Grade 9 model answers for GCSE English Language Paper 1 (AQA), Section A, responding to an extract taken from ‘The Haunting of Hill House’ by Shirley Jackson.
This resource includes:
- the extract, with relevant quotes highlighted
- one four mark question
- two eight mark questions (lan...
1 Sitting up in the two beds beside each other, Eleanor and Theodora reached out between and held
hands tight; the room was brutally cold and thickly dark. From the room next door, the room which
until that morning had been Theodora’s, came the steady low sound of a voice babbling, too low for
words to be understood, too steady for disbelief. Holding hands so hard that each of them could feel
5 the other’s bones, Eleanor and Theodora listened, and the low, steady sound went on and on, the voice
lifting sometimes for an emphasis on a mumbled word, falling sometimes to a breath, going on and
on. Then, without warning, there was a little laugh, the small gurgling laugh that broke through the
babbling, and rose as it laughed, on up and up the scale, and then broke off suddenly in a little painful
gasp, and the voice went on.
10 Theodora’s grasp loosened, and tightened, and Eleanor, lulled for a minute by the sounds, started and
looked across to where Theodora ought to be in the darkness, and then thought, screamingly, Why is it
dark? Why is it dark? She rolled and clutched Theodora’s hand with both of hers, and tried to speak
and could not, and held on, blindly, and frozen, trying to stand her mind on its feet, trying to reason
again. We left the light on, she told herself, so why is it dark? Theodora, she tried to whisper, and her
15 mouth could not move; Theodora, she tried to ask, why is it dark? and the voice went on, babbling,
low and steady, a little liquid gloating sound. She thought she might be able to distinguish words if
she lay perfectly still, if she lay perfectly still, and listened, and listened and heard the voice going on
and on, never ceasing, and she hung desperately to Theodora’s hand and felt an answering weight on
her own hand.
20 Then the little gurgling laugh came again, and the rising mad sound of it drowned out the voice, and
then suddenly absolute silence. Eleanor took a breath, wondering if she could speak now, and then she
heard a little soft cry which broke her heart, a little infinitely sad cry, a little sweet moan of wild
sadness. It is a child, she thought with disbelief, a child is crying somewhere, and then, upon that
thought, came the wild shrieking voice she had never heard before and yet knew she had heard always
25 in her nightmares. “Go away!” it screamed. “Go away, go away, don’t hurt me,” and, after, sobbing,
“Please don’t hurt me. Please let me go home,” and then the little sad crying again.
I can’t stand it, Eleanor thought concretely. This is monstrous, this is cruel, they have been hurting a
child and I won’t let anyone hurt a child, and the babbling went on, low and steady, on and on and on,
the voice rising a little and falling a little, going on and on.
30 Now, Eleanor thought, perceiving that she was lying sideways on the bed in the black darkness,
holding with both hands to Theodora’s hand, holding so tight she could feel the fine bones of
Theodora’s fingers, now, I will not endure this. They think to scare me. Well, they have. I am scared,
but more than that, I am a person, I am human, I am a walking reasoning humorous human being and
I will take a lot from this lunatic filthy house but I will not go along with hurting a child, no, I will
35 not; I will by God get my mouth to open right now and I will yell I will I will yell “STOP IT,” she
shouted, and the lights were on the way they had left them and Theodora was sitting up in bed,
startled and dishevelled.
“What?” Theodora was saying. “What, Nell? What?” “God God,” Eleanor said, flinging herself out of
bed and across the room to stand shuddering in a corner, “God God—whose hand was I holding?”
Extract taken from Chapter 5 of ‘The Haunting of Hill House’ by Shirley Jackson.
http://havenner.weebly.com/uploads/2/0/5/7/20575006/jackson-shirley-the-haunting-of-hill-house.pdf
QUESTIONS
Q1) List four things you learn about the girls.
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