; refer to events.

(a) Squealer, the persuasive pig, propaganda minister.
Justifies the pigs taking milk and apples; explains away Snowball's expulsion.
Rewrites the commandments and history; uses statistics and threats ('Jones will come back').
Lies about Boxer's death; keeps the animals obedient; so Napoleon's power depends on him.
(b) Mr Jones's cruelty, drinking and neglect; animals left unfed.
Old Major's speech and vision; the song 'Beasts of England'.
The pigs' teaching of Animalism; hunger finally triggers the revolt when Jones forgets to feed them.

Choose one option and argue it with incidents.

(a) Hiring of the Hispaniola crew; Silver recruits pirates.
Jim in the apple barrel overhears the mutiny plot.
Suspense, sea life, Captain Smollett's suspicions; arrival at the island.
Interesting: danger, secrets, adventure, characters.
(b) Long John Silver: one-legged ship's cook; charming, intelligent, friendly to Jim.
Leader of the pirates; cunning, ruthless (kills Tom), changes sides when it suits him.
Shrewd survivor; escapes at the end with some money.

Choose one option.

(a) Squire Trelawney: wealthy, generous, talkative; cannot keep a secret; hires the crew carelessly.
Dr Livesey: calm, brave, principled doctor and magistrate; treats even pirates; negotiates with Silver.
Captain Smollett: strict, honest, careful; distrusts the crew; leads the defence of the stockade.
(b) Captain Flint: dead pirate captain, feared and cruel; buried the treasure and killed the six men who helped.
His map (in Billy Bones's chest) starts the hunt; his parrot named after him; the skeleton pointer he left guides the search.

Choose one option.