Source A: How can my son be a year old already?

Stuart Heritage 9 Apr 3 min read

This is an article published in The Guardian newspaper in 2016. The writer, Stuart Heritage, explores how he feels now that his son is a year old.

Source A

How can my son be a year old already?

He’s growing up fast, leaving milestones in his wake – and tiny parts of me along with them

My son turned one last week. The day marked the end of what has been both the longest and shortest year of my life. From the instant he was born, it’s felt as if my son has always been part of this family. I don’t mean that in an obnoxious, heart-eyed, this-was-always-meant-to-be way. I simply mean that I haven’t slept for a year and I don’t really know how time works any more. Whole years have passed in some of the afternoons I’ve spent with him lately. Entire galaxies have been born and thrived and withered and died in the time it’s taken him to eat a mouthful of porridge.

How is he one already? First he was born, and then I blinked, and now in his place is a little boy who can walk and has teeth and knows how to switch off the television at precisely the most important moment of anything I ever try to watch. It’s not exactly the most unprecedented development in all of human history – child gradually gets older – but it’s the first time I’ve seen it close up. It’s honestly quite hard to grasp.

A year ago, he was a sleepy ball of scrunched-up flesh, but is now determinedly his own person. I can see everyone in him – me, my wife, my parents – yet he’s already separate from all of us. He’s giddy and silly. He’s a show-off, albeit one who’s irrationally terrified of my dad. He loves running up to people and waiting for them to twang his lips like a ruler on a table. When he gets tired and barks gibberish in the middle of the room, he throws his entire body into it, like he’s trying to shove the noise up a hill.

With every tiny development – every new step he takes, every new tooth and sound and reaction that comes along to ambush us – we’re confronted with a slightly different child.

Photos of him taken in the summer seem like dispatches from a million years ago. Photos of him taken last week seem like a different boy. He’s blasting ahead as far as he can. He’s leaving milestone after milestone in his wake and tiny parts of me along with them.

He’ll never again be the tiny baby who nestled in the crook of my arm, sucking on my little finger in the middle of the night while his mum slept. Nor will he be the baby amazed by the taste and texture of solid food. Soon enough he’ll stop being the baby who totters over and rests his head on my shoulder whenever he gets tired, or laughs uncontrollably whenever I say the word ‘teeth’ for reasons I don’t think I’ll ever work out.

But I’ve had a year of this and it’s ok. He’s never going to stop changing, and I don’t want him to. This sadness, this constant sense of loss, of time slipping just beyond your grasp, is an important part of this process. He won’t realise this, of course. He’s got years of unbroken progress ahead of him, where everything will always be new and he’ll keep obliviously brushing away all of the silly old fools who tell him how much he’s grown.

One day it’ll creep up on him. Years of his life will pass in a moment and he won’t be able to understand where they’ve gone.

But it’s ok. You can’t hoard time. You just have to make the most of what you have.

END OF SOURCE

Questions

Question 2:

You need to refer to the whole ofSource A and Source B for this question.

The ways the boys spend their time playing as young children is different.

Use details from both sources to write a summary of the different activities the boy in Source A enjoys and the boy in Source B enjoyed when he was young.

[8 marks]

Question 3:

You now need to refer only to Source A (Paragraphs 3, 4 & 5)

How does the writer use language to describe his son?

[12 marks]

Question 4:

For this question, you need to refer to the whole of Source A, together with the whole of Source B.

Compare how the writers convey their different perspectives and feelings about their children growing up.

In your answer, you could:

• compare their different perspectives and feelings

• compare the methods the writers use to convey their different perspectives and feelings

• support your response with references to both texts.

[16 marks]

Excerpts from How can my son be a year old already? by Stuart Heritage.

Source B: Boy Lost

A Victorian Mother 7 Apr 5 min read

This is an extract from a Victorian newspaper article of the 1800s. The writer explores how she feels now that her son has grown up.

Source A

Boy Lost

He had black eyes, with long lashes, red cheeks, and hair almost black and almost curly. He wore a crimson plaid jacket, with full trousers buttoned on, had a habit of whistling, and liked to ask questions. He was accompanied by a small black dog.

It is a long while now since he disappeared.

I have a very pleasant house and much company. My guests say, ‘Ah, it is pleasant to be here! Everything has such an orderly, put-away look – nothing about under foot, no dirt!’ But my eyes are aching for the sight of cut paper upon the floor; of tumbled-down card-houses; of wooden sheep and cattle; of pop-guns, bows and arrows, whips, tops and go-carts. I want to see crumbs on the carpet, and paste spilt on the kitchen table. I want to see the chairs and tables turned the wrong way about; yet these things used to fret me once.

They say, ‘How quiet you are here; ah, one here may be at peace.’ But my ears are aching for the pattering of little feet; for a hearty shout, a shrill whistle, for the crack of little whips, for the noise of drums and tin trumpets; yet these things made me nervous once.

They say – ‘Ah, you are not tied at home. How delightful to be always at liberty for concerts, lectures, and parties! No responsibilities for you.’ But I want responsibilities; I want to listen for the school bell of mornings; to give the last hasty wash and brush, and then to watch from the window nimble feet bounding away to school. I want to replace lost buttons and obliterate mud stains, fruit stains, treacle stains, and paints of all colours. I want to be sitting by a little crib of evenings, when weary little feet are at rest, and prattling voices are hushed, that mothers may sing their lullabies. They don’t know their happiness then – those mothers. I didn’t. All these things I called responsibilities once.

A manly figure stands before me now. He is taller than I, has thick black whiskers, and wears a frock coat, billowy shirt, and cravat. He has just come from college. He calls me mother, but I am rather unwilling to own him. He stoutly declares that he is my boy, and says he will prove it. He brings me his little boat to show the red stripe on the sail, and the name on the stern – ‘Lucy Lowe’ – our neighbour’s little girl who, because of her long curls, and pretty round face, was the chosen favourite of my little boy. How the red comes to his face when he shows me the name on the boat!

And I see it all as plain as if it were written in a book. My little boy is lost, and my big boy will soon be. I wish he were still a little boy in a long white night gown, lying in his crib, with me sitting by, holding his hand in mine, pushing the curls back from his forehead, watching his eyelids droop, and listening to his deep breathing. If I only had my little boy again, how patient I would be! How much I would bear, and how little I would fret and scold! I can never have him back again; but there are still many mothers who haven’t yet lost their little boys. I wonder if they know they are living their very best days; that now is the time to really enjoy their children!

I think if I had been more to my little boy I might now be more to my grown up one.

END OF SOURCES

Questions

Question 2:

You need to refer to the whole ofSource A and Source B for this question.

The ways the boys spend their time playing as young children is different.

Use details from both sources to write a summary of the different activities the boy in Source A enjoys and the boy in Source B enjoyed when he was young.

[8 marks]

Question 3:

You now need to refer only to Source A (Paragraphs 3, 4 & 5)

How does the writer use language to describe his son?

[12 marks]

Question 4:

For this question, you need to refer to the whole of Source A, together with the whole of Source B.

Compare how the writers convey their different perspectives and feelings about their children growing up.

In your answer, you could:

• compare their different perspectives and feelings

• compare the methods the writers use to convey their different perspectives and feelings

• support your response with references to both texts.

[16 marks]

Excerpts fromBoy Lost by A Victorian Mother.

Source A: Morning Glass

Mike Doyle 18 Apr 5 min read

Source A is taken from Morning Glass, the autobiography of professional surfer Mike Doyle. In this extract, he describes his introduction to the world of surfing at the beach near his home in California in the 1950s.

Source A

Morning Glass

The first time I ever saw somebody riding a surfboard was at the Manhattan Pier in 1953. As much time as I’d spent at the beach, you’d think I would have at least seen one surfer before then. But there were only a few dozen surfers in all of California at that time and, like surfers today, they were out at dawn surfing the morning glass. By the time the crowds arrived, they were gone.

But this one morning I took the first bus to the beach, walked out onto the Manhattan Pier, looked down and saw these bronzed gods, all in incredibly good shape, happier and healthier than anybody I’d ever seen. They sat astride their boards, laughing with each other; at the first swell they swung their long boards around, dropped to their stomachs, and began paddling towards shore. From my viewpoint, it was almost as if I were on the board myself, paddling for the swell, sliding into the wave, coming to my feet, and angling the board down that long wall of green water. It was almost as if I already knew that feeling in my bones. From that day on, I knew that surfing was for me.

There were several surfers out that day. Greg Noll was just a kid then, about sixteen years old, but he was hot. On one wave he turned around backward on his board, showing off a bit for the people watching from the pier. I was just dazzled.

Once I’d discovered there was such a thing as surfing, I began plotting my chance to try it. I used to stand out in the surf and wait until one of the surfers lost his board. The boards then were eleven feet long, twenty-four inches wide and weighed fifty or sixty pounds. When they washed in broadside, they would hit me in the legs and knock me over. I would jump back up, scramble the board around, hop on, and paddle it ten feet before the owner snatched it back – ‘Thanks, kid’ – and paddled away.

Most surfers at that time were riding either hollow paddle-boards (a wooden framework with a plywood shell), or solid redwood slabs, some of them twelve feet long. The much lighter and much better balsa wood boards were just starting to appear.

One day in 1954, when I was thirteen, I was down at Manhattan Pier watching a guy ride a huge old-fashioned paddle-board – what we used to call a kook box. It was hollow, made of mahogany, about fourteen feet long, maybe sixty-five pounds and had no fin. It was the kind of paddle-board lifeguards used for rescues; they worked fine for that purpose, but for surfing they were unbelievably awkward. When the guy came out of the water, dragging the board behind him, I asked if I could borrow it for a while. He looked at me like ‘Get lost, kid.’ But when he sat down on the beach, I pestered him until he finally shrugged and nodded toward the board.

I’d watched enough surfing by then to have a pretty clear idea of the technique involved. I dragged the board into the water and flopped on top of it. After a while I managed to paddle the thing out beyond the shore break and got it turned around. To my surprise, after a few awkward tries, I managed to get that big, clumsy thing going left on a three foot wave. I came to my feet, right foot forward, just like riding a scooter. I had no way of turning the board but for a few brief seconds, I was gliding over the water.

As the wave started to break behind me, I looked back, then completely panicked. I hadn’t thought that far ahead yet! My first impulse was to bail out, so I jumped out in front of the board, spread-eagled. I washed up on the beach, dragged myself onto the dry sand, and lay there groaning.

END OF SOURCE

Questions

Question 2:

You need to refer to Source A and Source B for this question.

Both sources describe the types of board used for surfing.

Use details from both sources to write a summary of what you understand about the different boards used by the surfers.

[8 marks]

Question 3:

You now need to refer only to Source B (Paragraph 4)

How does the writer use language to describe the surfers and the sea?

[12 marks]

Question 4:

For this question, you need to refer to the whole of Source A, together with the whole of Source B.

Compare how the writers convey their different perspectives on surfing.

In your answer, you could:

• compare their different perspectives on surfing

• compare the methods the writers use to convey their perspectives

• support your response with references to both texts.

[16 marks]

Excerpts from Morning Glass by Mike Doyle.

Source B: The Hawaiian Archipelago

Isabella Bird 18 Apr 5 min read

In 1875, the British explorer Isabella Bird travelled to Hawaii, an island in the Pacific Ocean. Source B is an extract from a letter she wrote to her sister back in England, describing a visit to the Hawaiian town of Hilo. At that time in Britain surfing, or ‘surf-bathing’, was a completely unknown sport.

Source B

The Hawaiian Archipelago

Our host came in to say that a grand display of the national sport of surf-bathing was going on, and a large party of us went down to the beach for two hours to enjoy it. It is really a most exciting pastime, and in a rough sea requires immense nerve. The surf-board is a tough plank of wood shaped like a coffin lid, about two feet broad, and from six to nine feet long, well-oiled and cared for. They are usually made of wood from the native breadfruit tree, and then blessed in a simple ritual.

The surf was very heavy and favourable, and legions of local people were swimming and splashing in the sea, though not more than forty had their Papa-he-nalu, or ‘wave sliding boards,’ with them. The men, each carrying their own hand-carved boards under their arms, waded out from some rocks on which the sea was breaking, and, pushing their boards before them, swam out to the first line of breakers*, and then diving down were seen no more till they re-appeared half a mile from shore.

What they seek is a very high breaker, on the top of which they leap from behind, lying face downwards on their boards. As the wave speeds on, and the bottom strikes the ground, the top breaks into a huge comber*. The swimmers appeared posing themselves on its highest edge by dexterous movements of their hands and feet, keeping just at the top of the curl, but always apparently coming down hill with a slanting motion.

So they rode in majestically, always just ahead of the breaker, carried shorewards by its mighty impulse at the rate of forty miles an hour, as the more daring riders knelt and even stood on their surf-boards, waving their arms and uttering exultant cries. They were always apparently on the verge of engulfment by the fierce breaker whose towering white crest was ever above and just behind them, but just as one expected to see them dashed to pieces, they either waded quietly ashore, or sliding off their boards, dived under the surf, and were next seen far out at sea, as a number of heads bobbing about like corks in smooth water, preparing for fresh exploits.

The great art seems to be to mount the breaker precisely at the right time, and to keep exactly on its curl just before it breaks. Two or three athletes, who stood erect on their boards as they swept exultingly shorewards, were received with ringing cheers by the crowd. Many of the less expert failed to throw themselves on the crest, and slid back into smooth water, or were caught in the breakers which were fully ten feet high, and after being rolled over and over, disappeared amidst roars of laughter, and shouts from the shore.

At first I held my breath in terror, thinking they were smothered or dashed to pieces, and then in a few seconds I saw the dark heads of the objects of my anxiety bobbing about behind the breakers waiting for another chance. The shore was thronged with spectators, and the presence of the elite of Hilo stimulated the swimmers to wonderful exploits. I enjoyed the afternoon thoroughly.

Is it always afternoon here, I wonder? The sea was so blue, the sunlight so soft, the air so sweet. There was no toil, clang, or hurry. People were all holidaymaking, and enjoying themselves, the surf-bathers in the sea, and hundreds of gaily-dressed men and women galloping on the beach. It was so serene and tropical. I envy those who remain for ever on such enchanted shores.

END OF SOURCE

Questions

Question 2:

You need to refer to Source A and Source B for this question.

Both sources describe the types of board used for surfing.

Use details from both sources to write a summary of what you understand about the different boards used by the surfers.

[8 marks]

Question 3:

You now need to refer only to Source B (Paragraph 4)

How does the writer use language to describe the surfers and the sea?

[12 marks]

Question 4:

For this question, you need to refer to the whole of Source A, together with the whole of Source B.

Compare how the writers convey their different perspectives on surfing.

In your answer, you could:

• compare their different perspectives on surfing

• compare the methods the writers use to convey their perspectives

• support your response with references to both texts.

[16 marks]

Excerpts from The Hawaiian Archipelago by Isabella Bird.

Source A: The Crossing

Ben Fogle 14 May 5 min read

In 2005, Ben Fogle and James Cracknell set off together in a seven week race across the Atlantic Ocean in a rowing boat called ‘Spirit’. In their book The Crossing, Ben describes what happened one night as he rowed and James slept.

Source A

The Crossing

BEN:

It was still dark. We had at least three hours of darkness to go before daybreak and, as always, I had the sunrise shift. The ocean had continued to build, with an ever-increasing wind that was gusting at 40 knots. The swell had grown and conditions were becoming increasingly frenzied. I began to feel vulnerable again. If we can just make it to daybreak, I thought, it will be easier to read the waves and prepare for the breakers.

Our boat was brand spanking new and bought straight from the race organisers. It had coped with the seas we had experienced thus far incredibly well. I rowed on, worried by the deteriorating weather, and I thought of my wife, back at home. I longed to be with her and away from this intimidating ocean. As I rowed, a barely perceptible blue hue appeared on the skyline.

The swell was gathering, and the breaking waves were becoming more frequent. ‘Come on, sun,’ I thought, willing the day to break. Something wasn’t right.

I watched as a vast wave gathered behind the boat, soaring above the cabin, a wall of white water towering over our tiny boat. Once again I dug the oars in to propel us forward, but the wave was too big. For a moment it felt like we were moving backwards as we were sucked into the belly of the wave, the horizon disappearing as the churning surf enveloped the stern of the boat. I felt it lift, as a torrent of water crashed over the boat and I felt myself falling backwards. I was aware of the boat collapsing on top of me. I struggled to pull my feet from the stirrups to no avail. The world went black. I felt a weight on top of me and then a rush of cold water as my body was brutally submerged into the bottomless Atlantic Ocean. My feet were sucked from my shoes as I clung on to the oars for dear life, but then they too were dragged from my clasp. My mind went blank as I tumbled through the surf, spun around roughly like clothes in a washing machine.

I was somewhere underwater, but which way was up? Everything was midnight black. I panicked as I grabbed the water, desperate for something to clutch on to. There was nothing. No boat, just inky cold water.

I had been underwater for a seeming eternity and had started to panic. It felt as though my lungs were collapsing and I struggled to find which way to swim. I felt my hand break the surface as my body burst from the depths of the ocean. ‘Paaaaaaah,’ I gasped as my body screamed for air.

‘James!’ I cried. There was no sign of him, nor the boat. I was in the middle of the ocean without a life jacket, being tossed around in the surf like a rag doll. I spun around in the water, gripped by panic.

There was the boat, a black upturned hull. ‘James!’ I screamed again. Nothing. Nothing in life had prepared me for this. No amount of planning could have readied me. What the hell now? Who would ever find me out here, hundreds of miles from the nearest boat, let alone land? I had to get back on to that boat.

My mind was numb with shock, but somehow I made it back to the upturned hull, and clung on. There was still no sign of James. Why wasn’t the Spirit righting herself? I fretted as I hauled myself up on to her keel.

I could feel the boat listing. Slowly but surely the boat began to turn on top of me. I clutched on to the grab line as I collapsed back into the water, the boat springing upright. I clung on, silent and in shock.

‘Ben!’ I heard James’s cry. He was alive. Thank god.

‘I’m here, I’m here!’ I squeaked, still clutching the grab line

All around us the ocean was strewn with debris, loose equipment from the deck. After five weeks at sea we had become complacent and had long stopped lashing things down; we could only watch as all our worldly possessions drifted away into the rolling ocean.

END OF SOURCE

Questions

Question 2:

You need to refer to Source A and Source B for this question.

The writers in Source A and Source B are travelling on very different types of boat.

Use details from both sources to write a summary of what you understand about the different boats.

[8 marks]

Question 3:

You now need to refer only to Source B (Paragraph 4)

How does the writer use language to describe the power of the sea

[12 marks]

Question 4:

For this question, you need to refer to the whole of Source A, together with the whole of Source B.

Compare how the writers convey their different perspectives and feelings about their experiences at sea.

In your answer, you could:

• compare their different perspectives and feelings

• compare the methods the writers use to convey their different perspectives and feelings

• support your response with references to both texts.

[16 marks]

Excerpts from The Crossing by Ben Fogle.

Source B: Idle Days in Patagonia

William Hudson 14 May 5 min read

In 1893, William Hudson travelled by sea to Patagonia, a remote area in South America, to study birds. In his book Idle Days in Patagonia, he describes the journey to get there.

Source B

Idle Days in Patagonia

The wind had blown a gale all night, and I had been hourly expecting that the tumbling storm-shaken old steamship, in which I had taken passage to Patagonia, would turn over once and for all and settle down beneath the tremendous tumult of waters. For the groaning sound of its straining timbers, and the engine throbbing like an over-worked human heart, had made the ship seem like a living thing to me; and it was tired of the struggle, and under the tumult was peace. But at about three o’ clock in the morning the wind began to drop and, taking off coat and boots, I threw myself in to my bunk for a little sleep.

Ours was a very curious boat, ancient and much damaged; long and narrow in shape, with the passengers’ cabins ranged like a row of small wooden cottages on the deck; it was as ugly to look at as it was unsafe to voyage in. To make matters worse our Captain, a man over eighty years of age, was lying in his cabin sick; our one Mate was asleep, leaving only the men to navigate the steamship on that perilous coast, and in the darkest hour of a tempestuous night.

I was just dropping into a doze when a succession of bumps, accompanied by strange grating and grinding noises, and shuddering motions of the ship, caused me to start up again and rush to the cabin door. The night was still black and starless, with wind and rain, but for acres round us the sea was whiter than milk. I did not step out, as close to me, where our only lifeboat was fastened, three of the sailors were standing together talking in low tones. ‘We are lost,’ I heard one say; and another answer, ‘Ay, lost forever!’ Just then the Mate, roused from sleep, came running to them. ‘What have you done?’ he exclaimed sharply; then dropping his voice, he added, ‘Lower the lifeboat – quick!’

I crept out and stood unseen by them in the dark. Not a thought of the wicked act they were about to engage in entered my mind at the time – for it was their intention to save themselves and leave us to our fate in that awful white surf. My only thought was that at the last moment, I would spring with them into the boat and save myself. But one other person, more experienced than myself, and whose courage took a better form, was also near and listening. He was the First Engineer. Seeing the men making for the lifeboat, he slipped out of the engine room, revolver in hand, and secretly followed them; and when the Mate gave the order to board, he stepped forward with the weapon raised and said in a quiet but determined voice that he would shoot the first man who should attempt to obey it. The men slunk away and disappeared in the gloom.

In a few moments more the passengers began streaming out on to the deck in a great state of alarm. Last of all, the old Captain, white and hollow-eyed, appeared like a ghost among us. We had not been standing there long when, by some freak chance, the steamship got off the rocks and plunged on through the seething, milky surf; then very suddenly passed out of it into black and comparatively calm water. For ten minutes she sped rapidly and smoothly on, then it was said that we were stuck fast in the sand of the shore, although no shore was visible in the darkness.

END OF SOURCE

Questions

Question 2:

You need to refer to Source A and Source B for this question.

The writers in Source A and Source B are travelling on very different types of boat.

Use details from both sources to write a summary of what you understand about the different boats.

[8 marks]

Question 3:

You now need to refer only to Source B (Paragraph 4)

How does the writer use language to describe the power of the sea

[12 marks]

Question 4:

For this question, you need to refer to the whole of Source A, together with the whole of Source B.

Compare how the writers convey their different perspectives and feelings about their experiences at sea.

In your answer, you could:

• compare their different perspectives and feelings

• compare the methods the writers use to convey their different perspectives and feelings

• support your response with references to both texts.

[16 marks]

Excerpts from Idle Days in Patagonia by William Hudson.

Shooting an Elephant

George Orwell 17 May 5 min read

George Orwell was a young British writer who started work in 1922 as a policeman in Burma. At that time, Burma was part of the British Empire. The extract is from his essay Shooting an Elephant, which he wrote in 1936.

Source A

Shooting an Elephant

Early one morning, the sub-inspector at another police station the other end of town rang me up on the phone and said that an elephant was ravaging the bazaar. Would I please come and do something about it? I did not know what I could do, but I wanted to see what was happening and I started out. I took my rifle, much too small to kill an elephant, but I thought the noise might be useful.

It was not of course a wild elephant, but a tame one. It had been chained up, but on the previous night it had broken its chain and escaped. In the morning the elephant had suddenly reappeared in the town. It had already destroyed somebody’s bamboo hut, killed a cow and raided some fruit-stalls and devoured the stock. Some Burmese men arrived and told us that the elephant was in the paddy fields below, only a few hundred yards away. I sent an orderly to borrow an elephant rifle. The orderly came back in a few minutes with a rifle and five cartridges.

As I started forward practically the whole population of the area flocked out of their houses and followed me. They had seen the rifle and were all shouting excitedly that I was going to shoot the elephant. It made me vaguely uneasy. I had no intention of shooting the elephant. I marched down the hill, looking and feeling a fool, with the rifle over my shoulder and an ever-growing army of people jostling at my heels.

At the bottom, the elephant was standing eighty yards from the road. He took not the slightest notice of the crowd’s approach. He was tearing up bunches of grass, beating them against his knees to clean them and stuffing them into his mouth.

As soon as I saw the elephant I knew with perfect certainty that I ought not to shoot him. It is a serious matter to shoot a working elephant – it is comparable to destroying a huge and costly piece of machinery. And at that distance, peacefully eating, the elephant looked no more dangerous than a cow. I decided that I would watch him for a while to make sure he did not turn savage again, and then go home.

But at that moment I glanced around at the crowd that had followed me. It was an immense crowd, two thousand at the least and growing every minute. I looked at the sea of faces above the garish clothes – faces all happy and excited over this bit of fun, all certain that the elephant was going to be shot. They were watching me as they would watch a conjurer about to perform a trick. And suddenly I realised that I should have to shoot the elephant after all. The people expected it of me and I had got to do it. Here was I, the white man with his gun, seemingly the leading actor of the piece, but in reality I was only a puppet pushed to and fro by the will of those faces behind. To come all that way, rifle in hand, with two thousand people marching at my heels, and then to trail feebly away, having done nothing – no, that was impossible. The crowd would laugh at me.

But I did not want to shoot the elephant. It seemed to me that it would be murder to shoot him. (Somehow it always seems worse to kill a large animal.)

It was perfectly clear to me what I ought to do. I ought to walk up to the elephant and test his behaviour. If he charged I could shoot, if he took no notice of me it would be safe to leave him. But I also knew I was going to do no such thing. If the elephant charged and I missed him, I should have about as much chance as a toad under a steam-roller. The sole thought in my mind was that if anything went wrong those two thousand Burmese people would see me pursued, caught and trampled on. And if that happened it was quite probable that some of them would laugh. That would never do. There was only one alternative.

END OF SOURCE

Questions

Question 2:

You need to refer to Source A and Source B for this question.

Both sources describe how the elephants behave.

Use details from both sources to write a summary of what you understand about the similar behaviour of the elephants.

[8 marks]

Question 3:

You now need to refer only to Source A (Paragraph 6)

How does the writer use language to describe the crowd of people?

[12 marks]

Question 4:

For this question, you need to refer to the whole of Source A, together with the whole of Source B.

Compare how the writers convey their different attitudes to the elephants.

In your answer, you could:

• compare their different attitudes to elephants

• compare the methods the writers use to convey their attitudes

• support your response with references to both texts.

[16 marks]

Excerpts from Shooting An Elephant by George Orwell.

Source B: Wild Animals in Captivity

Abraham Bartlett 17 May 5 min read

The extract below is from the book Wild Animals in Captivity, published in 1898 by Abraham Bartlett, Head Keeper at the Zoological Society Gardens (now London Zoo).

Source B

Wild Animals in Captivity

The first elephant that ever came under my charge was the celebrated Jumbo. The African elephant was received at the Zoological Gardens in exchange for other animals on June 26, 1863.

At that date Jumbo was about 4 ft high and he was in filthy and miserable condition. I handed him over to keeper Matthew Scott. The first thing we did was to remove the filth and dirt from his skin. This was a task requiring a great deal of labour and patience. The poor beast’s feet had grown out of shape, but by scraping and rasping, together with a supply of good food, his condition rapidly improved

However, he soon began to play some very lively tricks, so much so that we found it necessary to put a stop to his games, and this we did in a very speedy and effectual manner. Scott and myself, holding him by each ear, gave him a good thrashing. He quickly recognised that he was mastered by lying down and uttering a cry of submission.

We coaxed him and fed him with a few tempting treats, and after this time he appeared to recognise that we were his best friends, and he continued on the best of terms with both of us until the year before he was sold. He was at that time about twenty-one years old and had gained the enormous size of 11 ft in height. All male elephants at this age become troublesome and dangerous. Jumbo was no exception to this rule.

He began to destroy the doors and other parts of his house, driving his tusks through the iron plates, splintering the timbers in all directions. When in this condition, and in his home, none of the other keepers except Scott dare go near him; but, strange to say, he was perfectly quiet as soon as he was allowed to be free in the Gardens.

I was perfectly aware that this restless and frantic condition could be calmed by reducing the quantity of his food, fastening his limbs by chains, and an occasional flogging; but this treatment would have called forth a multitude of protests from kind-hearted and sensitive people, and would have led to those keepers concerned appearing before the magistrates at the police court charged with cruelty. It is only those who have had experience in the management of an elephant who are aware that, unless the person in charge of him is determined to be master and overpower him, that person will lose all control over him and will be likely to fall victim to his enormous strength.

But to return to Jumbo’s early days, he was very soon strong enough to carry children on his back and therefore a new saddle was made for him. At that time, all the cash handed to the keepers of the elephants by the people who rode on them was the keepers’ to keep. How much they received from the visitors will probably never be known, but, as Jumbo became the great favourite, Scott came in for the lion’s share.

Jumbo had been for nearly sixteen years quiet, gentle and obedient, and had daily carried hundreds of visitors about the gardens. Finding that, at the end of that period, he was likely to do some fatal mischief, I made an application to the council to be supplied with a powerful enough rifle in the event of finding it necessary to kill him.

About this time I received a letter from Mr Barnum* asking if the Zoological Society would sell the big African elephant and at what price. I wrote immediately to Mr Barnum telling him that he could have Jumbo for £2000.

END OF SOURCE

Questions

Question 2:

You need to refer to Source A and Source B for this question.

Both sources describe how the elephants behave.

Use details from both sources to write a summary of what you understand about the similar behaviour of the elephants.

[8 marks]

Question 3:

You now need to refer only to Source A (Paragraph 6)

How does the writer use language to describe the crowd of people?

[12 marks]

Question 4:

For this question, you need to refer to the whole of Source A, together with the whole of Source B.

Compare how the writers convey their different attitudes to the elephants.

In your answer, you could:

• compare their different attitudes to elephants

• compare the methods the writers use to convey their attitudes

• support your response with references to both texts.

[16 marks]

Excerpts from Wild Animals in Captivity by Abraham Bartlett.

Source A: Touching the Void

Joe Simpson 6 Apr 5 min read

Source A is an extract from Touching the Void, in which experienced climber Joe Simpson describes how he and fellow climber Simon Yates scaled a 21 000 foot mountain in Peru. On the way down, Joe fell and broke his leg. In this extract, Joe explains how, because of his broken leg, Simon had to lower him down the mountain using a rope.

Source A

Touching the Void

The col was exposed and windy. Directly beneath us the glacier we had walked up five days ago curved away towards the crevasses which led to base camp, nearly 3 000 feet below us. It would take many long lowerings, but it was all downhill, and we had lost the sense of hopelessness that had invaded us at the ice cliff.

‘What time is it?’ Simon asked.

‘Just gone four. We don’t have much time, do we?’

I could see him weighing up the possibilities. I wanted to carry on down, but it was Simon’s decision. I waited for him to make up his mind.

‘I think we should keep going,’ he said at last.

Simon let me slide faster than I had expected and, despite my cries of alarm and pain, he had kept the pace of descent going. I stopped shouting to him after fifty feet. The rising wind and continuous avalanches drowned out all communications. Instead I concentrated on keeping my leg clear of the snow. It was an impossible task. Despite lying on my good leg, the right boot snagged in the snow as the weight of my body pushed down. Each abrupt jerk caused searing pain in my knee. I sobbed and gasped, swore at the snow and the cold, and most of all at Simon. At the change-over point, I hopped on to my left leg, trying to think the pain away. It ebbed slowly, leaving a dreadful throbbing ache and a leaden tiredness.

The tugs came again far too soon, and carelessly I slumped against the rope and let myself go. The drop went on until I could bear it no longer, yet there was nothing that I could do to bring the agony to an end. Howling and screaming for Simon to stop achieved nothing; the blame had to lie somewhere, so I swore Simon’s character to the devil.

The terrible sliding stopped, and I hung silently against the slope. Three faint tugs trembled the taut rope, and I hopped up on to my leg. A wave of nausea and pain swept over me. I was glad of the freezing blasts of snow biting into my face. My head cleared as I waited for the burning to subside from my knee. Several times I had felt it twist sideways when my boot snagged. There would be a flare of agony as the knee kinked back, and parts within the joint seemed to shear past each other with a sickening gristly crunch. I had barely ceased sobbing before my boot snagged again. At the end my leg shook uncontrollably. I tried to stop it shaking, but the harder I tried, the more it shook. I pressed my face into the snow, gritted my teeth, and waited. At last it eased.

Simon had already started to climb down. I looked up but failed to make out where he was. I began digging Simon’s belay* seat. It was warming work and distracted attention from my knee. When I looked up again Simon could be seen descending quickly.

‘At this rate we should be down by nine o’clock,’ he said cheerfully.

‘I hope so.’ I said no more. It wouldn’t help to harp on about how I felt.

‘Right, let’s do it again.’ He had seated himself in the hole and had the ropes ready for another lowering.

‘You’re not hanging around, are you?’

‘Nothing to wait for. Come on.’

He was still grinning, and his confidence was infectious. Who said one man can’t rescue another, I thought. We had changed from climbing to rescue, and the partnership had worked just as effectively. We hadn’t dwelt on the accident. There had been an element of uncertainty at first, but as soon as we had started to act positively everything had come together.

‘Okay, ready when you are,’ I said, lying down on my side again. ‘Slow down a bit this time. You’ll have my leg off otherwise.’

He didn’t seem to hear me for I went down at an even faster pace than before, and the hammering torture began again with a vengeance. My optimism evaporated.

END OF SOURCE

Questions

Question 2:

You need to refer to Source A and Source B for this question.

Both writers are accompanied by another person on their adventure: Simon in Source A, and Marius in Source B.

Use details from both sources to write a summary of what you understand about the differences between the two companions, Simon and Marius.

[8 marks]

Question 3:

You now need to refer only to Source A (Paragraph 8)

How does the writer use language to describe how he feels?

[12 marks]

Question 4:

For this question, you need to refer to the whole of Source A, together with the whole of Source B.

Compare how the writers convey their different feelings and perspectives on their adventures in the mountains.

In your answer, you could:

• compare their different feelings and perspectives on their adventures

• compare the methods the writers use to convey their feelings and perspectives

• support your response with references to both texts.

[16 marks]

Excerpts from Touching The Void by Joe Simpson.

Source B: Climbing the Meije

Gertrude Bell 6 Apr 5 min read

In 1899, British explorer Gertrude Bell set out to climb one of the most dangerous mountains in the Alps, the Meije. Source B is an extract from the letter she sent home describing the climb.

Source B

Climbing the Meije

Monday 28th August, 1899

I thought you would gather from my last letter that I meant to have a shot at climbing the Meije and would be glad to hear that I had descended safely. Well, I’ll tell you – it’s awful! I think if I had known exactly what was before me I should not have faced it, but fortunately I did not, and I look back on it with complete satisfaction — and I look forward to other things with no further apprehension. . .

I left here on Friday, having hired a local guide, Marius, and we walked up to the Refuge. I went out to watch the beautiful red sunlight fading from the snow and rocks. The Meije looked dreadfully forbidding in the dusk. When I came in I found that Marius had kindly put my rug in a corner of the floor, and what with the straw and my cloak for a pillow, I made myself very comfortable.

The night lasted from 8 till 12, but I didn’t sleep at all. We got up soon after 12 and I went down to the river and washed a little. It was a perfect night, clear stars and the moon not yet over the hills. We left just as the moon shone into the valley. Marius always went ahead and carried a lantern till we got on to the snow when it was light enough with only the moon.

At 1.30 we reached the glacier and put on our ropes. It wasn’t really cold, though there was an icy little breath of wind. We had about three hours up very nice rock. I had been in high spirits for it was so easy, but before long my hopes were dashed! We had about two hours and a half of awfully difficult rock. There were two places where Marius literally pulled me up like a parcel. He has the strength of a bear. And it was absolutely sheer down. The first half-hour I gave myself up for lost. It didn’t seem possible that I could get up all that wall without ever making a slip. You see, I had practically never been on a rock before. However, I didn’t let on to Marius and presently it began to seem quite natural to be hanging by my eyelids over an abyss. . .

We stayed on the summit until 11. It was gorgeous, quite cloudless. I went to sleep for half-an-hour. It’s a very long way up but it’s a longer way down – unless you take the way Marius’s axe took. The cord by which it was carefully tied to his wrist broke and it disappeared forever into space.

Here comes the worst place on the whole Meije. Marius vanished, carrying a very long rope, and I waited. Presently I felt a little tug on the rope. “Mademoiselle,” called Marius calmly, and obediently off I went. There were two little humps to hold on to on an overhanging rock and there was me in mid-air and Marius round the corner steadfastly holding the rope tight. . . perfectly fearful. I thought at the time how very well I was climbing and how odd it was that I should not be afraid.

The worst was over then, and the most tedious part was to come. There was no difficulty, but there was also no moment when you had not to pay the strictest attention. There was an hour of ice and rock till at last Marius and I found ourselves, with thankfulness, back on the glacier.

When I got in, I found everyone in the hotel on the doorstep waiting for me and the hotel owner let off crackers, to my great surprise.

I went to bed and knew no more till 6 this morning, when I had five cups of tea and read your letters and then went to sleep again until ten. I’m really not tired but my shoulders and neck and arms feel rather sore and stiff and my knees are awfully bruised.

END OF SOURCE

Questions

Question 2:

You need to refer to Source A and Source B for this question.

Both writers are accompanied by another person on their adventure: Simon in Source A, and Marius in Source B.

Use details from both sources to write a summary of what you understand about the differences between the two companions, Simon and Marius.

[8 marks]

Question 3:

You now need to refer only to Source A (Paragraph 8)

How does the writer use language to describe how he feels?

[12 marks]

Question 4:

For this question, you need to refer to the whole of Source A, together with the whole of Source B.

Compare how the writers convey their different feelings and perspectives on their adventures in the mountains.

In your answer, you could:

• compare their different feelings and perspectives on their adventures

• compare the methods the writers use to convey their feelings and perspectives

• support your response with references to both texts.

[16 marks]

Excerpts from Climbing the Meije by Gertrude Bell.

Source A: The Tent, The Bucket and Me

Emma Kennedy 8 Apr 5 min read

Source A is an extract from The Tent, The Bucket and Me in which Emma Kennedy describes her camping holidays in France in the 1970s.

Source A

The Tent, The Bucket and Me

‘You know,’ said my mother who, as far as I could tell, was the only person delighted to be back in France, ‘we should treat this holiday as the occasion it is. There’s no point in being miserable. Holidays are what you make them.’

Holidays were not what you made them. Holidays were in the hands of malevolent forces hell-bent on wreaking chaos at every turn. Holidays were assault courses of the mind and body, endurance tests designed to break spirits and shatter spleens. In my nine years on the planet I had learnt one thing: going on holiday was awful. As we sat, chugging along through the French countryside, sunflowers in the fields on either side of us, I thought, ‘Yes, it IS nice to look at. But in the same way that cheese looks nice in a mousetrap.’

Eventually we arrived at the campsite where we had stayed the previous year. As is often the way when you revisit somewhere you’ve been before, the allure was not quite as sparkling. The table tennis hut, once such an astonishment of riches, was now a bit battered around the edges, the pool a little more dull. Even my mother was forced to concede that the place had lost its gloss. ‘This isn’t quite as nice as I remember it,’ she said, hands on hips. ‘Still, at least it’s a bit cooler. What a relief!’

‘Storm clouds gathering over there,’ said Dad, looking up to the west. ‘That’ll explain the drop in temperature. Still, I’ll get the tent up.’

Our pitch backed on to a line of trees that acted as a windbreaker between us and the river. I wandered off, tiptoeing through the branches to stand at the water’s edge. The low evening sun was casting a pink tinge across the water and dragonflies were hovering. Picking up a round, flat stone I skimmed it across the surface of the lake and watched with satisfaction as it bounced away. Sometimes, it was the simplest things that provided the greatest pleasure and as I stood, throwing stone after stone, I felt real contentment as if I were actually enjoying myself.

I returned to our pitch, having been called to supper by my mother. Dad was staring skywards. ‘Those clouds are shifting,’ he said, ‘we might get some rain after all.’

‘I can’t remember the last time I saw rain,’ answered my mother, ‘must be well over a month. It’ll be nice. Clear the air.’

Suddenly, there was a squall of activity all over the campsite as the sky darkened and the rain began to fall in thick, steady drops. Caravan awnings were being winched in, windows slammed shut, towels were being hastily gathered and everywhere, families were retreating to the inside of their tents. Because the ground was so dry, the patter of rain on the hard earth sounded almost metallic and each raindrop sparked up a plume of dust so fine it looked like steam, making the soil look as if it were boiling. In the distance, a low rumble of thunder began rolling towards us, the starter flag for any decent storm, and the rain which had an individual and random quality became more pack-like, shifting shapes like a flock of starlings. The storm was circling the area before clattering in to do its worst. Soon, the rain was slashing down, the relentless battering against the tent canvas loud and frightening.

Despite all my father’s best efforts to waterproof the tent and lay the ground sheet properly, water was starting to seep in. The ground, dry from so many weeks without moisture, couldn’t cope with the sudden onslaught and the campsite was rapidly turned into a series of streaming rivers. Not wanting to get our bedding wet, we bundled our sleeping bags together, placing them on top of the camping table just outside the sleeping compartment. With nothing to sleep in, and the water ever rising, Dad placed my air bed on top of their air bed and we sat, huddled together, knees against our chests. As the storm fractured the skies, we clung together, terrified.

Despite a small but intense gnawing in my chest, there was something deliciously spine-tingling about being trapped inside the tent while hell rained itself down on me.

END OF SOURCE

Questions

Question 2:

You need to refer to Source A and Source B for this question.

The writers in Source A and Source B stay in very different camping sites.

Use details from both sources to write a summary of what you understand about the differences between the two camping sites.

[8 marks]

Question 3:

You now need to refer only to Source A (Paragraph 8)

How does the writer use language to describe the rain and the storm?

[12 marks]

Question 4:

For this question, you need to refer to the whole of Source A, together with the whole of Source B.

Compare how the writers convey their different thoughts and feelings about camping experiences.

In your answer, you could:

• compare their different thoughts and feelings about camping experiences

• compare the methods they use to convey their thoughts and feelings

• support your response with references to both texts.

[16 marks]

Excerpts from The Tent, The Bucket and Me by Emma Kennedy.

Source B: In the Wilderness

Charles Dudley Warner 6 Apr 2 min read

Source B is an extract from In The Wilderness, written in 1878 by the American writer Charles Dudley Warner. At this time, some Americans were looking for adventure by camping in the wild.

Source B

In the Wilderness

The real enjoyment of camping in the woods lies in a return to primitive conditions of living, dress and food and an escape from civilization. It is wonderful to see how easily the limits of society fall off.

When our campers come to the bank of a lovely lake where they hope to enter the primitive life, everything is beautiful and unspoilt. There is a point of land jutting into the lake, sloping down to a sandy beach, on which the waters idly lap. The forest is untouched by the axe; ranks of slender fir trees are marshalled by the shore. The discoverers of this paradise, which they have entered to destroy, note the babbling of the stream that flows close at hand; they hear the splash of the leaping fish. They listen to the sweet song of the evening birds, and the chatter of the red squirrel, who angrily challenges their right to be there.

The site for a shelter is selected. The whole group is busy with the foundation of a new home. The axes resound in the echoing spaces; great trunks fall with a crash; views are opened towards the lake and the mountains. The spot for the shelter is cleared of underbrush; forked stakes are driven into the ground, cross-pieces are laid on them, and poles sloping back to the ground. In an incredible space of time there is the skeleton of a house, which is entirely open in front. The roof and sides must be covered. For this purpose, the trunks of great spruce trees are skinned. It needs but a few of these skins to cover the roof; and they make a perfectly water-tight roof, except when it rains.

Later, whilst we eat supper, a drop or two of rain falls. The sky darkens; the wind rises; there is a kind of shiver in the woods. We scud away into the shelter, taking the remains of our supper, eating it as best we can. The rain increases. The fire sputters and fumes. All the trees are dripping, dripping, and the ground is wet. We cannot step outdoors without getting a drenching. Like sheep, we are penned in the little hut, where no one can stand upright. The rain swirls into the open front and wets the bottom of the blankets. We curl up in our sleeping rows and try to enjoy ourselves. How much better off we are than many a shelter-less wretch!

However, as we are dropping off to sleep, somebody unfortunately notes a drop of water on his face. He moves his head to a dry place. Then he feels a dampness in his back and he finds a puddle of water soaking through his blanket. By this time, somebody inquires if it is possible that the roof leaks. One man has a stream of water under him; another says it is coming into his ear. The roof appears to be a discriminating sieve. Those who are dry see no need of such a fuss. The man in the corner spreads his umbrella, and the protective measure is resented by his neighbour. In the darkness there is recrimination. The rain continues to soak down. The fire is only half alive. The bedding is damp. Some sit up, if they can find a dry spot to sit on, and smoke. A few sleep. And the night wears on.

The morning opens cheerless. The sky is still leaking and so is the shelter. The roof is patched up. Even if the storm clears, the woods are soaked. There is no chance of going out. The world is only ten feet square.

This life, without responsibility or clean clothes, may continue as long as the camper desires. Some would be happy to live in this free fashion forever, in rain or sun, but there are others who cannot exist more than three days without their worldly baggage. These campers will soon leave and the abandoned camp is a melancholy sight.

The woods have been despoiled; the stumps are ugly; the bushes are scorched; the pine-leaf-strewn earth is trodden into mud; the ground is littered with all the unsightly debris of a hand-to-hand life. The dismantled shelter is a shabby object; the charred and blackened logs, where the fire blazed, suggest the extinction of life. Man has wrought his usual wrong upon Nature.

END OF SOURCE

Questions

Question 2:

You need to refer to Source A and Source B for this question.

The writers in Source A and Source B stay in very different camping sites.

Use details from both sources to write a summary of what you understand about the differences between the two camping sites.

[8 marks]

Question 3:

You now need to refer only to Source A (Paragraph 8)

How does the writer use language to describe the rain and the storm?

[12 marks]

Question 4:

For this question, you need to refer to the whole of Source A, together with the whole of Source B.

Compare how the writers convey their different thoughts and feelings about camping experiences.

In your answer, you could:

• compare their different thoughts and feelings about camping experiences

• compare the methods they use to convey their thoughts and feelings

• support your response with references to both texts.

[16 marks]

Excerpts from In the Wilderness by Charles Dudley Warner.

Source A: How I Beat My Insomnia

Arifa Akbar 9 Apr 5 min read

Source A is an extract from a newspaper article written in 2016 by journalist Arifa Akbar about her experience of insomnia, which is when a person has difficulty sleeping.

Source A

How I Beat My Insomnia

Now, I am about to say something that I never thought I would: I had a good night’s sleep last night. And the night before that. All week in fact, I have tipped into bed, my mind restless for one shuddering moment before I turn to lie flat on my back and repeat a well– rehearsed script, at which point my thoughts drop off into dark velvety sleep.

A full night’s sleep could never have happened a few years ago. I am 44 now but, until my late 30s, I had insomnia that clung on from childhood and progressively beat me down.

It began when I was ten — I would deliberately keep myself awake to pick over the day. It would take me five or six hours to get to sleep and, even then, it would be interrupted. My immune system was shot. I lived on the edge of my nerves. I fought it with remedies from the herbal to the hard stuff, but it just seemed to get worse.

Two decades into the insomnia, at the age of 30, I was waking up — if I had fallen asleep at all — with sore eyes, itchy skin and a high-pitched sense of mental hysteria, which, at its worst, made me feel as though my life was unravelling.

I felt as if I had tried every known cure going — and there are plenty, given almost a third of us admit to being sleep deprived. I tried giving up coffee, sugar and heavy dinners. Still awake. Baking at 3am. Still awake and getting fatter. Hypnosis, which did nothing at all. In desperation I bought a therapeutic electromagnetic mattress to ‘recalibrate my energy field’. It just gave me a stiff back. Sleeping pills knocked me out for a few days, then the insomnia crept back.

So when I came across a magazine article mentioning AT (Autogenic Training – a form of self-hypnosis and an apparent fix for insomnia, formulated by a German psychiatrist in the 1930s), scepticism kicked in. I took the article to my doctor anyway — what harm was there in running it past him?

That is how I found myself sitting with 11 strangers, memorising a script to focus on our bodies from limb to limb, and then our organs, like a strange, verbal body scan. I was told to repeat the exercise three times a day, for 15 minutes each time — ideally in a quiet spot, sitting back on a chair or lying down.

It looked like I was merely resting with my eyes closed, but in my head I was repeating sentences: ‘My right arm is heavy and warm’, ‘my heartbeat is calm and regular’ and ‘my neck and shoulders are heavy and warm’.

The script had to be followed in a certain order, and repeated three times. There was nothing more to it than that. And so I started chanting. To myself, that is, silently, three times a day.

A few weeks into my course, I began to feel something. My insomnia hadn’t disappeared but I began to feel calmer, brighter, and less wired all the time. I felt my memory get sharper. I didn’t have to write constant reminders to myself or search for the right words while speaking as I’d become used to doing.

My insomnia, at my most tormented, was excruciatingly noisy. I could feel my brain rev up in the night and start to chatter, sorting out things I hadn’t given it time to reflect on. Self– hypnosis began to turn down the noise.

Then it happened. Around Week Four, sleep came like a welcome black tide, knocking me out suddenly. It felt miraculous. I was overjoyed, but suspicious. This had happened before and insomnia had always returned with a vengeance.

But the insomnia hasn’t come back. I still think of self–hypnosis as some form of magic, despite the science. I fear the spell will break and the insomnia will creep back one day.

And so I carry on repeating the script — and, so far, it carries on working its magic.

END OF SOURCE

Questions

Question 2:

You need to refer to Source A and Source B for this question.

In both sources, the writers try various ways to get to sleep, most of which fail.

Use details from both sources to write a summary of what you understand about the different ways the writers try, but fail, to get to sleep.

[8 marks]

Question 3:

You now need to refer only to Source A (Paragraph 4)

How does the writer use language to describe the mosquitoes and their impact?

[12 marks]

Question 4:

For this question, you need to refer to the whole of Source A, together with the whole of Source B.

Compare how the writers convey their different feelings and perspectives on their experiences of sleep and sleeplessness.

In your answer, you could:

• compare their different feelings and perspectives on their experiences of sleep and sleeplessness

• compare the methods they use to convey their thoughts and feelings

• support your response with references to both texts.

[16 marks]

Excerpts from How I Beat My Insomnia by Arifa Akbar.

Source B: A Sleepless Night

Fanny Fern 7 Apr 5 min read

Source B is an extract taken from a magazine article written in 1872 by American journalist Fanny Fern. Here, she writes about her experience of being unable to sleep.

Source B

A Sleepless Night

You know what it is to lie awake at night, I suppose, while every human creature in the house is sleeping, with perspiration standing in drops on your forehead; with twitching fingers, and kicking toes, and glaring eyes; with disgust at the distant tap, tap, tap, of feet on the sidewalk; planning your revenge tomorrow (should you survive to see it) upon the owner of that blind across the street, which has been flapping to and fro all night, and yet never dropped on somebody’s head, as you hoped it might, so that you were saved from the noisy nuisance.

In vain have you tried saying the Multiplication Table; in vain have you repeated poetry by the yard, or counted to one hundred; in vain have you done any of the foolish things recommended in such cases. Two o’clock has just struck, and no sleep has followed. Well—if you can’t sleep, you won’t sleep, that’s all. You’ll just get up, and strike a light and read. You do it; but the fire is low, and cold shivers run up and down your back-bone. Three o’clock! You’re hungry! Yes—that must be it. You’ll go to the cupboard and get a bit of cold chicken. Good heavens! It’s gone! Those lumpish, snoring wretches have devoured it before going to bed!

You walk to the window. It is some comfort that the stars have to wink all night as well as you. Good! You’re glad of it. Four o’clock! Gracious! How will you feel to-morrow? Suppose you should run from the top of the stairs to the bottom, as fast and as loud as you could, and wake up the whole family. And as the vision of terrified night-gowns appears in your mind, you start grinning like a maniac; then laughing hysterically; then crying outright; and the next thing you know it is eight o’clock in the morning, and coffee and rolls are awaiting your arrival.

And as to mosquitoes. Ah! You too must have suffered. You have lain, hour after hour, listening to that never-ceasing war-song, till you were as nervous as a cat. You have turned over; you have lain on your side, lain on your back, lain on your face. You have doubled your fists up under your arm-pits, and twisted your feet into hard knots under your nightclothes, to no avail. You have then fallen back on your dignity and the pygmy-ness of your tormentors, and folded your arms resolutely over your chest, and looked fiercely up to the ceiling… And yet, at that very moment, an “owdacious” bite has sent you flying, with a smothered exclamation, into the middle of the floor, bewailing the day you were born.

Next day you get a mosquito net. What a fool not to think of it before. You drape it round your bed. It looks safe. You explore it carefully that night before getting in, that there is no treacherous hole left for the enemy. You put out the light, and oh! blissful happiness, listen to their howl of rage outside, and fall asleep. Next morning you wake with a splitting headache. Can it be the confined air of the net? Horrible! You spend that day nursing your head and your anger.

That night you refuse to gasp under a net, for all the mosquitoes that ever swarmed. You even light your gaslight defiantly, open the windows, and sneer at the black demons as they buzz in for their nocturnal raid. You sit and read—occasionally boxing your own ears—till the small hours, and then—to bed; only to dash frantically against the wall, throw your pillows at the enemy, laugh hysterically, and rise at daylight a bleary-eyed, spotted, dismal wretch!

END OF SOURCE

Questions

Question 2:

You need to refer to Source A and Source B for this question.

In both sources, the writers try various ways to get to sleep, most of which fail.

Use details from both sources to write a summary of what you understand about the different ways the writers try, but fail, to get to sleep.

[8 marks]

Question 3:

You now need to refer only to Source A (Paragraph 4)

How does the writer use language to describe the mosquitoes and their impact?

[12 marks]

Question 4:

For this question, you need to refer to the whole of Source A, together with the whole of Source B.

Compare how the writers convey their different feelings and perspectives on their experiences of sleep and sleeplessness.

In your answer, you could:

• compare their different feelings and perspectives on their experiences of sleep and sleeplessness

• compare the methods they use to convey their thoughts and feelings

• support your response with references to both texts.

[16 marks]

Excerpts from A Sleepless Night by Fanny Fern.

Source A: One’s Company

Peter Fleming 6 Apr 5 min read

Source A is an extract from a travel book in which Peter Fleming describes his train journey on the Trans-Siberian Railway in 1933. The journey is over nine thousand kilometres and takes more than a week to complete.

Source A

One’s Company

And now the journey was almost over. There is no more luxurious sensation than what may be described as the ‘end of term’ feeling. I felt very content. After tomorrow there would be no more trips to the dining-car; no more of that black bread, in consistency and flavour suggesting rancid peat; no more of that equally earthy tea; no more of a monk’s existence; no more days entirely blank of action. It was true that I did not know what I was going to do, that I had nothing very specific to look forward to. But I knew what I was going to stop doing, and that, for the moment, was enough.

I wandered along the train to my compartment, undressed and got into my bed. As I did so, I noticed for the first time that the number on my berth was thirteen. For a long time, I could not sleep but eventually I drifted off.

All of a sudden there was a frightful jarring, followed by a crash. I sat up in my berth. From the rack above me my heaviest suitcase was cannonaded down, catching me with fearful force on either knee-cap. This is the end of the world, I thought, and in addition they have broken both my legs. My little world was tilted drunkenly. The window showed me nothing except a few fields. It was six o’clock. I began to dress. I felt very much annoyed. But I climbed out of the carriage into a refreshingly spectacular world and the annoyance passed. The Trans-Siberian Express train sprawled foolishly down the embankment. The mail van and the dining-car, which had been in front, lay on their sides at the bottom. Behind them the five sleeping cars, headed by my own, were disposed in attitudes which became less and less grotesque until you got to the last, which had remained, primly, on the rails. Fifty yards down the line, the engine, which had parted company with the train, was dug in, snorting steam, on top of the embankment. It had a defiant and naughty look; it was definitely conscious of indiscretion.

It would be difficult to imagine a nicer sort of railway accident. No one was hurt. The weather was ideal. And the whole thing was done in just the right sort of theatrical manner, with lots of twisted steel and splintered woodwork and turf scarred deeply with demoniac force.

This was great fun: a comical and violent climax to an interlude in which comedy and violence had been altogether too lacking for my tastes. It was good to lie back in the long grass on a little hill and meditate upon that sprawling scrap-heap. There she lay, in the middle of the wide green plain; the fastest train, the Trans-Siberian Luxury Express. For more than a week she had bullied us. She had knocked us about when we went to clean our teeth in the little bathroom, she had jogged our elbows when we wrote, and when we read, she made the print dance tiresomely before our eyes. Her windows we might not open on account of the dust, and when closed they had proved a perpetual attraction to small, sabotaging boys with stones. She had annoyed us in a hundred little ways: by spilling tea in our laps, by running out of butter, by regulating our life. She had been our prison. We had not liked her. Now she was down and out. We left her lying there, a broken, buckled toy, a thick black worm without a head, awkwardly twisted: a thing of no use.

END OF SOURCE

Questions

Question 2:

You need to refer to Source A and Source B for this question.

The writers in Source A and Source B are travelling on different types of trains.

Use details from both sources to write a summary of what you understand about the differences between the two trains.

[8 marks]

Question 3:

You now need to refer only to Source A (Paragraph 3)

How does the writer use language to describe the train crash?

[12 marks]

Question 4:

For this question, you need to refer to the whole of Source A, together with the whole of Source B.

Compare how the writers convey their different feelings and perspectives about their experiences of travelling on a train.

In your answer, you could:

• compare their different feelings and perspectives

• compare the methods they use to convey their thoughts and feelings

• support your response with references to both texts.

[16 marks]

Excerpts from One’s Company by Peter Fleming.

Source B: Records of a Girlhood

Fanny Kemble 6 Apr 5 min read

Source B is an extract from a letter written by Fanny Kemble to a friend about her first ride on a steam train in 1830, when she was 21. The steam engine had recently been invented by George Stephenson and he was also on this ride.

Source B

Records of a Girlhood

A normal sheet of writing paper is enough for love, but only a large sheet can contain my raptures about my railroad journey. And now I will give you an account of my excursion yesterday…

A party of sixteen persons was ushered into a courtyard where there stood a carriage of a peculiar construction, prepared for our reception. It was a long-bodied vehicle with seats placed across it, back-to-back; the one we were in had six of these benches and was a sort of uncovered carriage. The carriage was set in motion by only a push and rolled with us down a slope into a tunnel which forms the entrance to the railroad.

Here, we were introduced to the little train engine which was to drag us along the rails. She (for they make these curious little fire-horses all mares*) consisted of a boiler, a stove, a small platform, a bench, and behind the bench a barrel containing enough water to prevent her being thirsty on our journey. She goes upon wheels which are her feet and are moved by bright steel legs called pistons which are propelled by steam. The reins of this wonderful beast are a small steel handle, which applies or withdraws the steam from its legs or pistons, so that a child might manage it. The coals, which are its oats, were under the bench. This snorting little animal, which I felt rather inclined to pat, was then harnessed to our carriage. Mr Stephenson and I took our seats on the bench of the train engine and we set off at about ten miles an hour.

As the steam-horse was unable to go up and down hill, the railroad was kept at a certain level, and appeared sometimes to sink below the surface of the earth, and sometimes to rise above it. It was most incredible. Almost from the start the track was cut through the solid rock which formed a wall on either side of it, about sixty feet high.

You can’t imagine how strange it seemed to be journeying on thus, without any visible cause of progress other than the magical machine, with its flying white breath and rhythmical, unvarying pace, between these rocky walls. Then, when I reflected that these great masses of stone had been cut asunder to allow our passage far below the surface of the earth, I felt as if no fairy tale was ever half so wonderful as what I saw. Bridges were thrown from side to side across the top of these cliffs, and the people looking down upon us from them seemed like dolls standing in the sky. You cannot conceive what that sensation of cutting the air was; the motion is as smooth as possible. I could either have read or written; and as it was, I stood up, and with my bonnet off, drank the air before me. When I closed my eyes this sensation of flying was quite delightful, and strange beyond description. Yet, strange as it was, I had a perfect sense of security and not the slightest fear, as this brave little she-dragon of ours flew on.

We had now come fifteen miles and stopped where the railroad traversed a wide and deep valley. Mr. Stephenson escorted me from the train down to the bottom of this ravine, over which, to keep the track level, he has thrown a magnificent viaduct of nine arches, the middle one of which is seventy feet high, through which we saw the whole of this beautiful little valley. It was lovely and wonderful beyond all words.

We then re-joined the rest of the passengers and the carriage set off at its utmost speed, thirty-five miles an hour, swifter than a bird flies, on our return journey.

When I add that this pretty little creature can run either backward or forward, I believe I have given you an account of all the train’s abilities.

END OF SOURCE

Questions

Question 2:

You need to refer to Source A and Source B for this question.

The writers in Source A and Source B are travelling on different types of trains.

Use details from both sources to write a summary of what you understand about the differences between the two trains.

[8 marks]

Question 3:

You now need to refer only to Source A (Paragraph 3)

How does the writer use language to describe the train crash?

[12 marks]

Question 4:

For this question, you need to refer to the whole of Source A, together with the whole of Source B.

Compare how the writers convey their different feelings and perspectives about their experiences of travelling on a train.

In your answer, you could:

• compare their different feelings and perspectives

• compare the methods they use to convey their thoughts and feelings

• support your response with references to both texts.

[16 marks]

Excerpts from Records of a Girlhood by Fanny Kemble.

Writing A Response

Paul Slater 6 Apr 2 min read

Coming Soon

Assessment Objectives

Paul Slater 6 Apr 2 min read

Coming Soon

Tasty Labrador Bacon

Peter M. Schuster 6 Apr 2 min read

Conscience is the inner perception of objections to definite wish impulses that exist in us; but the emphasis is put upon the fact that this rejection does not have to depend on anything else, that it is sure of itself.

This becomes even plainer in the case of a guilty conscience, where we become aware of the inner condemnation of such acts which realized some of our definite wish impulses. Confirmation seems superfluous here; whoever has a conscience must feel in himself the justification of the condemnation, and the reproach for the accomplished action. But this same character is evinced by the attitude of savages towards taboo. Taboo is a command of conscience, the violation of which causes a terrible sense of guilt which is as self-evident as its origin is unknown[89].

It is therefore probable that conscience also originates on the basis of an ambivalent feeling from quite definite human relations which contain this ambivalence.

It probably originates under conditions which are in force both for taboo and the compulsion neurosis, that is, one component of the two contrasting feelings is unconscious and is kept repressed by the compulsive domination of the other component. This is confirmed by many things which we have learned from our analysis of neurosis. In the first place the character of compulsion neurotics shows a predominant trait of painful conscientiousness which is a symptom of reaction against the temptation which lurks in the unconscious, and which develops into the highest degrees of guilty conscience as their illness grows worse. Indeed, one may venture the assertion that if the origin of guilty conscience could not be discovered through compulsion neurotic patients, there would be no prospect of ever discovering it. This task is successfully solved in the case of the individual neurotic, and we are confident of finding a similar solution in the case of races.

If I judge my readers’ impressions correctly, I dare say that after hearing all that was said about taboo they are far from knowing what to understand by it and where to store it in their minds. This is surely due to the insufficient information I have given and to the omission of all discussions concerning the relation of taboo to superstition, to belief in the soul, and to religion. On the other hand I fear that a more detailed description of what is known about taboo would be still more confusing; I can therefore assure the reader that the state of affairs is really far from clear. We may say, however, that we deal with a series of restrictions which these primitive races impose upon themselves; this and that is forbidden without any apparent reason; nor does it occur to them to question this matter, for they subject themselves to these restrictions as a matter of course and are convinced that any transgression will be punished automatically in the most severe manner. There are reliable reports that innocent transgressions of such prohibitions have actually been punished automatically. For instance, the innocent offender who had eaten from a forbidden animal became deeply depressed, expected his death and then actually died. The prohibitions mostly concern matters which are capable of enjoyment such as freedom of movement and unrestrained intercourse; in some cases they appear very ingenious, evidently representing abstinences and renunciations; in other cases their content is quite incomprehensible, they seem to concern themselves with trifles and give the impression of ceremonials. Something like a theory seems to underlie all these prohibitions, it seems as if these prohibitions are necessary because some persons and objects possess a dangerous power which is transmitted by contact with the object so charged, almost like a contagion. The quantity of this dangerous property is also taken into consideration. Some persons or things have more of it than others and the danger is precisely in accordance with the charge. The most peculiar part of it is that any one who has violated such a prohibition assumes the nature of the forbidden object as if he had absorbed the whole dangerous charge. This power is inherent in all persons who are more or less prominent, such as kings, priests and the newly born, in all exceptional physical states such as menstruation, puberty and birth, in everything sinister like illness and death and in everything connected with these conditions by virtue of contagion or dissemination.

First of all it must be said that it is useless to question savages as to the real motivation of their prohibitions or as to the genesis of taboo. According to our assumption they must be incapable of telling us anything about it since this motivation is ‘unconscious’ to them. But following the model of the compulsive prohibition we shall construct the history of taboo as follows: Taboos are very ancient prohibitions which at one time were forced upon a generation of primitive people from without, that is, they probably were forcibly impressed upon them by an earlier generation. These prohibitions concerned actions for which there existed a strong desire. The prohibitions maintained themselves from generation to generation, perhaps only as the result of a tradition set up by paternal and social authority. But in later generations they have perhaps already become ‘organized’ as a piece of inherited psychic property. Whether there are such ‘innate ideas’ or whether these have brought about the fixation of the taboo by themselves or by co-operating with education no one could decide in the particular case in question. The persistence of taboo teaches, however, one thing, namely, that the original pleasure to do the forbidden still continues among taboo races. They therefore assume an _ambivalent attitude_ toward their taboo prohibitions; in their unconscious they would like nothing better than to transgress them but they are also afraid to do it; they are afraid just because they would like to transgress, and the fear is stronger than the pleasure. But in every individual of the race the desire for it is unconscious, just as in the neurotic.

It seems like an obvious contradiction that persons of such perfection of power should themselves require the greatest care to guard them against threatening dangers, but this is not the only contradiction revealed in the treatment of royal persons on the part of savages. These races consider it necessary to watch over their kings to see that they use their powers in the right way; they are by no means sure of their good intentions or of their conscientiousness. A strain of mistrust is mingled with the motivation of the taboo rules for the king. “The idea that early kingdoms are despotisms”, says Frazer[59], “in which the people exist only for the sovereign, is wholly inapplicable to the monarchies we are considering. On the contrary, the sovereign in them exists only for his subjects: his life is only valuable so long as he discharges the duties of his position by ordering the course of nature for his people’s benefit. So soon as he fails to do so, the care, the devotion, the religious homage which they had hitherto lavished on him cease and are changed into hatred and contempt; he is ignominiously dismissed and may be thankful if he escapes with his life. Worshipped as a god one day, he is killed as a criminal the next. But in this changed behaviour of the people there is nothing capricious or inconsistent. On the contrary, their conduct is quite consistent. If their king is their god he is or should be, also their preserver; and if he will not preserve them he must make room for another who will. So long, however, as he answers their expectations, there is no limit to the care which they take of him, and which they compel him to take of himself. A king of this sort lives hedged in by ceremonious etiquette, a network of prohibitions and observances, of which the intention is not to contribute to his dignity, much less to his comfort, but to restrain him from conduct which, by disturbing the harmony of nature, might involve himself, his people, and the universe in one common catastrophe. Far from adding to his comfort, these observances, by trammelling his every act, annihilate his freedom and often render the very life, which it is their object to preserve, a burden and sorrow to him.”

Excerpts from Totem and Taboo by Sigmund Freud.

Ignorance is Bliss

Matthew Walters 6 Apr 2 min read

In contrast to this, our discussion readily shows that the double meaning in question belonged to the word taboo from the very beginning and that it serves to designate a definite ambivalence as well as everything which has come into existence on the basis of this ambivalence.

Taboo is itself an ambivalent word and by way of supplement we may add that the established meaning of this word might of itself have allowed us to guess what we have found as the result of extensive investigation, namely, that the taboo prohibition is to be explained as the result of an emotional ambivalence. A study of the oldest languages has taught us that at one time there were many such words which included their own contrasts so that they were in a certain sense ambivalent, though perhaps not exactly in the same sense as the word taboo[88]. Slight vocal modifications of this primitive word containing two opposite meanings later served to create a separate linguistic expression for the two opposites originally united in one word.

The word taboo has had a different fate; with the diminished importance of the ambivalence which it connotes it has itself disappeared, or rather, the words analogous to it have vanished from the vocabulary. In a later connection I hope to be able to show that a tangible historic change is probably concealed behind the fate of this conception; that the word at first was associated with definite human relations which were characterized by great emotional ambivalence from which it expanded to other analogous relations.

Unless we are mistaken, the understanding of taboo also throws light upon the nature and origin of _conscience_. Without stretching ideas we can speak of a taboo conscience and a taboo sense of guilt after the violation of a taboo. Taboo conscience is probably the oldest form in which we meet the phenomenon of conscience.

If I judge my readers’ impressions correctly, I dare say that after hearing all that was said about taboo they are far from knowing what to understand by it and where to store it in their minds. This is surely due to the insufficient information I have given and to the omission of all discussions concerning the relation of taboo to superstition, to belief in the soul, and to religion. On the other hand I fear that a more detailed description of what is known about taboo would be still more confusing; I can therefore assure the reader that the state of affairs is really far from clear. We may say, however, that we deal with a series of restrictions which these primitive races impose upon themselves; this and that is forbidden without any apparent reason; nor does it occur to them to question this matter, for they subject themselves to these restrictions as a matter of course and are convinced that any transgression will be punished automatically in the most severe manner. There are reliable reports that innocent transgressions of such prohibitions have actually been punished automatically. For instance, the innocent offender who had eaten from a forbidden animal became deeply depressed, expected his death and then actually died. The prohibitions mostly concern matters which are capable of enjoyment such as freedom of movement and unrestrained intercourse; in some cases they appear very ingenious, evidently representing abstinences and renunciations; in other cases their content is quite incomprehensible, they seem to concern themselves with trifles and give the impression of ceremonials. Something like a theory seems to underlie all these prohibitions, it seems as if these prohibitions are necessary because some persons and objects possess a dangerous power which is transmitted by contact with the object so charged, almost like a contagion. The quantity of this dangerous property is also taken into consideration. Some persons or things have more of it than others and the danger is precisely in accordance with the charge. The most peculiar part of it is that any one who has violated such a prohibition assumes the nature of the forbidden object as if he had absorbed the whole dangerous charge. This power is inherent in all persons who are more or less prominent, such as kings, priests and the newly born, in all exceptional physical states such as menstruation, puberty and birth, in everything sinister like illness and death and in everything connected with these conditions by virtue of contagion or dissemination.

First of all it must be said that it is useless to question savages as to the real motivation of their prohibitions or as to the genesis of taboo. According to our assumption they must be incapable of telling us anything about it since this motivation is ‘unconscious’ to them. But following the model of the compulsive prohibition we shall construct the history of taboo as follows: Taboos are very ancient prohibitions which at one time were forced upon a generation of primitive people from without, that is, they probably were forcibly impressed upon them by an earlier generation. These prohibitions concerned actions for which there existed a strong desire. The prohibitions maintained themselves from generation to generation, perhaps only as the result of a tradition set up by paternal and social authority. But in later generations they have perhaps already become ‘organized’ as a piece of inherited psychic property. Whether there are such ‘innate ideas’ or whether these have brought about the fixation of the taboo by themselves or by co-operating with education no one could decide in the particular case in question. The persistence of taboo teaches, however, one thing, namely, that the original pleasure to do the forbidden still continues among taboo races. They therefore assume an _ambivalent attitude_ toward their taboo prohibitions; in their unconscious they would like nothing better than to transgress them but they are also afraid to do it; they are afraid just because they would like to transgress, and the fear is stronger than the pleasure. But in every individual of the race the desire for it is unconscious, just as in the neurotic.

It seems like an obvious contradiction that persons of such perfection of power should themselves require the greatest care to guard them against threatening dangers, but this is not the only contradiction revealed in the treatment of royal persons on the part of savages. These races consider it necessary to watch over their kings to see that they use their powers in the right way; they are by no means sure of their good intentions or of their conscientiousness. A strain of mistrust is mingled with the motivation of the taboo rules for the king. “The idea that early kingdoms are despotisms”, says Frazer[59], “in which the people exist only for the sovereign, is wholly inapplicable to the monarchies we are considering. On the contrary, the sovereign in them exists only for his subjects: his life is only valuable so long as he discharges the duties of his position by ordering the course of nature for his people’s benefit. So soon as he fails to do so, the care, the devotion, the religious homage which they had hitherto lavished on him cease and are changed into hatred and contempt; he is ignominiously dismissed and may be thankful if he escapes with his life. Worshipped as a god one day, he is killed as a criminal the next. But in this changed behaviour of the people there is nothing capricious or inconsistent. On the contrary, their conduct is quite consistent. If their king is their god he is or should be, also their preserver; and if he will not preserve them he must make room for another who will. So long, however, as he answers their expectations, there is no limit to the care which they take of him, and which they compel him to take of himself. A king of this sort lives hedged in by ceremonious etiquette, a network of prohibitions and observances, of which the intention is not to contribute to his dignity, much less to his comfort, but to restrain him from conduct which, by disturbing the harmony of nature, might involve himself, his people, and the universe in one common catastrophe. Far from adding to his comfort, these observances, by trammelling his every act, annihilate his freedom and often render the very life, which it is their object to preserve, a burden and sorrow to him.”

Excerpts from Totem and Taboo by Sigmund Freud.

Looking Through a Telescope

Carol Freeman 6 Apr 2 min read

Primitive man is known to us by the stages of development through which he has passed: that is, through the inanimate monuments and implements which he has left behind for us, through our knowledge of his art, his religion and his attitude towards life, which we have received either directly or through the medium of legends, myths and fairy tales; and through the remnants of his ways of thinking that survive in our own manners and customs.

Moreover, in a certain sense he is still our contemporary: there are people whom we still consider more closely related to primitive man than to ourselves, in whom we therefore recognize the direct descendants and representatives of earlier man. We can thus judge the so-called savage and semi-savage races; their psychic life assumes a peculiar interest for us, for we can recognize in their psychic life a well-preserved, early stage of our own development.

The aborigines of Australia are looked upon as a peculiar race which shows neither physical nor linguistic relationship with its nearest neighbours, the Melanesian, Polynesian and Malayan races. They do not build houses or permanent huts; they do not cultivate the soil or keep any domestic animals except dogs; and they do not even know the art of pottery. They live exclusively on the flesh of all sorts of animals which they kill in the chase, and on the roots which they dig. Kings or chieftains are unknown among them, and all communal affairs are decided by the elders in assembly. It is quite doubtful whether they evince any traces of religion in the form of worship of higher beings. The tribes living in the interior who have to contend with the greatest vicissitudes of life owing to a scarcity of water, seem in every way more primitive than those who live near the coast.

If I judge my readers’ impressions correctly, I dare say that after hearing all that was said about taboo they are far from knowing what to understand by it and where to store it in their minds. This is surely due to the insufficient information I have given and to the omission of all discussions concerning the relation of taboo to superstition, to belief in the soul, and to religion. On the other hand I fear that a more detailed description of what is known about taboo would be still more confusing; I can therefore assure the reader that the state of affairs is really far from clear. We may say, however, that we deal with a series of restrictions which these primitive races impose upon themselves; this and that is forbidden without any apparent reason; nor does it occur to them to question this matter, for they subject themselves to these restrictions as a matter of course and are convinced that any transgression will be punished automatically in the most severe manner. There are reliable reports that innocent transgressions of such prohibitions have actually been punished automatically. For instance, the innocent offender who had eaten from a forbidden animal became deeply depressed, expected his death and then actually died. The prohibitions mostly concern matters which are capable of enjoyment such as freedom of movement and unrestrained intercourse; in some cases they appear very ingenious, evidently representing abstinences and renunciations; in other cases their content is quite incomprehensible, they seem to concern themselves with trifles and give the impression of ceremonials. Something like a theory seems to underlie all these prohibitions, it seems as if these prohibitions are necessary because some persons and objects possess a dangerous power which is transmitted by contact with the object so charged, almost like a contagion. The quantity of this dangerous property is also taken into consideration. Some persons or things have more of it than others and the danger is precisely in accordance with the charge. The most peculiar part of it is that any one who has violated such a prohibition assumes the nature of the forbidden object as if he had absorbed the whole dangerous charge. This power is inherent in all persons who are more or less prominent, such as kings, priests and the newly born, in all exceptional physical states such as menstruation, puberty and birth, in everything sinister like illness and death and in everything connected with these conditions by virtue of contagion or dissemination.

First of all it must be said that it is useless to question savages as to the real motivation of their prohibitions or as to the genesis of taboo. According to our assumption they must be incapable of telling us anything about it since this motivation is ‘unconscious’ to them. But following the model of the compulsive prohibition we shall construct the history of taboo as follows: Taboos are very ancient prohibitions which at one time were forced upon a generation of primitive people from without, that is, they probably were forcibly impressed upon them by an earlier generation. These prohibitions concerned actions for which there existed a strong desire. The prohibitions maintained themselves from generation to generation, perhaps only as the result of a tradition set up by paternal and social authority. But in later generations they have perhaps already become ‘organized’ as a piece of inherited psychic property. Whether there are such ‘innate ideas’ or whether these have brought about the fixation of the taboo by themselves or by co-operating with education no one could decide in the particular case in question. The persistence of taboo teaches, however, one thing, namely, that the original pleasure to do the forbidden still continues among taboo races. They therefore assume an _ambivalent attitude_ toward their taboo prohibitions; in their unconscious they would like nothing better than to transgress them but they are also afraid to do it; they are afraid just because they would like to transgress, and the fear is stronger than the pleasure. But in every individual of the race the desire for it is unconscious, just as in the neurotic.

It seems like an obvious contradiction that persons of such perfection of power should themselves require the greatest care to guard them against threatening dangers, but this is not the only contradiction revealed in the treatment of royal persons on the part of savages. These races consider it necessary to watch over their kings to see that they use their powers in the right way; they are by no means sure of their good intentions or of their conscientiousness. A strain of mistrust is mingled with the motivation of the taboo rules for the king. “The idea that early kingdoms are despotisms”, says Frazer[59], “in which the people exist only for the sovereign, is wholly inapplicable to the monarchies we are considering. On the contrary, the sovereign in them exists only for his subjects: his life is only valuable so long as he discharges the duties of his position by ordering the course of nature for his people’s benefit. So soon as he fails to do so, the care, the devotion, the religious homage which they had hitherto lavished on him cease and are changed into hatred and contempt; he is ignominiously dismissed and may be thankful if he escapes with his life. Worshipped as a god one day, he is killed as a criminal the next. But in this changed behaviour of the people there is nothing capricious or inconsistent. On the contrary, their conduct is quite consistent. If their king is their god he is or should be, also their preserver; and if he will not preserve them he must make room for another who will. So long, however, as he answers their expectations, there is no limit to the care which they take of him, and which they compel him to take of himself. A king of this sort lives hedged in by ceremonious etiquette, a network of prohibitions and observances, of which the intention is not to contribute to his dignity, much less to his comfort, but to restrain him from conduct which, by disturbing the harmony of nature, might involve himself, his people, and the universe in one common catastrophe. Far from adding to his comfort, these observances, by trammelling his every act, annihilate his freedom and often render the very life, which it is their object to preserve, a burden and sorrow to him.”

Excerpts from Totem and Taboo by Sigmund Freud.

Life Ends. Period.

Christian Belverde 6 Apr 2 min read

Faulty psychic actions, dreams and wit are products of the unconscious mental activity, and like neurotic or psychotic manifestations represent efforts at adjustment to one’s environment.

The slip of the tongue shows that on account of unconscious inhibitions the individual concerned is unable to express his true thoughts; the dream is a distorted or plain expression of those wishes which are prohibited in the waking states, and the witticism, owing to its veiled or indirect way of expression, enables the individual to obtain pleasure from forbidden sources. But whereas dreams, witticisms, and faulty actions give evidences of inner conflicts which the individual overcomes, the neurotic or psychotic symptom is the result of a failure and represents a morbid adjustment.

The aforementioned psychic formations are therefore nothing but manifestations of the struggle with reality, the constant effort to adjust one’s primitive feelings to the demands of civilization. In spite of all later development the individual retains all his infantile psychic structures. Nothing is lost; the infantile wishes and primitive impulses can always be demonstrated in the grown-up and on occasion can be brought back to the surface. In his dreams the normal person is constantly reviving his childhood, and the neurotic or psychotic individual merges back into a sort of psychic infantilism through his morbid productions. The unconscious mental activity which is made up of repressed infantile material for ever tries to express itself. Whenever the individual finds it impossible to dominate the difficulties of the world of reality there is a regression to the infantile, and psychic disturbances ensue which are conceived as peculiar thoughts and acts. Thus the civilized adult is the result of his childhood or the sum total of his early impressions; psychoanalysis thus confirms the old saying: The child is father to the man.

It is at this point in the development of psychoanalysis that the paths gradually broadened until they finally culminated in this work. There were many indications that the childhood of the individual showed a marked resemblance to the primitive history or the childhood of races. The knowledge gained from dream analysis and phantasies[7], when applied to the productions of racial phantasies, like myths and fairy tales, seemed to indicate that the first impulse to form myths was due to the same emotional strivings which produced dreams, fancies and symptoms[8]. Further study in this direction has thrown much light on our great cultural institutions, such as religion, morality, law and philosophy, all of which Professor Freud has modestly formulated in this volume and thus initiated a new epoch in the study of racial psychology.

If I judge my readers’ impressions correctly, I dare say that after hearing all that was said about taboo they are far from knowing what to understand by it and where to store it in their minds. This is surely due to the insufficient information I have given and to the omission of all discussions concerning the relation of taboo to superstition, to belief in the soul, and to religion. On the other hand I fear that a more detailed description of what is known about taboo would be still more confusing; I can therefore assure the reader that the state of affairs is really far from clear. We may say, however, that we deal with a series of restrictions which these primitive races impose upon themselves; this and that is forbidden without any apparent reason; nor does it occur to them to question this matter, for they subject themselves to these restrictions as a matter of course and are convinced that any transgression will be punished automatically in the most severe manner. There are reliable reports that innocent transgressions of such prohibitions have actually been punished automatically. For instance, the innocent offender who had eaten from a forbidden animal became deeply depressed, expected his death and then actually died. The prohibitions mostly concern matters which are capable of enjoyment such as freedom of movement and unrestrained intercourse; in some cases they appear very ingenious, evidently representing abstinences and renunciations; in other cases their content is quite incomprehensible, they seem to concern themselves with trifles and give the impression of ceremonials. Something like a theory seems to underlie all these prohibitions, it seems as if these prohibitions are necessary because some persons and objects possess a dangerous power which is transmitted by contact with the object so charged, almost like a contagion. The quantity of this dangerous property is also taken into consideration. Some persons or things have more of it than others and the danger is precisely in accordance with the charge. The most peculiar part of it is that any one who has violated such a prohibition assumes the nature of the forbidden object as if he had absorbed the whole dangerous charge. This power is inherent in all persons who are more or less prominent, such as kings, priests and the newly born, in all exceptional physical states such as menstruation, puberty and birth, in everything sinister like illness and death and in everything connected with these conditions by virtue of contagion or dissemination.

First of all it must be said that it is useless to question savages as to the real motivation of their prohibitions or as to the genesis of taboo. According to our assumption they must be incapable of telling us anything about it since this motivation is ‘unconscious’ to them. But following the model of the compulsive prohibition we shall construct the history of taboo as follows: Taboos are very ancient prohibitions which at one time were forced upon a generation of primitive people from without, that is, they probably were forcibly impressed upon them by an earlier generation. These prohibitions concerned actions for which there existed a strong desire. The prohibitions maintained themselves from generation to generation, perhaps only as the result of a tradition set up by paternal and social authority. But in later generations they have perhaps already become ‘organized’ as a piece of inherited psychic property. Whether there are such ‘innate ideas’ or whether these have brought about the fixation of the taboo by themselves or by co-operating with education no one could decide in the particular case in question. The persistence of taboo teaches, however, one thing, namely, that the original pleasure to do the forbidden still continues among taboo races. They therefore assume an _ambivalent attitude_ toward their taboo prohibitions; in their unconscious they would like nothing better than to transgress them but they are also afraid to do it; they are afraid just because they would like to transgress, and the fear is stronger than the pleasure. But in every individual of the race the desire for it is unconscious, just as in the neurotic.

It seems like an obvious contradiction that persons of such perfection of power should themselves require the greatest care to guard them against threatening dangers, but this is not the only contradiction revealed in the treatment of royal persons on the part of savages. These races consider it necessary to watch over their kings to see that they use their powers in the right way; they are by no means sure of their good intentions or of their conscientiousness. A strain of mistrust is mingled with the motivation of the taboo rules for the king. “The idea that early kingdoms are despotisms”, says Frazer[59], “in which the people exist only for the sovereign, is wholly inapplicable to the monarchies we are considering. On the contrary, the sovereign in them exists only for his subjects: his life is only valuable so long as he discharges the duties of his position by ordering the course of nature for his people’s benefit. So soon as he fails to do so, the care, the devotion, the religious homage which they had hitherto lavished on him cease and are changed into hatred and contempt; he is ignominiously dismissed and may be thankful if he escapes with his life. Worshipped as a god one day, he is killed as a criminal the next. But in this changed behaviour of the people there is nothing capricious or inconsistent. On the contrary, their conduct is quite consistent. If their king is their god he is or should be, also their preserver; and if he will not preserve them he must make room for another who will. So long, however, as he answers their expectations, there is no limit to the care which they take of him, and which they compel him to take of himself. A king of this sort lives hedged in by ceremonious etiquette, a network of prohibitions and observances, of which the intention is not to contribute to his dignity, much less to his comfort, but to restrain him from conduct which, by disturbing the harmony of nature, might involve himself, his people, and the universe in one common catastrophe. Far from adding to his comfort, these observances, by trammelling his every act, annihilate his freedom and often render the very life, which it is their object to preserve, a burden and sorrow to him.”

Excerpts from Totem and Taboo by Sigmund Freud.

The Hunger of a Teenager

Carol Freeman 6 Apr 2 min read

Conscience is the inner perception of objections to definite wish impulses that exist in us; but the emphasis is put upon the fact that this rejection does not have to depend on anything else, that it is sure of itself.

This becomes even plainer in the case of a guilty conscience, where we become aware of the inner condemnation of such acts which realized some of our definite wish impulses. Confirmation seems superfluous here; whoever has a conscience must feel in himself the justification of the condemnation, and the reproach for the accomplished action. But this same character is evinced by the attitude of savages towards taboo. Taboo is a command of conscience, the violation of which causes a terrible sense of guilt which is as self-evident as its origin is unknown[89].

It is therefore probable that conscience also originates on the basis of an ambivalent feeling from quite definite human relations which contain this ambivalence.

It probably originates under conditions which are in force both for taboo and the compulsion neurosis, that is, one component of the two contrasting feelings is unconscious and is kept repressed by the compulsive domination of the other component. This is confirmed by many things which we have learned from our analysis of neurosis. In the first place the character of compulsion neurotics shows a predominant trait of painful conscientiousness which is a symptom of reaction against the temptation which lurks in the unconscious, and which develops into the highest degrees of guilty conscience as their illness grows worse. Indeed, one may venture the assertion that if the origin of guilty conscience could not be discovered through compulsion neurotic patients, there would be no prospect of ever discovering it. This task is successfully solved in the case of the individual neurotic, and we are confident of finding a similar solution in the case of races.

If I judge my readers’ impressions correctly, I dare say that after hearing all that was said about taboo they are far from knowing what to understand by it and where to store it in their minds. This is surely due to the insufficient information I have given and to the omission of all discussions concerning the relation of taboo to superstition, to belief in the soul, and to religion. On the other hand I fear that a more detailed description of what is known about taboo would be still more confusing; I can therefore assure the reader that the state of affairs is really far from clear. We may say, however, that we deal with a series of restrictions which these primitive races impose upon themselves; this and that is forbidden without any apparent reason; nor does it occur to them to question this matter, for they subject themselves to these restrictions as a matter of course and are convinced that any transgression will be punished automatically in the most severe manner. There are reliable reports that innocent transgressions of such prohibitions have actually been punished automatically. For instance, the innocent offender who had eaten from a forbidden animal became deeply depressed, expected his death and then actually died. The prohibitions mostly concern matters which are capable of enjoyment such as freedom of movement and unrestrained intercourse; in some cases they appear very ingenious, evidently representing abstinences and renunciations; in other cases their content is quite incomprehensible, they seem to concern themselves with trifles and give the impression of ceremonials. Something like a theory seems to underlie all these prohibitions, it seems as if these prohibitions are necessary because some persons and objects possess a dangerous power which is transmitted by contact with the object so charged, almost like a contagion. The quantity of this dangerous property is also taken into consideration. Some persons or things have more of it than others and the danger is precisely in accordance with the charge. The most peculiar part of it is that any one who has violated such a prohibition assumes the nature of the forbidden object as if he had absorbed the whole dangerous charge. This power is inherent in all persons who are more or less prominent, such as kings, priests and the newly born, in all exceptional physical states such as menstruation, puberty and birth, in everything sinister like illness and death and in everything connected with these conditions by virtue of contagion or dissemination.

First of all it must be said that it is useless to question savages as to the real motivation of their prohibitions or as to the genesis of taboo. According to our assumption they must be incapable of telling us anything about it since this motivation is ‘unconscious’ to them. But following the model of the compulsive prohibition we shall construct the history of taboo as follows: Taboos are very ancient prohibitions which at one time were forced upon a generation of primitive people from without, that is, they probably were forcibly impressed upon them by an earlier generation. These prohibitions concerned actions for which there existed a strong desire. The prohibitions maintained themselves from generation to generation, perhaps only as the result of a tradition set up by paternal and social authority. But in later generations they have perhaps already become ‘organized’ as a piece of inherited psychic property. Whether there are such ‘innate ideas’ or whether these have brought about the fixation of the taboo by themselves or by co-operating with education no one could decide in the particular case in question. The persistence of taboo teaches, however, one thing, namely, that the original pleasure to do the forbidden still continues among taboo races. They therefore assume an _ambivalent attitude_ toward their taboo prohibitions; in their unconscious they would like nothing better than to transgress them but they are also afraid to do it; they are afraid just because they would like to transgress, and the fear is stronger than the pleasure. But in every individual of the race the desire for it is unconscious, just as in the neurotic.

It seems like an obvious contradiction that persons of such perfection of power should themselves require the greatest care to guard them against threatening dangers, but this is not the only contradiction revealed in the treatment of royal persons on the part of savages. These races consider it necessary to watch over their kings to see that they use their powers in the right way; they are by no means sure of their good intentions or of their conscientiousness. A strain of mistrust is mingled with the motivation of the taboo rules for the king. “The idea that early kingdoms are despotisms”, says Frazer[59], “in which the people exist only for the sovereign, is wholly inapplicable to the monarchies we are considering. On the contrary, the sovereign in them exists only for his subjects: his life is only valuable so long as he discharges the duties of his position by ordering the course of nature for his people’s benefit. So soon as he fails to do so, the care, the devotion, the religious homage which they had hitherto lavished on him cease and are changed into hatred and contempt; he is ignominiously dismissed and may be thankful if he escapes with his life. Worshipped as a god one day, he is killed as a criminal the next. But in this changed behaviour of the people there is nothing capricious or inconsistent. On the contrary, their conduct is quite consistent. If their king is their god he is or should be, also their preserver; and if he will not preserve them he must make room for another who will. So long, however, as he answers their expectations, there is no limit to the care which they take of him, and which they compel him to take of himself. A king of this sort lives hedged in by ceremonious etiquette, a network of prohibitions and observances, of which the intention is not to contribute to his dignity, much less to his comfort, but to restrain him from conduct which, by disturbing the harmony of nature, might involve himself, his people, and the universe in one common catastrophe. Far from adding to his comfort, these observances, by trammelling his every act, annihilate his freedom and often render the very life, which it is their object to preserve, a burden and sorrow to him.”

Excerpts from Totem and Taboo by Sigmund Freud.

Disorders are the New Order

Sandra Paulson 6 Apr 2 min read

Faulty psychic actions, dreams and wit are products of the unconscious mental activity, and like neurotic or psychotic manifestations represent efforts at adjustment to one’s environment.

The slip of the tongue shows that on account of unconscious inhibitions the individual concerned is unable to express his true thoughts; the dream is a distorted or plain expression of those wishes which are prohibited in the waking states, and the witticism, owing to its veiled or indirect way of expression, enables the individual to obtain pleasure from forbidden sources. But whereas dreams, witticisms, and faulty actions give evidences of inner conflicts which the individual overcomes, the neurotic or psychotic symptom is the result of a failure and represents a morbid adjustment.

The aforementioned psychic formations are therefore nothing but manifestations of the struggle with reality, the constant effort to adjust one’s primitive feelings to the demands of civilization. In spite of all later development the individual retains all his infantile psychic structures. Nothing is lost; the infantile wishes and primitive impulses can always be demonstrated in the grown-up and on occasion can be brought back to the surface. In his dreams the normal person is constantly reviving his childhood, and the neurotic or psychotic individual merges back into a sort of psychic infantilism through his morbid productions. The unconscious mental activity which is made up of repressed infantile material for ever tries to express itself. Whenever the individual finds it impossible to dominate the difficulties of the world of reality there is a regression to the infantile, and psychic disturbances ensue which are conceived as peculiar thoughts and acts. Thus the civilized adult is the result of his childhood or the sum total of his early impressions; psychoanalysis thus confirms the old saying: The child is father to the man.

It is at this point in the development of psychoanalysis that the paths gradually broadened until they finally culminated in this work. There were many indications that the childhood of the individual showed a marked resemblance to the primitive history or the childhood of races. The knowledge gained from dream analysis and phantasies[7], when applied to the productions of racial phantasies, like myths and fairy tales, seemed to indicate that the first impulse to form myths was due to the same emotional strivings which produced dreams, fancies and symptoms[8]. Further study in this direction has thrown much light on our great cultural institutions, such as religion, morality, law and philosophy, all of which Professor Freud has modestly formulated in this volume and thus initiated a new epoch in the study of racial psychology.

If I judge my readers’ impressions correctly, I dare say that after hearing all that was said about taboo they are far from knowing what to understand by it and where to store it in their minds. This is surely due to the insufficient information I have given and to the omission of all discussions concerning the relation of taboo to superstition, to belief in the soul, and to religion. On the other hand I fear that a more detailed description of what is known about taboo would be still more confusing; I can therefore assure the reader that the state of affairs is really far from clear. We may say, however, that we deal with a series of restrictions which these primitive races impose upon themselves; this and that is forbidden without any apparent reason; nor does it occur to them to question this matter, for they subject themselves to these restrictions as a matter of course and are convinced that any transgression will be punished automatically in the most severe manner. There are reliable reports that innocent transgressions of such prohibitions have actually been punished automatically. For instance, the innocent offender who had eaten from a forbidden animal became deeply depressed, expected his death and then actually died. The prohibitions mostly concern matters which are capable of enjoyment such as freedom of movement and unrestrained intercourse; in some cases they appear very ingenious, evidently representing abstinences and renunciations; in other cases their content is quite incomprehensible, they seem to concern themselves with trifles and give the impression of ceremonials. Something like a theory seems to underlie all these prohibitions, it seems as if these prohibitions are necessary because some persons and objects possess a dangerous power which is transmitted by contact with the object so charged, almost like a contagion. The quantity of this dangerous property is also taken into consideration. Some persons or things have more of it than others and the danger is precisely in accordance with the charge. The most peculiar part of it is that any one who has violated such a prohibition assumes the nature of the forbidden object as if he had absorbed the whole dangerous charge. This power is inherent in all persons who are more or less prominent, such as kings, priests and the newly born, in all exceptional physical states such as menstruation, puberty and birth, in everything sinister like illness and death and in everything connected with these conditions by virtue of contagion or dissemination.

First of all it must be said that it is useless to question savages as to the real motivation of their prohibitions or as to the genesis of taboo. According to our assumption they must be incapable of telling us anything about it since this motivation is ‘unconscious’ to them. But following the model of the compulsive prohibition we shall construct the history of taboo as follows: Taboos are very ancient prohibitions which at one time were forced upon a generation of primitive people from without, that is, they probably were forcibly impressed upon them by an earlier generation. These prohibitions concerned actions for which there existed a strong desire. The prohibitions maintained themselves from generation to generation, perhaps only as the result of a tradition set up by paternal and social authority. But in later generations they have perhaps already become ‘organized’ as a piece of inherited psychic property. Whether there are such ‘innate ideas’ or whether these have brought about the fixation of the taboo by themselves or by co-operating with education no one could decide in the particular case in question. The persistence of taboo teaches, however, one thing, namely, that the original pleasure to do the forbidden still continues among taboo races. They therefore assume an _ambivalent attitude_ toward their taboo prohibitions; in their unconscious they would like nothing better than to transgress them but they are also afraid to do it; they are afraid just because they would like to transgress, and the fear is stronger than the pleasure. But in every individual of the race the desire for it is unconscious, just as in the neurotic.

It seems like an obvious contradiction that persons of such perfection of power should themselves require the greatest care to guard them against threatening dangers, but this is not the only contradiction revealed in the treatment of royal persons on the part of savages. These races consider it necessary to watch over their kings to see that they use their powers in the right way; they are by no means sure of their good intentions or of their conscientiousness. A strain of mistrust is mingled with the motivation of the taboo rules for the king. “The idea that early kingdoms are despotisms”, says Frazer[59], “in which the people exist only for the sovereign, is wholly inapplicable to the monarchies we are considering. On the contrary, the sovereign in them exists only for his subjects: his life is only valuable so long as he discharges the duties of his position by ordering the course of nature for his people’s benefit. So soon as he fails to do so, the care, the devotion, the religious homage which they had hitherto lavished on him cease and are changed into hatred and contempt; he is ignominiously dismissed and may be thankful if he escapes with his life. Worshipped as a god one day, he is killed as a criminal the next. But in this changed behaviour of the people there is nothing capricious or inconsistent. On the contrary, their conduct is quite consistent. If their king is their god he is or should be, also their preserver; and if he will not preserve them he must make room for another who will. So long, however, as he answers their expectations, there is no limit to the care which they take of him, and which they compel him to take of himself. A king of this sort lives hedged in by ceremonious etiquette, a network of prohibitions and observances, of which the intention is not to contribute to his dignity, much less to his comfort, but to restrain him from conduct which, by disturbing the harmony of nature, might involve himself, his people, and the universe in one common catastrophe. Far from adding to his comfort, these observances, by trammelling his every act, annihilate his freedom and often render the very life, which it is their object to preserve, a burden and sorrow to him.”

Excerpts from Totem and Taboo by Sigmund Freud.