2021 jupeb literature

2021 jupeb literature

LIT 001: INTRODUCTION TO DRAMA

  1. Discuss the theme of appearance versus reality in Shakespeare’s King Lear.

  2. Henry IV is a battle of allegiance between two Harrys. Discuss.

  3. Highlight the dramatic techniques used to express the discontent of the robbers with society in Once upon Four Robbers.

  4. Focusing on the relationship between the Kingundas and the Kiois, justify the theme of class struggles in I Will Marry When I Want.

LIT 002: INTRODUCTION TO PROSE FICTION

  1. Discuss the concept of class in Hard Times.

  2. Examine the interplay between love and sacrifice in The Mill on the Floss.

  3. Analyze the images of Post-colonialism in Achebe’s Anthills of the Savannah.

  4. Explicate how Amma Darko uses Mara to reinforce patriarchy in Beyond the Horizon.

LIT 003: INTRODUCTION TO POETRY

  1. Examine images of disgust in Adeoti’s Hardlines.

  2. Illustrate Osundare’s focus on the resilience of the earth in “Our Earth will not Die”.

  3. The gods and fate are central to the understanding of Virgil’s Aeneid. Discuss.

LIT 004: LITERARY APPRECIATION AND PRACTICAL CRITICISM

  1. Using the passage from Guy de Maupassant’s The Necklace:

· (a) What type(s) of images are presented in the passage?

· (b) Bring out the conflict(s) discernible in the passage.

· © Give a character sketch of the woman described in the passage.

  1. Using A. E. Housman’s poem “Loveliest of Trees”:

· Explain the use of the words “only” and “little” in relation to the age of the persona.

· Describe his/her perception of time and life.

CORRECT ANSWERS (Model Answers)

Note: These are brief, correct answers based on standard literary criticism.

LIT 001

  1. Appearance vs. Reality in King Lear:

· Goneril and Regan’s false declarations of love (appearance) vs. Cordelia’s honest “nothing” (reality).

· Edgar disguised as Poor Tom (appearance) vs. his true nobility (reality).

· Gloucester’s blindness to Edmund’s betrayal (appearance of loyalty).

· The Fool’s wisdom disguised as foolishness.

· Lear’s realization of true human nature only after losing power.

  1. Battle of allegiance between two Harrys:

· Prince Hal (future Henry V) vs. Hotspur (Harry Percy).

· Hal appears irresponsible but is honorable; Hotspur appears glorious but is reckless.

· The battle at Shrewsbury symbolizes the contest for true kingly virtue.

· Hal matures and defeats Hotspur, showing that allegiance is earned by character, not just reputation.

  1. Dramatic techniques in Once upon Four Robbers (Femi Osofisan):

· Use of play-within-a-play (meta-theatre).

· Songs and chants to express social discontent.

· Direct address to the audience (breaking the fourth wall).

· Satirical characterization of robbers as symbols of oppressed masses.

· Symbolism (e.g., wealth representing corruption).

  1. Class struggles in I Will Marry When I Want (Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o & Ngũgĩ wa Mĩriĩ):

· Kioi family (wealthy, comprador class) vs. Kĩgũũnda family (poor peasants).

· Exploitation through religion, land ownership, and false consciousness.

· Marriage as a metaphor for economic subjugation.

· Class struggle revealed through dialogue, proverbs, and songs.

LIT 002

  1. Concept of class in Hard Times (Charles Dickens):

· Gradgrind’s utilitarianism serves the ruling class.

· Stephen Blackpool (worker) vs. Bounderby (capitalist).

· Sleary’s circus as a counter-culture of compassion.

· Louisa as a victim of class-based marriage.

· Dickens critiques industrial capitalism’s dehumanization.

  1. Love and sacrifice in The Mill on the Floss (George Eliot):

· Maggie’s love for Philip Wakem vs. her sacrifice due to family feud.

· Love for Stephen Guest sacrificed for moral integrity.

· Tom’s rigid love conditioned on loyalty.

· Final flood scene mutual sacrifice (though ambiguous).

· Love often requires renunciation of personal happiness.

  1. Images of Post-colonialism in Anthills of the Savannah (Chinua Achebe):

· The “anthill” as symbol of fragile power.

· Beatrice’s role as new woman – postcolonial transformation.

· Use of newspaper (The Gazette) to show neocolonial control of information.

· Ikem’s poetry as resistance.

· The ending with naming of child (Aina) – hope for renewal.

  1. Mara reinforcing patriarchy in Beyond the Horizon (Amma Darko):

· Mara initially seems victim but colludes with male characters.

· She pressures others to accept male domination.

· Internalized patriarchy – women enforcing their own subordination.

· Contrast with Benia’s resistance.

· Darko shows patriarchy is maintained by both sexes.

LIT 003

  1. Images of disgust in Adeoti’s Hardlines:

· Urban decay, pollution, crowded spaces.

· Corruption and moral filth in bureaucracy.

· Bodily imagery (sweat, waste, disease).

· Rotting infrastructure as metaphor for failed governance.

· Disgust as political critique.

  1. Resilience of the earth in Osundare’s “Our Earth will not Die”:

· Cyclical imagery (seasons, regeneration).

· Contrast between human destruction and nature’s persistence.

· Metaphors of rising, blooming, recovering.

· Collective “we” – communal survival.

· Optimistic tone despite environmental threats.

  1. Gods and fate in Virgil’s Aeneid:

· Jupiter’s prophecy of Rome’s destiny.

· Juno’s opposition (fate vs. divine spite).

· Aeneas’s pietas – submitting to fate.

· Dido’s tragedy as conflict with fate.

· The underworld revelation of Rome’s future.

· Fate as unstoppable and providential.

LIT 004

  1. (a) Types of images – tactile (drab walls, threadbare furniture), visual (oriental tapestries, bronze lamps), olfactory (perfume).

(b) Conflicts – internal (desire vs. reality), social (poverty vs. luxury), psychological (despair vs. fantasy).

© Character sketch – discontented, ambitious, imaginative, prideful, passive, self-pitying, materialistic.

  1. “Only” and “little” in Housman’s poem:

· “Only leaves me fifty more” – fifty years seems insufficient, reveals youthful impatience.

· “Little room” – fifty springs compressed in time, shows intensity of life’s brevity.

· Perception of time – fleeting, urgent, measured by natural cycles (cherry blooms).

· Perception of life – precious, short, to be seized immediately (going to see the cherry hung with snow).

· The persona is young (20) but already aware of mortality – carpe diem theme.

Below is a transcription of all questions in Section B (Essay Questions) from the provided document, followed by correct answers based on standard literary knowledge.

SECTION B: ESSAY QUESTIONS

LIT 001: INTRODUCTION TO DRAMA

  1. Discuss the theme of appearance versus reality in Shakespeare’s King Lear.

  2. Henry IV is a battle of allegiance between two Harrys. Discuss.

  3. Highlight the dramatic techniques used to express the discontent of the robbers with society in Once upon Four Robbers.

  4. Focusing on the relationship between the Kingundas and the Kiois, justify the theme of class struggles in I Will Marry When I Want.

LIT 002: INTRODUCTION TO PROSE FICTION

  1. Discuss the concept of class in Hard Times.

  2. Examine the interplay between love and sacrifice in The Mill on the Floss.

  3. Analyze the images of Post-colonialism in Achebe’s Anthills of the Savannah.

  4. Explicate how Amma Darko uses Mara to reinforce patriarchy in Beyond the Horizon.

LIT 003: INTRODUCTION TO POETRY

  1. Examine images of disgust in Adeoti’s Hardlines.

  2. Illustrate Osundare’s focus on the resilience of the earth in “Our Earth will not Die”.

  3. The gods and fate are central to the understanding of Virgil’s Aeneid. Discuss.

LIT 004: LITERARY APPRECIATION AND PRACTICAL CRITICISM

  1. Using the passage from Guy de Maupassant’s The Necklace:

· (a) What type(s) of images are presented in the passage?

· (b) Bring out the conflict(s) discernible in the passage.

· © Give a character sketch of the woman described in the passage.

  1. Using A. E. Housman’s poem “Loveliest of Trees”:

· Explain the use of the words “only” and “little” in relation to the age of the persona.

· Describe his/her perception of time and life.

#Solutions

LIT 001: INTRODUCTION TO DRAMA

Question 1: Examine the statement that identifying the tragic hero of Sophocles’ Antigone is contentious.

The question of who the tragic hero is in Antigone is genuinely debated because both Antigone and Creon possess qualities that qualify them for the role.

Antigone as tragic hero: She is noble, morally driven, and suffers a fatal end. Her hamartia is excessive pride and inflexibility. She defies Creon’s edict to bury her brother Polynices, driven by divine law over civil law. She faces her fate consciously and with dignity, evoking pity and fear — hallmarks of Aristotelian tragedy.

Creon as tragic hero: Creon equally fits the mould. He is a king (noble), his hamartia is hubris — excessive pride and abuse of authority. His decisions lead to the deaths of Antigone, his son Haemon, and his wife Eurydice. He recognises his error too late, experiencing anagnorisis (recognition) and peripeteia (reversal of fortune), which are core Aristotelian requirements.

Conclusion: The contention arises because Sophocles constructed the play so that both characters carry tragic weight. However, many scholars lean toward Creon as the more complete tragic hero by Aristotelian standards, since his suffering and recognition are more dramatically developed. The play’s title, however, privileges Antigone.

Question 2: Demonstrate how irony is used as a device in King Oedipus.

Irony is central to King Oedipus and operates on multiple levels:

Dramatic irony: The audience knows from the outset that Oedipus is the murderer of his father and husband of his mother. Yet Oedipus relentlessly pursues the truth, unaware he is hunting himself. When he curses the murderer of Laius, he unknowingly curses himself.

Situational irony: Oedipus flees Corinth to avoid the prophecy, but his flight is precisely what fulfils it. His attempt to escape fate ironically leads him toward it.

Verbal irony: Oedipus boasts of his sharp vision and intelligence, yet he is metaphorically blind to the truth. Tiresias, the blind prophet, can “see” clearly what Oedipus cannot. When Oedipus finally discovers the truth, he blinds himself — a physical enactment of the irony.

Conclusion: Sophocles uses irony to create tension, deepen the tragic impact, and explore themes of fate, free will, and the limits of human knowledge.

Question 3: Show how I Will Marry When I Want is a Marxist drama.

Ngugi wa Thiong’o and Ngugi wa Mirii’s I Will Marry When I Want is firmly rooted in Marxist ideology:

Class struggle: The play dramatises the conflict between the wealthy landowning class (represented by Kioi and his allies) and the exploited peasant class (represented by Kiguunda and Wangeci). The bourgeoisie manipulates religion and social institutions to maintain dominance.

Economic exploitation: Kiguunda works hard yet remains poor. His one acre of land, represented by the title deed, symbolises the peasant’s fragile claim to dignity. When he is manipulated into mortgaging it and eventually loses it, the play illustrates how capitalism dispossesses the poor.

Religion as a tool of oppression: The ruling class uses Christianity to pacify the workers. Kioi pressures Kiguunda into a church wedding, which ultimately serves the interests of the rich, not spiritual growth.

Alienation: Kiguunda’s labour does not benefit him. He is alienated from the fruits of his work, consistent with Marx’s concept of alienated labour.

Conclusion: The play advocates collective resistance and class consciousness, ending with a call for the workers to unite — a distinctly Marxist resolution.

Question 4: Discuss armed robbery as a symbol of failure of governance in Once Upon Four Robbers.

In Femi Osofisan’s Once Upon Four Robbers, armed robbery is not merely a criminal act but a powerful symbol of systemic governance failure:

Socioeconomic context: The four robbers — Aafa, Hassan, Major, and Angola — are not born criminals. They are products of a society that has failed to provide opportunity, justice, or equity. Their turn to robbery reflects desperation born of poverty and unemployment.

Indictment of the state: Osofisan uses the robbers to hold a mirror to Nigerian society. A state that cannot protect its citizens economically or physically breeds criminality. The robbers represent the logical outcome of misgovernance, corruption, and neglect.

Moral ambiguity: Osofisan deliberately makes the audience sympathise with the robbers. This challenges simplistic condemnation and forces a deeper examination of why crime thrives — pointing to leadership failure.

The magic and the market: The use of the enchanted music to freeze market victims further symbolises how the vulnerable masses are paralysed by systems beyond their control, just as bad governance leaves citizens powerless.

Conclusion: Osofisan argues that armed robbery is a symptom, not the disease. The real failure lies with those entrusted with governance who have abandoned their responsibility to the people.

LIT 002: INTRODUCTION TO PROSE FICTION

Question 5: Explain the significance of Coketown in Charles Dickens’ Hard Times.

Coketown is not merely a setting in Hard Times — it is a symbol and a central thematic device:

Symbol of industrialisation: Coketown represents the dehumanising effects of the Industrial Revolution. It is described as a town of machinery and tall chimneys, red brick blackened by smoke, a place where everything is fact and utility. It embodies the Gradgrind philosophy of strict rationalism and profit.

Critique of Utilitarianism: Dickens uses Coketown to attack the Utilitarian ideology that reduces human beings to economic units. The town’s grimness reflects what happens when imagination, emotion, and individuality are suppressed in favour of productivity.

Social inequality: Coketown exposes the stark division between factory owners like Bounderby and the working-class “Hands.” The workers live in squalor while the owners accumulate wealth, highlighting the injustice embedded in industrial capitalism.

Psychological impact: The oppressive environment of Coketown stifles creativity and happiness, as seen in the lives of characters like Stephen Blackpool, who suffers without recourse. The town mirrors the spiritual emptiness that results from a life governed only by facts.

Conclusion: Coketown functions as Dickens’ moral and social argument — a vivid indictment of a society that prioritises industry over humanity.

Question 6: Describe the treatment of women in the Victorian era as portrayed in George Eliot’s The Mill on the Floss.

George Eliot’s The Mill on the Floss offers a profound critique of how Victorian society treated women through the experiences of Maggie Tulliver:

Intellectual suppression: Maggie is clearly more intelligent than her brother Tom, yet society invests in Tom’s education while Maggie’s intellect is dismissed as inappropriate for a girl. This reflects the Victorian belief that education was a male privilege.

Social conformity: Women were expected to be modest, obedient, and domestically focused. Maggie’s passionate, independent nature constantly brings her into conflict with social expectations. She is repeatedly punished for failing to conform.

Limited choices: Maggie’s options are severely restricted. Marriage is essentially the only respectable path for women. Her relationship with Philip Wakem and later Stephen Guest exposes how women’s emotional lives were controlled by male authority figures — her brother, her father, and social convention.

Double standard: When Maggie is compromised by her unintended elopement with Stephen, society condemns her while Stephen escapes serious censure. This double moral standard is a pointed critique of Victorian gender hypocrisy.

Conclusion: Through Maggie’s tragic fate, Eliot argues that Victorian society’s treatment of women was fundamentally unjust, crushing female potential and denying women the freedom to live authentically.

Question 7: Highlight the significance of the strike in Sembene Ousmane’s God’s Bits of Wood.

The 1947–48 Dakar-Niger railway strike that forms the backbone of God’s Bits of Wood carries enormous significance on multiple levels:

Political awakening: The strike represents the African workers’ collective rejection of colonial exploitation. It marks the transition from passive suffering to active resistance, signalling a new political consciousness among the workers.

Unity across divisions: The strike unites workers across different communities — Dakar, Thiès, and Bamako. It transcends tribal, linguistic, and regional differences, demonstrating the power of solidarity in the face of oppression.

Role of women: One of the most significant aspects of the strike is the transformation of women. Characters like Penda and Ramatoulaye move from domestic roles to active participation in the struggle. The women’s march from Thiès to Dakar is a landmark moment of female empowerment and political agency.

Economic and human cost: Ousmane does not romanticise the strike. Hunger, death, and suffering are vividly portrayed, underscoring the genuine sacrifice required for liberation.

Symbol of decolonisation: The strike is a microcosm of the broader African independence movement — workers demanding equal pay and equal treatment foreshadow the larger demand for political freedom.

Conclusion: The strike in the novel is ultimately a symbol of human dignity, collective power, and the unstoppable momentum of African self-determination.

Question 8: Comment on Chinua Achebe’s mode of narration in Anthills of the Savannah.

Achebe employs a sophisticated and innovative narrative technique in Anthills of the Savannah:

Multiple narrators: Unlike his earlier novels, Achebe uses multiple first-person narrators — Chris, Ikem, and Beatrice each take turns narrating. This polyphonic structure reflects the complexity of post-independence Nigeria, where no single voice can capture the full truth.

Shifting perspectives: The shifting perspectives prevent any one character from being an unqualified hero or villain. Each narrator has blind spots and biases, creating a nuanced, realistic portrayal of political life.

Beatrice’s significance: Achebe’s decision to give a woman a major narrative voice is deliberate. Beatrice’s perspective broadens the novel’s scope beyond the male political sphere, introducing gender as a lens through which to examine power.

Omniscient intrusions: Achebe occasionally shifts to a third-person omniscient voice, allowing broader commentary on events and providing ironic distance from the characters’ self-perceptions.

Oral tradition: Elements of oral storytelling — proverbs, communal voices, and the story of the Abazon elder — are woven into the narrative, grounding the novel in African literary tradition even as it employs modernist techniques.

Conclusion: Achebe’s multi-voiced narration in Anthills of the Savannah reflects his mature artistic vision — a recognition that complex political and social realities require equally complex narrative forms.

LIT 003: INTRODUCTION TO POETRY

Question 9: Discuss T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land as a representation of the 20th century poem.

The Waste Land (1922) is widely regarded as the defining poem of 20th century Modernism:

Fragmentation: The poem’s structure — five sections, multiple voices, languages, and literary allusions — mirrors the fragmented, disillusioned world after World War I. This formal fragmentation reflects the breakdown of traditional certainties.

Intertextuality: Eliot draws on an extraordinary range of sources — Shakespeare, Dante, the Bible, Upanishads, Arthurian legend, and popular culture. This technique of allusion reflects the Modernist belief that literature must engage with the whole of human civilisation.

Spiritual dryness: The central metaphor of the waste land — a sterile, dry, spiritually dead landscape — captures the moral and spiritual crisis of modern Western civilisation. The absence of water symbolises the absence of spiritual renewal.

Urban alienation: Eliot portrays the modern city (London) as a place of alienation, meaningless routine, and disconnection, reflecting the dehumanising effects of modernity.

Stream of consciousness and juxtaposition: The poem shifts abruptly between scenes, time periods, and voices without transition, reflecting the Modernist technique of juxtaposition to create meaning through contrast.

Conclusion: The Waste Land embodies the 20th century poem through its rejection of Victorian certainty, its embrace of complexity and ambiguity, and its unflinching diagnosis of modern civilisation’s spiritual bankruptcy.

Question 10: Describe the presentation of the earth in Niyi Osundare’s “Homecall” in Eye of the Earth.

In “Homecall,” Osundare presents the earth as a living, nurturing, and sacred entity:

The earth as mother: The earth is personified as a maternal figure — warm, welcoming, and life-giving. The persona returns to the earth not merely as a physical place but as a spiritual home, suggesting a deep ancestral bond.

Celebration of nature: Osundare uses rich sensory imagery to celebrate the natural world — the soil, vegetation, and landscape are presented with reverence and affection. Nature is not a backdrop but an active, breathing presence.

African cosmology: The poem reflects a distinctly African worldview in which the earth is sacred and humans are stewards, not masters. The relationship between humans and the earth is reciprocal and spiritual.

Environmental consciousness: Osundare’s presentation carries an implicit environmental message. By celebrating the earth’s beauty and sanctity, he mourns its exploitation and calls for its protection.

Language and form: The poem’s lush, musical language — with its use of Yoruba-inflected rhythms and imagery — reinforces the sense of a deep, organic connection between the poet, his people, and the land.

Conclusion: In “Homecall,” the earth is simultaneously mother, home, and spiritual anchor — a celebration of nature rooted in African cultural identity and a plea for environmental responsibility.

Question 11: Explain the theme of injustice in Gbemisola Adeoti’s "Hard Lines."

Gbemisola Adeoti’s “Hard Lines” is a powerful indictment of social and economic injustice in contemporary Nigeria:

Economic inequality: The poem portrays the stark contrast between the privileged few and the suffering masses. “Hard lines” operates as a double entendre — referring both to the harsh realities of the poor and to the lines of hardship etched into their lives.

Political oppression: Adeoti critiques a political class that enriches itself at the expense of ordinary citizens. The poem suggests that injustice is not accidental but systemic — engineered by those in power to maintain their dominance.

Suffering of the masses: The imagery of the poem conveys physical and psychological suffering — hunger, deprivation, and hopelessness — that characterises the lives of the poor in a corrupt society.

Irony and satire: Adeoti employs irony to heighten the sense of injustice. The contrast between the rhetoric of governance and the reality of people’s lives is used to satirise the hypocrisy of leadership.

Call for resistance: Beneath the portrayal of suffering is an implicit call for awareness and resistance. The poem refuses to accept injustice as natural or inevitable.

Conclusion: “Hard Lines” uses the personal and the political to expose the deeply embedded injustices of Nigerian society, making it both a social document and a work of artistic protest.

Question 12: Discuss the significance of dreams as a technique for recreating man in Faerie Queene.

Edmund Spenser uses dreams in The Faerie Queene as a significant narrative and thematic device:

Dreams as moral testing ground: Dreams in the poem serve as spaces where characters encounter temptation, virtue, and vice in heightened form. They reveal the inner moral state of characters and test their spiritual resolve.

The Redcrosse Knight: In Book I, Archimago uses false dreams to deceive the Redcrosse Knight, planting images of Una’s supposed infidelity. This shows how dreams can be manipulated as instruments of corruption, reflecting the vulnerability of the human soul to deception.

Allegorical function: Since The Faerie Queene is an extended allegory, dreams serve as a natural allegorical device — externalising interior spiritual struggles and making abstract virtues and vices visible and dramatic.

Recreation of man: Dreams allow characters to encounter idealised or corrupted versions of themselves and others, prompting moral growth or decline. They become a space in which the self is dismantled and reconstructed — a tool for spiritual education in line with Spenser’s broader moral purpose.

Renaissance context: In Renaissance thought, dreams were considered gateways to deeper truth or divine/demonic communication. Spenser exploits this belief to enrich his moral allegory.

Conclusion: Dreams in The Faerie Queene are not mere plot devices but thematic instruments through which Spenser explores the formation, corruption, and redemption of the human soul.

LIT 004: LITERARY APPRECIATION AND PRACTICAL CRITICISM

Question 13: Franz Kafka — 'A Hunger Artist’

(a) Point of view:

The passage employs third-person limited omniscient point of view. The narrator is outside the character but has deep access to the hunger artist’s inner thoughts, anxieties, and self-justifications. The use of rhetorical questions — “Why stop now?”, “why should he be cheated?” — gives the impression that we are inside the character’s mind. This choice is significant because it allows Kafka to present the artist’s obsessive self-regard with ironic distance; the reader can simultaneously understand and critique the character.

(b) The subject’s perception of the audience:

The hunger artist views his audience with a mixture of contempt and resentment. He feels they lack the patience and understanding to appreciate his art fully. He believes he is capable of fasting beyond imagination, yet his public is too fickle to endure witnessing it. He sees them as admirers who are ultimately superficial — they “pretended to admire him” but quickly lose interest. This perception reveals the artist’s fundamental alienation: he is performing for an audience he despises yet desperately needs for validation.

© Most suitable critical approach:

The psychoanalytic (psychological) approach is most suitable. The passage is deeply concerned with the hunger artist’s inner psychology — his obsessive need for recognition, his narcissism, his resentment, and his inability to find satisfaction. Kafka’s own biography, marked by feelings of alienation and an impossible desire for approval, further supports a psychoanalytic reading. The artist’s compulsive fasting can be read as a manifestation of neurotic behaviour — a self-destructive pursuit of an unattainable ideal of perfection.

Question 14: Roo Borson — 'Save Us From’

(a) Concern of the poem:

The poem’s central concern is the dehumanising, spiritually hollow nature of modern life, particularly as represented by the imagery of the night, highways, gas stations, and all-night cafes.

  • The phrase “bleak open highways without end” uses visual imagery to suggest the aimlessness and emptiness of modern existence — endless movement without purpose or destination.

  • “Fluorescent oases of gas stations” is a powerful oxymoron: an oasis suggests refuge and life, but here it is fluorescent and artificial — a false salvation in the wilderness of modernity.

  • “Gunning of immortal engines past midnight” personifies machines as immortal, suggesting that technology has outlasted or overpowered human spiritual life. The word “gunning” introduces a sense of violence and aggression.

  • “When time has no meaning” captures the disorientation of modern life — the loss of natural rhythm, rest, and spiritual grounding.

  • “Ghoulish slices of pie” in all-night cafes uses grotesque imagery to suggest that even basic nourishment has become sinister and unnatural in this modern landscape.

The poem’s tone is one of supplication — “Save us” — indicating that the speaker feels genuinely threatened and overwhelmed by these forces, not merely inconvenienced.

(b) Most suitable critical approach:

The Marxist or sociological approach is most suitable, though an ecocritical reading is also valid. The poem critiques the material conditions of modern capitalist society — the infrastructure of highways, gas stations, and 24-hour cafes — as spiritually corrosive. From a Marxist perspective, these images represent the commodification of time and space, the erasure of natural human rhythms in service of economic productivity. The poem implicitly argues that the modern capitalist landscape dehumanises and endangers the human spirit.

Share this

You may like these posts