UPSC IAS 2015 Question Paper for English Paper-II

ENGLISH
Paper—II
(Literature)

Time Allowed : Three Hours Maximum Marks : 250

QUESTION PAPER SPECIFIC INSTRUCTIONS

Please read each of the following instructions carefully before attempting questions :
There are EIGHT questions divided in Two Sections.
Candidate has to attempt FIVE questions in all.
Question Nos. 1 and 5 are compulsory and out of the remaining, THREE are to be attempted choosing at
least ONE question from each Section.
The number of marks carried by a question/part is indicated against it.
Answers must be written in ENGLISH.
Word limit in questions, if specified, should be adhered to.
Attempts of questions shall be counted in sequential order. U nless struck off, attempt of a question shall
be counted even if attempted partly. Any page or portion o f the page left blank in the Question-cum-Answer
Booklet must be clearly struck off.

SECTION—A

Q.l. Critically comment on the following passages in their contexts in about 150 words
each :— 5x10=50

Q. 1(a) All changed, changed utterly :
A terrible beauty is bom.
(W.B. Yeats) 10

Q. 1(b) I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each
I do not think that they will sing to me.
(T.S. Eliot) 10
Q. 1(c) Was he free ? Was he happy ? The question is absurd :
Had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard.
(W.H. Auden) 10

c-m -o-w m (i)

Q. 1(d) This was Mr. Bleaney’s room. He stayed
The whole time he was at the Bodies, till
They moved him.
(Philip Larkin) 10

Q. 1(e) The new poets still quoted

the old poets, but no one spoke in verse

of the pregnant woman.

(A.K. Ramanujan) 10

Q. 2. Answer all of the following :— 15+15+20=50

Q. 2(a) Auden asserts in “The Memory of W.B. Yeats” that poetry is a purely aesthetic and not
an ethical or religious practice. Discuss. 15

Q. 2(b) What do the images, “Astride of a grave and a difficult birth; down in the hole, lingeringly,
the gravedigger puts on the forceps; we have time to grow old” suggest in Waiting fo r
Godot ? 15

Q. 2(c) All Yeats touched he turned into symbols : Ireland, Byzantium, Maud Gonne, The Easter
Rising, The Tower — Discuss. 20

Q. 3. Answer all of the following :— 15+15+20=50

Q. 3(a) Examine Philip Larkin’s bleak view of human life and relationship with reference to his
poems. 15

Q. 3(b) Discuss Eliot’s religious-philosophical reflections on time and consciousness in “Burnt
Norton”. 15

Q. 3(c) Deconstruction is not synonymous with destruction, it is in fact closer to the original
meaning of the word, “analysis” which originally means to undo. Discuss. 20

Q. 4. Answer all of the following :— 15+15+20=50

Q. 4(a) Discuss how Jimmy’s frenetic quest for real life destroys the lives o f those to whom he
is closest. 15

Q. 4(b) The mother figuring in Ramanujan’s poem: becomes a representative o f all that is left
behind, lost and never found. Discuss. 15

Q. 4(c) The characters in Waiting for Godot go on ; in the universe o f this play “go on” leads no
where — Elucidate. 20

a -A v z-o -w is (2 )

SECTION—B
Q.S. Write short critical notes on the following in about 150 words each :— 5*10=50

Q. 5(a) The novel, A Portrait o f the Artist as a Young Man, is structured in the manner of a
classical drama. 10
Q. 5(b) “Oedipus complex” as the basis of Sons and Lovers. 10
Q. 5(c) Mrs. Dalloway is constructed in terms of the two dimensions of space and time. 10
Q. 5(d) Ratna [Kanthapura] is a symbol of some aspects of the social injustice done to women.
10
Q. 5(e) Naipaul’s use o f imagery and symbolism to enhance the meaning of his novel A House
fo r Mr. Biswas. 10

Q. 6. Answer all of the following :— 15+15+20=50
Q. 6(a) How does Conrad depict the difficulty of finding a secure moral base in the ambience of
political violence, economic oppression, isolation and existential dread in Lord Jim ?
15
Q. 6(b) Lawrence’s writings transcribe the most elusive sensations and emotions — the moments
o f life of men and women and in the physical world of nature. Discuss. 15
Q. 6(c) Forster’s Passage to India exists on two plains and it has different meanings on different
plains. Elaborate. 20

Q. 7. Answer all of the following :— 20+10+20=50
Q. 7(a) Joyce freed himself from socially structured emotions — by means of creating art as a
new religion he detached fiction from one particular ideological base. Discuss with reference
to Portrait o f an Artist as a Young Man. 20
Q. 7(b) Describe Naipaul’s depiction o f humour in raucous scenes of life in Mr. Biswas’s career
and in the language o f the characters. 10
Q. 7(c) With something o f the passion of the mystic Virginia Woolf in Mrs. Dalloway values
reality o f the perceptive moment and o f inner wonder. Elaborate. 20

Q. 8. Answer all of the following :— 20+15+15=50
Q. 8(a) How does the narrative o f Kanthapura establish the parameters of thestory within old
and new legends ? 20
Q. 8(b) How does E.M. Forster portray the common racial tensions and prejudices between the
Indians and the British in his A Passage to India ? 15
Q. 8(c) Argue why Lord Jim is considered the Hamlet of Joseph Conrad. 15

C -A V 2 -0 -M S (3)