Text and Human Experience – The Crucible
What emotion motivates Abigail Williams to manipulate others in Salem?
Jealousy
In The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, how does Eliot capture the paralysis of the modern individual?
Through fragmented stream-of-consciousness, rhetorical questions, and imagery of indecision.
Who seeks revenge in both The Tempest and Hag-Seed?
Prospero and Felix
The use of metaphor in a poem helps the reader to…?
Understand abstract ideas through comparison.
Define anomaly, paradox and inconsistencies?
Anomaly – Something that deviates from what is normal, expected, or typical. In texts, it often highlights unusual behaviours, events, or ideas.
Paradox – A statement, idea, or situation that seems contradictory but actually reveals a deeper truth or complexity.
Inconsistencies – When actions, ideas, or representations do not align or remain uniform; contradictions or variations in behaviour, belief, or presentation.
In what ways does John Proctor’s moral struggle embody the paradox of personal integrity versus survival?
Through his internal conflict between preserving his life and upholding truth and honour.
How does Preludes represent the alienation of urban life as a shared human experience?
Depicting monotonous routines, sordid imagery, and the fragmentation of identity.
What technique links Felix’s revenge plot to Shakespeare’s original play?
Intertextuality.
How does dramatic irony affect the audience?
Creates tension or highlights character flaws.
How does a text challenge the audience to reflect on their own experiences?
Through ethical dilemmas, emotional engagement, or universal themes?
How does Miller use the motif of hysteria to expose anomalies in collective human behaviour?
Showing how fear distorts reason, causing individuals to act against logic and justice
In Rhapsody on a Windy Night, what technique does Eliot use to portray the disintegration of memory and time?
Surreal imagery and personification that dissolve logical coherence.
Which character transformation most clearly interrogates the inconsistency between the desire for control and the necessity of letting go?
Prospero / Felix, whose eventual renunciation of power reflects the struggle between domination and acceptance?
How can an unreliable narrator shape meaning?
Challenging the reader's perception of truth.
How does the strategic use of paradox in a text challenge audiences to question assumptions about human behaviour?
By exposing contradictions (e.g. strength through weakness, freedom through confinement), forcing readers to confront complexities and inconsistencies in human experience?
Which moment in the play best reveals the tension between individual conscience and communal conformity, and why is it significant?
Proctor’s refusal to sign the false confession, symbolising resistance to oppressive authority.
In The Hollow Men, how does Eliot reveal the paradox of spiritual emptiness amidst modern existence?
By presenting figures who are lifeless yet conscious, symbolising paralysis and loss of faith.
How do both texts critique the illusion of control by exposing anomalies in human behaviour and authority?
Through Prospero’s magic and Felix’s theatrical manipulations, which reveal that attempts at total mastery are fragile, temporary, and self-deceptive.
A hamartia is...
It refers to a tragic flaw, error in judgment, or weakness in character that leads to the downfall of the tragic hero.
In what ways does intertextuality deepen the representation of paradoxical human experiences across texts?
By allowing authors to echo, subvert, or reimagine earlier works (e.g. Atwood rewriting Shakespeare) to highlight enduring contradictions in humanity.
How does Miller critique the destructive consequences of rigid societal norms through the representation of human suffering?
By showing how unwavering adherence to Puritan ideology leads to injustice, persecution, and death.
How does Journey of the Magi reflect both personal and collective transformation as a human experience?
By using biblical allusion and dramatic monologue to depict spiritual rebirth as painful yet necessary.
In both The Tempest and Hag-Seed, how do Shakespeare and Atwood interrogate the tension between art as a tool of control and art as a vehicle for liberation? Discuss how each text represents this paradox in human experience.
By showing that Prospero uses theatre and magic to dominate others before relinquishing them for forgiveness, while Felix manipulates prisoners through performance but ultimately finds release and self-transformation, revealing the double-edged nature of art as both coercive and redemptive.
What is pathetic fallacy and what is its impact?
Pathetic fallacy is a literary technique where human emotions or moods are attributed to nature, weather, or the environment.
What does 'representation' mean?
The composer’s deliberate shaping of ideas. The way ideas are portrayed and represented in texts, using language devices, forms, features and structures of texts to create specific views about characters, events and ideas. Representation embeds attitudes, beliefs and values and reinforces or challenges existing values and ways of thinking or may attempt to reshape them.