WAEC SSCE - Literature In English - 2015

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The use of imagery in prose or verse appeals to the senses. Imagery is a literary technique used to create vivid descriptions and sensory experiences by using words that appeal to our senses of sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell. It helps to create a more immersive and engaging experience for the reader or listener. The use of imagery can also convey emotions and mood, set the tone, and create atmosphere. By using imagery, writers can make their writing more memorable and impactful.

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Setting is the location of the action of the plot. It refers to the time and place where the story takes place. The setting can include physical, social, cultural, and historical context that influence the plot and characters. It is an important element of storytelling that helps to create a vivid and realistic world for the reader or audience. The setting can also create a particular mood or atmosphere that contributes to the overall effect of the story.

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"These words" refer to the information that Gonzalo has just shared with Alonso about how Naples is prospering and how Sebastian and Antonio's attempt to kill Alonso and Gonzalo failed. The speaker is expressing his regret for allowing his daughter to marry into a family with people who would attempt such treachery. Therefore, the correct option is 'the daughter's wedding'.

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An allegory is a story in which characters or actions represent abstract ideas or moral qualities. In an allegory, the author intends to convey a symbolic meaning through the characters, events, and actions in the story. The characters may represent moral qualities such as greed, envy, or kindness, and their actions may depict universal concepts like love, justice, or truth. Through an allegory, the author aims to teach a lesson or communicate a message to the reader in an indirect and engaging way.

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Pan is used here as a symbol. In this stanza, Pan is being referred to as a symbol of purity, freedom and youthfulness. The speaker is calling on Pan, the Greek god of the wild, to whom this stanza is addressed, to maintain his purity and freedom. The use of Pan as a symbol helps to convey the message of the stanza in a more poetic and evocative way, rather than simply stating it directly.

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Based on the given extract, the setting is on a ship. This is indicated by the phrase "coming thence," which implies that the speaker and his daughter were on a journey by ship. Additionally, the mention of the speaker's son being lost suggests that something untoward happened during their voyage, further indicating that the scene takes place on a ship.

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The first four lines of the Shakespearian sonnet rhyme in the pattern "abab". This means that the first and third lines rhyme with each other, and the second and fourth lines rhyme with each other.

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The rhyme scheme of the stanza is "ababcdd". The first and second lines rhyme with each other with the "ee" sound (sing/spring), while the third and fifth lines end with the "oke" sound (spake/broke/unyoke). The fourth and sixth lines do not rhyme with any of the other lines. Therefore, the pattern of the rhyme scheme in the stanza is ABABCDD.

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A euphemism is a literary device used to express unpleasant things or ideas in a more acceptable or pleasant manner. It is often used to avoid causing offense or discomfort to the listener or reader. For example, instead of saying "he died," a euphemism like "he passed away" may be used.

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The stanza is an example of an apostrophe. Apostrophe is a figure of speech in which the speaker directly addresses an absent or imaginary person, an abstract idea, or an inanimate object. In this stanza, the speaker directly addresses Pan, the Greek god of shepherds and nature, and praises his virtues. The use of the phrase "O great Pan" and the direct address "to thee" are clear examples of apostrophe.

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The setting in the passage is night. It is described as a cold night and the absence of a door and the contrivances to keep the room safe from prying eyes and curious domestic animals imply that it is a time when people are asleep and there is a need for privacy and security.

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The poet's tone is one of joy. The poem praises and encourages the mothers of the coming age, commending them for their efforts in raising their minds and lives above the past, and inspiring the younger generation with hope for a brighter future. The tone is positive, uplifting, and grateful, as seen in the lines "God bless you, mothers of our race" and "God cause to shine on you His face." There is no sense of sadness, condemnation, or sarcasm in the tone of the poem.

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The word "heads" in the second line is an example of synecdoche. Synecdoche is a figure of speech in which a part of something is used to represent the whole or vice versa. In this case, "heads" represents the people who have authority or power over the speaker. It's a part of the whole person that is being used to refer to the entire group of people.

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The phrase 'Let me not love thee if I love thee not' illustrates a paradox. A paradox is a statement or situation that appears to be contradictory or absurd, but in reality, it may be true. In this phrase, the speaker is saying that they cannot love the person if they do not love them. It seems contradictory because loving someone is an action that is not within the control of the individual, but the speaker is making it conditional upon their will. Hence, it is an example of a paradoxical statement.

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A speech in a play in which a character speaks his or her thoughts alone is called a soliloquy. In a soliloquy, the character speaks directly to the audience, revealing their innermost thoughts and feelings. It is different from an aside, where the character speaks directly to another character on stage, but is not meant to be heard by the other characters. Soliloquies are commonly used in plays to provide insight into a character's motivations, fears, and desires, and can be powerful tools for character development and storytelling.

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The lines illustrate parallelism. Parallelism is the use of components in a sentence that are grammatically the same or similar in their construction, sound, or meaning. In this case, the parallel structure is used to emphasize the idea of freedom and liberty, highlighting that neither one will be compromised.

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A ballad is essentially a narrative poem. It tells a story, often in a simple and direct way, and often focuses on a single dramatic event. Ballads are often associated with folk traditions and were originally meant to be sung or recited aloud. The narrative structure of a ballad makes it well-suited to storytelling, and it often features a strong sense of plot and character development. While ballads can be descriptive and include elements of drama or pastoral settings, at their core, they are primarily focused on telling a story through verse.

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A character that develops in the course of a novel or play is described as a "round" character. This is because the character undergoes significant development and change throughout the story, becoming more complex and multi-dimensional as a result. In contrast, a "flat" character is one that remains relatively unchanged and one-dimensional throughout the story, without undergoing significant development or growth. The line given in the question does not provide enough information to identify a specific round or flat character.

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The pattern of a poem without reference to its content is referred to as the form. This refers to the structure and layout of a poem, including elements such as rhyme scheme, stanza length, line length, and overall organization. The form of a poem can greatly impact its overall effect and meaning, and is an important consideration for poets as they craft their work. While the content of a poem may be the most immediate and obvious aspect, the form is an underlying framework that gives the poem shape and structure.

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Based on the given extract, soon after Ariel offers to do Prospero's bidding, he will fly off to do his duty.

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The correct answer is "clown". In drama, the clown is a character who is used to create humour. They often use physical comedy, witty remarks, and absurd behaviour to make the audience laugh. The clown is typically a supporting character and is often portrayed as a bumbling fool who provides a contrast to the more serious characters in the play. Their role is to provide comic relief, to lighten the mood, and to break the tension in the play. They can also serve as a commentator on the action, providing a different perspective on the events that are unfolding. Overall, the clown is an essential part of many plays and is an important tool for creating humour and entertainment.

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A dirge is a poem sung at a funeral. It is a mournful and melancholic song or poem that is usually performed at funerals to express grief, sorrow and mourning for the dead. The purpose of a dirge is to provide comfort and solace to the bereaved and to honor and pay respect to the deceased. Therefore, a dirge is not sung to send a child to sleep, to make workers happy, or at a birthday party.

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Repetition is used in literature for emphasis. It is a literary device that involves repeating a word or phrase multiple times to create a sense of importance or to draw attention to a particular idea or theme. Repetition can also be used to create a specific rhythm or pattern in a text. By repeating certain words or phrases, the writer can make them more memorable and powerful, and can reinforce the overall message of the text. Overall, repetition can be a powerful tool for writers to emphasize key points and ideas, and to engage and impact their readers.

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Ariel has come because he has been summoned by Prospero. In the opening lines of the extract, Ariel greets Prospero and declares that he is there to fulfill whatever task Prospero desires, whether it be to fly, swim, dive into fire, or ride on the clouds. This suggests that Ariel is under Prospero's command and has come in response to his summons. Therefore, the correct option is that he has been invited by Prospero.

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The speakers "we two" in the given lines are Sebastian and Antonio. They are offering to guard the sleeping Alonso's person and watch over his safety.

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The question of the old man's success on his last fishing trip is deliberately left double-edged by Ernest Hemingway in The Old Man and the Sea. Judged by results, Santiago fails; judged by spirit, he triumphs.

The material failure. Santiago sets out after eighty-four days without a catch, sails far beyond the other boats, and hooks a giant marlin longer than his skiff. For two days and nights he battles it, and at last kills it and lashes it to his boat. But on the long voyage home the blood of the marlin draws sharks. One by one they tear away the flesh until, when he reaches shore, nothing is left but the great white skeleton, the head and the tail. In practical terms the trip is a failure: he brings home no saleable fish and returns as poor as he set out, his hands cut and his body exhausted.

The moral and spiritual success. Yet in every way that matters to Hemingway, Santiago succeeds. He proves his endurance, courage and skill by catching the greatest fish of his life and by fighting the sharks to the very end, refusing to give in. His often-quoted resolve, that a man can be destroyed but not defeated, is vindicated: he is destroyed of his prize but not of his dignity. He keeps his pride, his self-respect and his bond with the boy Manolin, who weeps for him and vows to fish at his side again. The skeleton itself, admired on the beach, is proof of the magnitude of his achievement.

Balanced judgement. To the extent that success means profit or a fish to sell, the trip is a total loss. But to the extent that success means proving one's worth, showing unconquerable courage and winning renewed love and respect, Santiago is wholly successful. Hemingway's point is that true victory lies not in the reward kept but in the greatness of the struggle endured.

Therefore the old man was successful to a very high degree in spirit, even though he failed entirely in material terms.

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The conflict between Captain Bluntschli and Major Sergius Saranoff in George Bernard Shaw's Arms and the Man is both military and personal, and Shaw resolves it not through a duel but through comic exposure and sensible rearrangement of the couples.

The nature of the conflict. Bluntschli, the practical Swiss professional soldier, and Sergius, the romantic Bulgarian cavalry officer, are opposites. On the battlefield Bluntschli's realism has already mocked Sergius, for the reckless cavalry charge that made Sergius a supposed hero was in truth a suicidal blunder that only succeeded by accident. Later the conflict becomes personal and romantic: both men are entangled with Raina, and Sergius, discovering that a strange fugitive spent a night in Raina's room, feels his honour insulted and challenges Bluntschli to a duel.

The threatened duel deflated. Shaw resolves the quarrel by puncturing its romantic pretension. When Sergius demands a duel, the unromantic Bluntschli calmly agrees but treats it as a professional matter, offering to fight with a machine gun and pointing out the absurdity of the challenge. The heroic gesture collapses into comedy, and the duel never takes place.

Exposure and honest re-pairing. The deeper resolution comes when the truth is revealed. Sergius has himself been unfaithful, secretly courting the maid Louka, so he has no moral ground for jealousy. Raina admits her attraction to Bluntschli. Once the pretences are stripped away, the tension between the two men dissolves. Sergius, freed from his false engagement, becomes betrothed to Louka, while Raina accepts Bluntschli, who is revealed to be wealthy and eligible.

The conflict is thus resolved through Shaw's characteristic method of deflating romantic illusion. Realism triumphs over false heroism, the men are reconciled, and the play closes with both couples correctly matched, Bluntschli even admiring Sergius's spirit as the rivalry ends in good humour.

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In William Golding's Lord of the Flies, Piggy's spectacles are one of the novel's most powerful symbols. Golding invests this small object with large meaning, so that its fate charts the rise and collapse of order on the island.

They symbolise reason, science and intellect. Piggy is the most rational and clear-thinking of the boys, and his glasses represent the power of the human mind to see clearly and think logically. As long as the glasses are intact and Piggy is respected, reason has a voice in the group.

They are the source of fire. The boys use the lenses of Piggy's glasses to focus the sun's rays and light their signal fire. The fire represents both the hope of rescue and the practical benefits of civilisation. Thus the glasses are literally the means by which the link to the adult, ordered world is kept alive, and later the means by which Jack's tribe cooks its meat.

Their damage tracks the decline of order. The condition of the glasses mirrors the condition of the group. When one lens is broken during an early quarrel, it marks the first crack in the boys' unity and in the rule of reason. As savagery grows, the intellect is progressively blinded.

Their theft marks the triumph of savagery. Jack's hunters raid Ralph's camp at night and steal the glasses, seizing the power of fire for themselves by force rather than by cooperation. This theft, not the conch, shows that brute power has overthrown reason. Soon afterwards Piggy is killed and the conch shattered, and with the loss of the glasses' owner the last light of rational civilisation is put out.

The significance of Piggy's glasses, therefore, is that they embody clear-sighted reason and the fire of civilisation, and their breaking and theft dramatise humanity's descent from order into barbarism.

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Though Miss Prism appears only occasionally in Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest, she is crucial to the plot and to Wilde's satire, and the play could not reach its resolution without her.

She holds the secret of Jack's identity. Miss Prism's greatest importance is that she is the key to the mystery of Jack's birth. Years earlier, when employed as a nursemaid in the household of Lady Bracknell's family, she absent-mindedly placed the baby in a handbag and the manuscript of her three-volume novel in the perambulator, then left the handbag at Victoria Station. This blunder is the very origin of the abandoned baby who grew up to be Jack. When Lady Bracknell recognises her, Miss Prism's confession leads directly to the discovery that Jack is the lost son of Lady Bracknell's sister, Algernon's elder brother, and truly named Ernest. Her revelation resolves the entire plot.

She is an object of satire. As the prim, moralising governess of Cecily, Miss Prism represents the pompous Victorian preacher of respectability and hard work. Yet she once wrote a sentimental novel and confuses her manuscript with a baby, and beneath her severity she nurses a romantic interest in Dr. Chasuble. Wilde uses her to mock the hypocrisy of those who preach earnestness and morality while being comically fallible themselves.

She provides romantic and comic balance. Her mutual, coyly disguised affection for the Reverend Chasuble adds a gentle comic sub-plot among the older characters and rounds off the pattern of pairings at the play's end.

She embodies the theme of names and identity. Because her carelessness caused Jack to be misnamed and mislaid, she is bound up with the play's central concern about the importance, and the arbitrariness, of names and origins.

Miss Prism is therefore important as the agent of the play's resolution, as a target of Wilde's satire on Victorian respectability, and as a source of comic and romantic completion.

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John Donne's The Sun Rising is a dramatic monologue addressed to the sun, and one of its chief pleasures is the way the speaker's mood changes as the poem develops, moving from irritation through mockery to triumphant contentment.

Opening mood: annoyance and rebuke. The poem begins in anger. The lover, lying in bed with his beloved at dawn, is disturbed by the sunlight and scolds the sun as a busy old fool and an unruly, saucy wretch for intruding on the lovers. His tone is impatient and contemptuous. He asks why the sun must call them, demanding that it go instead and trouble late schoolboys, apprentices, court huntsmen and farmers, whose lives are ruled by time.

Middle mood: mockery and defiance. The speaker's mood shifts to confident mockery. He belittles the sun's supposed power, boasting that he could eclipse its beams with a wink, except that he would lose sight of his beloved for a moment. He challenges the sun to travel the world and return to report that the kings and treasures of the East and West Indies are all here, in this very bed. Love, he claims, is not subject to the seasons, days or hours that the sun measures.

Closing mood: triumph and serene joy. The final stanza rises to exultant contentment. The lovers become the whole world: she is all states and he all princes, and nothing else exists. In an act of generous condescension the speaker now pities the aged sun and even invites it to stay, arguing that since the lovers are the world, warming them is the same as warming everywhere. The angry rebuke of the opening has become a calm, self-satisfied welcome.

The poet's mood therefore evolves from irritation at the intruding sun, through witty defiance of its power, to a triumphant peace in which love conquers time and the whole universe shrinks to the lovers' bedroom.

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In Oswald Mbuyiseni Mtshali's Boy on a Swing, the picture of a small black child playing on a swing becomes the vehicle for a serious exploration of the identity crisis suffered by black people under apartheid South Africa.

The swaying swing as a symbol of confusion. The boy is pushed back and forth, and his clothes flutter like flags in the wind. This physical movement from side to side mirrors his unsettled state of mind. Rocking between directions, he cannot find a fixed place to stand, an image of a people who have no secure position in their own land.

The unanswered questions. As he swings, the child pours out a stream of innocent yet piercing questions: where he comes from, when he will grow up and wear long trousers, and why his mother is regarded as a servant. These childish queries reveal a deep uncertainty about his origins, his future and his social worth. He does not know who he is or where he belongs, which is the heart of the identity crisis.

The crisis of race and place. The most disturbing question is the last, when the child asks why his father was taken away. This sudden shift from innocent play to the harsh reality of a father imprisoned exposes the political roots of the crisis. The black child's confusion about identity is caused by a system that has stripped his family of dignity, freedom and a settled home.

From innocence to painful awareness. The poem moves from the light imagery of play to the dark reality of injustice, suggesting that even in childhood the black South African is forced to confront a wounded, uncertain sense of self.

Through the swinging boy, therefore, Mtshali dramatises the identity crisis of a whole people: dispossessed, disoriented and searching, in a country that denies them a clear and dignified place.

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Irony is the very lifeblood of Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest. Wilde uses verbal, dramatic and situational irony throughout to satirise the hypocrisy, snobbery and shallow values of Victorian upper-class society.

Irony in the title and the name Ernest. The whole play turns on the pun in the title. The word earnest means sincere and serious, yet the two heroes, Jack and Algernon, are anything but sincere; they build their romances on lies. Both women declare they can love only a man named Ernest, so the men scramble to be christened Ernest. It is deeply ironic that a name associated with truthfulness is won through elaborate deception, and that Jack turns out, by an accident of birth, to be genuinely named Ernest after all.

Verbal irony and epigram. Wilde fills the dialogue with witty inversions that mean the opposite of conventional wisdom. Characters solemnly utter absurdities as if they were profound truths, for example treating trivial matters like cucumber sandwiches with grave seriousness while treating serious matters like marriage and death with flippancy. This constant reversal mocks the values of the society being portrayed.

Situational irony. The plot is built on ironic reversals. Jack invents a wicked brother called Ernest as an excuse to escape to town, while Algernon invents an invalid friend called Bunbury to escape to the country. The deceptions collide comically when Algernon actually appears as the fictitious Ernest. The revelation that Jack was found as a baby in a handbag at a railway station, and is in fact Algernon's elder brother truly named Ernest, is the crowning irony.

Dramatic irony. The audience often knows more than the characters, for instance that neither man is really named Ernest, which sharpens the comedy of the misunderstandings.

Through this rich web of irony Wilde exposes the pretence beneath respectable Victorian society, showing that its supposed earnestness is itself a comic sham.

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Santiago's recurring dream of the lions on the African beach is one of the most significant images in Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea. Though brief, the dream carries deep meaning about youth, strength and hope.

A memory of youth and vigour. The lions belong to Santiago's boyhood, when as a young sailor he saw lions come down to the shore in the evening on the coast of Africa. Dreaming of them takes the old, worn man back to a time of energy, strength and possibility. The dream therefore links his tired present to a vigorous past and reminds the reader that the frail fisherman was once young and powerful.

A symbol of strength, nobility and courage. The lion is the king of beasts, an emblem of majesty and fearless power. By dreaming of lions, Santiago is spiritually renewed with the very qualities he needs for his ordeal: pride, courage and undefeated dignity. The lions represent the heroic strength that still lives in his spirit even when his body is failing.

A source of peace and hope. The lions play gently on the beach like young cats, and the dream brings Santiago calm and contentment rather than fear. It suggests an inner peace and a hope that endures despite hardship.

Structural significance. The dream frames the novella. Santiago dreams of the lions before he sets out and, most importantly, in the very last line of the book he sleeps and again dreams of the lions after his exhausting defeat by the sharks. This final return to the lions signals that his spirit is unbroken, that he will rise to fish again, and that hope and youthful strength survive in him.

The significance of the lions, therefore, is that they embody youth, strength, courage and enduring hope, and their reappearance at the close affirms Hemingway's central theme that a man can be destroyed but not defeated.

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The military is an important background presence in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Purple Hibiscus. Set in an unstable, post-independence Nigeria, the novel uses the military to link the private tyranny of Eugene's home to the public tyranny of the state.

The coup and the atmosphere of fear. Early in the novel a military coup overthrows the government, and the radio announcements of soldiers seizing power establish an atmosphere of instability, censorship and dread that hangs over the whole story. Ordinary life is shadowed by roadblocks, corruption and the threat of violence.

The military and the persecution of truth. Eugene owns the Standard, a newspaper edited by the courageous Ade Coker, which dares to criticise the corrupt regime. The military strikes back: Ade Coker is detained and tortured, and is finally assassinated by a parcel bomb delivered to his home while he sits at breakfast with his family. Through this, Adichie exposes the brutality of military dictatorship toward the free press.

A mirror of domestic tyranny. The oppressive military state parallels Eugene's oppressive rule over his household. Just as the soldiers silence and terrorise citizens, Eugene silences and terrorises his wife and children. The public and the private forms of dictatorship reflect one another, so that the military theme deepens the novel's study of oppression.

Corruption and its cost. Bribery of officials, fuel scarcity and the general decay under military rule form the social backdrop against which the family drama unfolds, reminding the reader that the Achikes' troubles are part of a wider national sickness.

The military is therefore important both as realistic setting and as a symbol: it dramatises the crushing of freedom in the nation and mirrors, on a national scale, the crushing of freedom inside Eugene's home.

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The Soul's Errand, attributed to Sir Walter Raleigh and also known as The Lie, is a bitter, satirical poem in which a dying speaker sends his soul out on a bold mission to expose the hypocrisy and corruption of the world. The errand of the soul is the central organising idea of the poem.

The nature of the errand. The speaker, feeling that he must soon die, commissions his soul as a messenger. He calls it the body's guest and sends it on a thankless errand into a false and rotten world. The soul is to speak the plain truth fearlessly, taking truth itself as its warrant, and wherever it meets falsehood it is to give the world the lie, that is, to accuse each corrupt institution of lying.

The targets of the errand. The soul is sent to confront the great and powerful and to unmask their pretence. It is to tell the court that it glows and shines like rotten wood; to tell the church that it shows what is good yet does no good; to tell rulers and men in authority that they live by favour and act unjustly; to tell the learned that they lack depth, and the ambitious that they climb by flattery. One by one the soul is to expose the falsehood behind courtiers, churchmen, potentates, lawyers, physicians and every proud class of society.

The tone and purpose. The repeated command to give the lie gives the poem a defiant, accusing rhythm. The speaker is fearless because he is dying and has nothing left to lose; the world can do no worse than kill him, and to stab the soul is impossible. The errand therefore expresses a disillusioned man's determination to tell the whole truth about a hypocritical world before he leaves it.

The errand of the soul is thus a mission of fearless truth-telling and moral condemnation, in which the soul acts as a herald exposing the lies of every corrupt part of society.

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Romantic love is one of the chief targets of George Bernard Shaw's satire in Arms and the Man. Shaw treats it comically, exposing the false idealism of romantic love and setting against it a practical, honest affection.

Romantic love as illusion. At the start Raina Petkoff and Sergius Saranoff believe themselves joined in a lofty, poetic love, what they grandly call the higher love. They strike heroic poses, speak in exalted language and imagine their devotion to be noble and pure. Shaw presents this romantic idealism as a pretence that cannot survive contact with reality.

The exposure of the pose. The pose collapses almost at once. Sergius, the supposed hero and faithful lover, secretly flirts with the servant Louka behind Raina's back, revealing that his lofty love is hollow. Raina, for her part, is drawn to the fugitive Swiss soldier Bluntschli, the chocolate-cream soldier who hides in her bedroom, and confesses that even she has been playing a part. Shaw shows that the grand romantic love of Raina and Sergius is largely play-acting.

Realistic love as the alternative. Against this false romance Shaw sets a sensible, truthful love. Bluntschli is unromantic, frank and practical, and it is with him, not with the posturing Sergius, that Raina finds a genuine match. Likewise the ambitious servant Louka wins the aristocratic Sergius. Love that is based on truth and mutual understanding is rewarded, while empty romantic idealism is laughed off the stage.

Comic resolution. The play ends with two couples correctly paired according to real feeling rather than romantic pretence: Raina with Bluntschli and Sergius with Louka. The neat comic pairing underlines Shaw's point.

Romantic love is therefore treated with mockery. Shaw ridicules the theatrical, self-deceiving idealism of Raina and Sergius and champions instead a love grounded in honesty and common sense.

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The relationship between Eugene Achike and his wife Beatrice in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Purple Hibiscus is one of tyranny and silent suffering that finally erupts into resistance. Adichie uses the marriage to expose how religious fanaticism and domestic violence poison even an outwardly respectable home.

Domination and abuse. Eugene, called Papa, is a wealthy, publicly admired Catholic industrialist, but at home he is a violent religious tyrant. He beats Beatrice for the smallest supposed lapse. On one occasion he assaults her so severely while she is pregnant that she suffers a miscarriage; on another he flings a missal and later beats her until she loses a second pregnancy. His wife bears these attacks in near-total silence.

Beatrice's submission. For most of the novel Beatrice is the model of the crushed, obedient wife. She defends Eugene to her children, polishes the etagere figurines as a way of composing herself after each beating, and endures because tradition and her love for her husband make her cling to the marriage despite the danger.

The imbalance of power. Eugene controls every detail of the household, dictating schedules, prayers and conduct, while Beatrice has no voice. The contrast between his charitable public image and his private cruelty is one of Adichie's sharpest ironies.

The turning point. Beatrice's endurance finally breaks. Unable to escape openly, she poisons Eugene gradually by adding poison to his tea, and he dies. Her son Jaja takes the blame and goes to prison. The wife who seemed powerless becomes, in the end, the agent of her own release, though at terrible cost.

The relationship therefore moves from oppression through long-suffering silence to violent liberation, and through it Adichie condemns the abuse that hides behind piety and respectability.

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In Asare Konadu's A Woman in Her Prime, tradition shapes the whole relationship between Pokuwaa and her mother, and Konadu uses that relationship to weigh the pressure of custom against the value of personal peace.

Tradition as the source of anxiety. In the Akan village of Brenhoma a woman's worth is measured by her ability to bear children. Pokuwaa, though hard-working and prosperous, is childless after three marriages, and it is her mother who most keenly feels the shame this brings on the family. The mother's constant concern for grandchildren is not personal cruelty but the voice of tradition speaking through her; she wants her daughter to fulfil the role custom expects.

Tradition drives the round of rituals. Acting on customary belief, the mother urges Pokuwaa into repeated sacrifices and rites. Together they consult diviners and perform the sacrifices prescribed by the god Tano and the fetish priests, including the ritual killing of a sheep, in the hope of removing whatever curse or spiritual block is keeping Pokuwaa barren. The relationship is therefore built around shared religious observance dictated by tradition.

Tension and eventual release. The mother's traditional expectations place a quiet strain on Pokuwaa, who grows weary of endless rituals that yield nothing. A turning point comes when Pokuwaa resolves to stop the sacrifices and simply live her life, trusting that a child will come in its own time. Significantly, it is after she frees herself from the anxious pursuit of custom that she conceives. The mother's traditional pressure is thus shown to be well-meaning but ultimately less effective than Pokuwaa's calm acceptance.

Konadu presents the mother-daughter bond as loving yet dominated by tradition. Custom binds the two women together in shared ritual, but the novel finally suggests that peace of mind, not slavish adherence to tradition, brings fulfilment.

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In William Golding's Lord of the Flies, Ralph is the central figure around whom the action turns, and although he is flawed he functions as the hero of the novel because he stands for order, reason and humane leadership against the tide of savagery.

He is the elected leader. At the first assembly the boys choose Ralph as chief, largely because he possesses the conch that summons them. From the start he represents legitimate, democratic authority rather than force.

He champions civilisation. Ralph's leading policy is the signal fire kept burning on the mountain so that a passing ship may rescue them. His steady insistence on the fire, on shelters and on orderly meetings shows him working for the common good and for a return to the adult world of law and reason.

He grows in understanding. Ralph matures during the story. He learns to value the despised Piggy for his intelligence, and he gradually recognises the darkness that is overtaking the others. This growth in moral awareness is a mark of the hero.

He resists the descent into savagery. As Jack's hunters abandon rules for painted faces, blood and cruelty, Ralph almost alone holds to decency. He is horrified by the killings of Simon and Piggy and refuses to join the tribe, even when doing so would make him safe.

He is the hunted victim who is finally saved. In the climax the whole island is set ablaze to smoke Ralph out for the kill, and he flees for his life until he collapses at the feet of a naval officer. His survival, and his weeping for the end of innocence and for the death of his true, wise friend Piggy, confirm his role as the moral centre of the book.

Ralph is not perfect; he sometimes mocks Piggy and even shares briefly in the frenzy that kills Simon. Yet because he embodies order, responsibility and conscience, and because he suffers and endures in their defence, Ralph deserves to be regarded as the hero of Lord of the Flies.