MERGED QUESTION PAPER> MARK SCHEME>INSERT> 100% GUARANTEE
A-level
ENGLISH LITERATURE A
Paper 1 Love through the ages
Friday 24 May 2024 Morning Time allowed: 3 hours
Materials
For this paper you must have:
• an AQA 12-page answer book
• a copy of each of the set texts you have studied for Section C. These texts must not be
annotated and must not contain additional notes or materials.
Instructions
• Use black ink or black ball-point pen.
• Write the information required on the front of your answer book. The Paper Reference is 7712/1.
• In Section A you will answer one question about a Shakespeare play.
• In Section B you will answer the one question about unseen poetry.
• In Section C you will answer one question about two texts: one poetry text and one prose text,
one of which must be written pre-1900.
• Do all rough work in your answer book. Cross through any work you do not want to be marked.
Information
• The marks for questions are shown in brackets.
• The maximum mark for this paper is 75.
• You will be marked on your ability to:
– use good English
– organise information clearly
– use specialist vocabulary where appropriate.
• In your response you need to:
– analyse carefully the writers’ methods
– explore the contexts of the texts you are writing about
– explore connections across the texts you have studied
– explore different interpretations of your texts.
IB/H/Jun24/G4006/E10 7712/1
, 2
Section A: Shakespeare
Answer one question in this section.
Either
0 1 Othello – William Shakespeare
‘In Othello, Iago’s skills make him a likeable anti-hero rather than a hateful villain.’
In the light of this view, discuss how Shakespeare presents Iago’s attitudes to love in this
extract and elsewhere in the play.
[25 marks]
IAGO Come, come; good wine is a good familiar creature if
it be well used: exclaim no more against it. And, good
Lieutenant, I think you think I love you.
CASSIO I have well approved it, sir. I drunk!
IAGO You or any man living may be drunk at a time, man.
I’ll tell you what you shall do. Our General’s wife is
now the General. I may say so in this respect, for that
he hath devoted and given up himself to the contempla-
tion, mark, and denotement of her parts and graces.
Confess yourself freely to her; importune her help to
put you in your place again. She is of so free, so kind, so
apt, so blessed a disposition, that she holds it a vice in her
goodness not to do more than she is requested. This
broken joint between you and her husband, entreat her
to splinter; and my fortunes against any lay worth
naming, this crack of your love shall grow stronger than
it was before.
CASSIO You advise me well.
IAGO I protest in the sincerity of love and honest kind-
ness.
CASSIO I think it freely; and betimes in the morning I will
beseech the virtuous Desdemona to undertake for me.
I am desperate of my fortunes if they check me here.
IAGO You are in the right. Good night, Lieutenant, I must
to the watch.
CASSIO Good night, honest Iago. Exit
IAGO
And what’s he then that says I play the villain,
When this advice is free I give, and honest,
Probal to thinking, and indeed the course
To win the Moor again? For ’tis most easy
Th’inclining Desdemona to subdue
In any honest suit. She’s framed as fruitful
As the free elements; and then for her
To win the Moor, were’t to renounce his baptism,
All seals and symbols of redeemèd sin,
His soul is so enfettered to her love,
That she may make, unmake, do what she list,
IB/H/Jun24/7712/1
, 3
Even as her appetite shall play the god
With his weak function. How am I then a villain
To counsel Cassio to this parallel course
Directly to his good? Divinity of hell!
When devils will the blackest sins put on,
They do suggest at first with heavenly shows
As I do now. For whiles this honest fool
Plies Desdemona to repair his fortunes
And she for him pleads strongly to the Moor,
I’ll pour this pestilence into his ear:
That she repeals him for her body’s lust,
And by how much she strives to do him good,
She shall undo her credit with the Moor.
So will I turn her virtue into pitch,
And out of her own goodness make the net
That shall enmesh them all.
(Act 2, Scene 3)
Turn over for the next question
Turn over ►
IB/H/Jun24/7712/1
, 4
or
0 2 The Taming of the Shrew – William Shakespeare
‘Grumio and other servants are crucial to the development of the love stories in The
Taming of the Shrew.’
In the light of this view, discuss how Shakespeare presents Grumio and other servants in
this extract and elsewhere in the play.
[25 marks]
CURTIS I prithee, good Grumio, tell me how goes the
world?
He kindles a fire
GRUMIO A cold world, Curtis, in every office but thine –
and therefore fire. Do thy duty, and have thy duty, for
my master and mistress are almost frozen to death.
CURTIS There’s fire ready – and therefore, good Grumio,
the news.
GRUMIO Why, ‘Jack boy, ho boy!’ and as much news as
wilt thou.
CURTIS Come, you are so full of cony-catching.
GRUMIO Why therefore fire, for I have caught extreme
cold. Where’s the cook? Is supper ready, the house
trimmed, rushes strewed, cobwebs swept, the serving-
men in their new fustian, their white stockings, and
every officer his wedding-garment on? Be the Jacks
fair within, the Jills fair without, the carpets laid, and
everything in order?
CURTIS All ready – and therefore, I pray thee, news.
GRUMIO First know my horse is tired, my master and
mistress fallen out.
CURTIS How?
GRUMIO Out of their saddles into the dirt, and thereby
hangs a tale.
CURTIS Let’s ha’t, good Grumio.
GRUMIO Lend thine ear.
CURTIS Here.
GRUMIO There.
He boxes Curtis’s ear
CURTIS This ’tis to feel a tale, not to hear a tale.
GRUMIO And therefore ’tis called a sensible tale; and this
cuff was but to knock at your ear and beseech listening.
Now I begin. Imprimis, we came down a foul hill, my
master riding behind my mistress –
CURTIS Both of one horse?
GRUMIO What’s that to thee?
CURTIS Why, a horse.
GRUMIO Tell thou the tale. But hadst thou not crossed
me, thou shouldst have heard how her horse fell, and
she under her horse; thou shouldst have heard in how
miry a place, how she was bemoiled, how he left her
IB/H/Jun24/7712/1
