Insert
The source that follows is:
- Source A: 19th-century prose fiction
- The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
An extract from a work first published in 1850.
This extract is taken from The Scarlet Letter, showing Hester Prynne on the scaffold under Puritan scrutiny and public shame. As the crowd’s solemn gaze weighs on her, she escapes into vivid memories of childhood, family, and a scholarly, slightly deformed man.
Source A
1 The scene was not without a mixture of awe, such as must always invest the spectacle of guilt and shame in a fellow-creature, before society shall have grown corrupt enough to smile, instead of shuddering, at it. The witnesses of Hester Prynne’s disgrace had not yet passed beyond their simplicity. They were stern enough to look upon her death, had that been the sentence, without a
6 murmur at its severity, but had none of the heartlessness of another social state, which would find only a theme for jest in an exhibition like the present. Even had there been a disposition to turn the matter into ridicule, it must have been repressed and overpowered by the solemn presence of men no less dignified than the Governor, and several of his counsellors, a judge, a
11 general, and the ministers of the town; all of whom sat or stood in a balcony of the meeting-house, looking down upon the platform. When such personages could constitute a part of the spectacle, without risking the majesty or reverence of rank and office, it was safely to be inferred that the infliction of a legal sentence would have an earnest and effectual meaning. Accordingly,
16 the crowd was sombre and grave. The unhappy culprit sustained herself as best a woman might, under the heavy weight of a thousand unrelenting eyes, all fastened upon her, and concentrated at her bosom. It was almost intolerable to be borne. Of an impulsive and passionate nature, she had fortified herself to encounter the stings and venomous stabs of public contumely, wreaking itself
21 in every variety of insult; but there was a quality so much more terrible in the solemn mood of the popular mind, that she longed rather to behold all those rigid countenances contorted with scornful merriment, and herself the object. Had a roar of laughter burst from the multitude,—each man, each woman, each little shrill-voiced child, contributing their individual parts,—Hester
26 Prynne might have repaid them all with a bitter and disdainful smile. But, under the leaden infliction which it was her doom to endure, she felt, at moments, as if she must needs shriek out with the full power of her lungs, and cast herself from the scaffold down upon the ground, or else go mad at once.
31 Yet there were intervals when the whole scene, in which she was the most conspicuous object, seemed to vanish from her eyes, or, at least, glimmered indistinctly before them, like a mass of imperfectly shaped and spectral images. Her mind, and especially her memory, was preternaturally active, and kept bringing up other scenes than this roughly hewn street of a little town,
36 on the edge of the Western wilderness; other faces than were lowering upon her from beneath the brims of those steeple-crowned hats. Reminiscences the most trifling and immaterial, passages of infancy and school-days, sports, childish quarrels, and the little domestic traits of her maiden years, came swarming back upon her, intermingled with recollections of whatever was gravest in her
41 subsequent life; one picture precisely as vivid as another; as if all were of similar importance, or all alike a play. Possibly, it was an instinctive device of her spirit, to relieve itself, by the exhibition of these phantasmagoric forms, from the cruel weight and hardness of the reality.
46 Be that as it might, the scaffold of the pillory was a point of view that revealed to Hester Prynne the entire track along which she had been treading, since her happy infancy. Standing on that miserable eminence, she saw again her native village, in Old England, and her paternal home; a decayed house of gray stone, with a poverty-stricken aspect, but retaining a half-obliterated
51 shield of arms over the portal, in token of antique gentility. She saw her father’s face, with its bald brow, and reverend white beard, that flowed over the old-fashioned Elizabethan ruff; her mother’s, too, with the look of heedful and anxious love which it always wore in her remembrance, and which, even since her death, had so often laid the impediment of a gentle
56 remonstrance in her daughter’s pathway. She saw her own face, glowing with girlish beauty, and illuminating all the interior of the dusky mirror in which she had been wont to gaze at it. There she beheld another countenance, of a man well stricken in years, a pale, thin, scholar-like visage, with eyes dim and bleared by the lamplight that had served them to pore over many ponderous
61 books. Yet those same bleared optics had a strange, penetrating power, when it was their owner’s purpose to read the human soul. This figure of the study and the cloister, as Hester Prynne’s womanly fancy failed not to recall, was slightly deformed, with the left shoulder a trifle higher than the right. Next rose before her, in memory’s picture-gallery, the intricate and narrow
66 thoroughfares, the tall, gray houses, the huge cathedrals, and the public edifices, ancient in date and quaint in architecture, of a Continental city; where a new life had awaited her, still in connection with the misshapen scholar; a new life, but feeding itself on time-worn materials, like a tuft of green moss on a crumbling wall.
Questions
Instructions
- Answer all questions.
- Use black ink or black ball point pen.
- Fill in the boxes on this page.
- You must answer the questions in the spaces provided.
- Do not write outside the box around each page or on blank pages.
- Do all rough work in this book. Cross through any work you do not want to be marked.
- You must refer to the insert booklet provided.
- You must not use a dictionary.
Information
- The marks for questions are shown in brackets.
- Time allowed: 1 hour 45 minutes
- The maximum mark for this paper is 80.
- There are 40 marks for Section A and 40 marks for Section B.
- You are reminded of the need for good English and clear presentation in your answers.
- You will be assessed on the quality of your reading in Section A.
- You will be assessed on the quality of your writing in Section B.
Advice
- You are advised to spend about 15 minutes reading through the source and all five questions you have to answer.
- You should make sure you leave sufficient time to check your answers.
Section A: Reading
Answer all questions in this section. You are advised to spend about 45 minutes on this section.
Question 1
Read again the first part of the source, from lines 1 to 5.
Answer all parts of this question.
Choose one answer for each question.
1.1 Which two things form the spectacle in a fellow-creature?
- guilt and shame
- simplicity and disgrace
- smile and shuddering
[1 mark]
1.2 The scene was not without what?
- a mixture of awe
- a smile at the spectacle
- a murmur at its severity
[1 mark]
1.3 Before society had grown corrupt enough, what would replace shuddering at the spectacle?
- to smile at it
- to murmur at it
- to invest it with awe
[1 mark]
1.4 According to the narrator, which punishment could the witnesses have looked upon for Hester Prynne, had that been the sentence?
- Hester Prynne's death
- Hester Prynne's imprisonment
- Hester Prynne's banishment
[1 mark]
Question 2
Look in detail at this extract, from lines 6 to 20 of the source:
6 murmur at its severity, but had none of the heartlessness of another social state, which would find only a theme for jest in an exhibition like the present. Even had there been a disposition to turn the matter into ridicule, it must have been repressed and overpowered by the solemn presence of men no less dignified than the Governor, and several of his counsellors, a judge, a
11 general, and the ministers of the town; all of whom sat or stood in a balcony of the meeting-house, looking down upon the platform. When such personages could constitute a part of the spectacle, without risking the majesty or reverence of rank and office, it was safely to be inferred that the infliction of a legal sentence would have an earnest and effectual meaning. Accordingly,
16 the crowd was sombre and grave. The unhappy culprit sustained herself as best a woman might, under the heavy weight of a thousand unrelenting eyes, all fastened upon her, and concentrated at her bosom. It was almost intolerable to be borne. Of an impulsive and passionate nature, she had fortified herself to encounter the stings and venomous stabs of public contumely, wreaking itself
How does the writer use language here to show how power shapes the crowd’s mood? You could include the writer’s choice of:
- words and phrases
- language features and techniques
- sentence forms.
[8 marks]
Question 3
You now need to think about the structure of the source as a whole. This text is from the start of a novel.
How has the writer structured the text to create a sense of intimacy?
You could write about:
- how intimacy deepens from beginning to end
- how the writer uses structure to create an effect
- the writer's use of any other structural features, such as changes in mood, tone or perspective.
[8 marks]
Question 4
For this question focus on the second part of the source, from line 16 to the end.
In this part of the source, Hester’s mind wanders back to clear memories of her childhood. The writer suggests this is her mind’s way of escaping the terrible reality of her punishment.
To what extent do you agree and/or disagree with this statement?
In your response, you could:
- consider your impressions of Hester Prynne's memories of childhood
- comment on the methods the writer uses to suggest her mind's escape from reality
- support your response with references to the text.
[20 marks]
Question 5
A local nature reserve is collecting creative pieces for its anniversary memory book.
Choose one of the options below for your entry.
-
Option A: Describe a neglected corner of a garden from your imagination. You may choose to use the picture provided for ideas:
-
Option B: Write the opening of a story about returning to a place you knew as a child.
(24 marks for content and organisation, 16 marks for technical accuracy)
[40 marks]