ECS-2

English section:- 25m

Q1-Passage 7m

Q2-Letter to editor(any 1 out of 2) 5m

Q3-Words:make 2 sentences each using the same

word once as a verb and once as a noun 5m

Q4-Prepare a news report on any one of the

following headlines 8m

Hindi/Marathi section:- 25m

Q1-Letter to editor 10m

Q2-Prepare a news report on any one of the

following headlines 10m

Q3-Prepare an advertisement on any one of

the following products 5m

English literature:-
Q1-Position of women in India with reference to Imtiaz Dharker’s “Purdah”

 “Purdah” or veil is a mandatory practice in most of the Muslim or Islamic parts of

society.

 It shuns the individuality of the women as it creates a wall between the woman
and the outside world.

 She gets isolated from the world (society) which is least bothered about the
feelings, emotions and opinions of the heart and mind behind the veil.

 Woman has always been given secondary position in this patriarchal society and
always been

suppressed.

When a girl attains puberty she is asked to be more careful or rather shame is
imposed on her and people (society) try to teach her how to sit, walk, talk, etc. But
the society does’nt change accordingly, i.e., the society, especially men start
looking at women as an object of satisfaction, absolutely wooden with no feelings,
point of view, wishes, desires, dreams, etc. of her own.

 Her identity is stolen, her existence is questioned.

”Purdah” here doesn’t only refer to the black veil but it also refers to all those lies,
false notions, etc. with which a man covers himself to come in front of woman to
CONQUER her.

To conclude, in Indian society which is patriarchal (male-dominated) a woman is

not allowed to live but she is moulded at the hands of few people from society and
thus becomes a mere puppet and loses her own SELF.

Q2-Explain the theme of Leo Tolstoy’s short story “Three Questions” along
with some biographical details.

Man being blessed with brain, thinking capability, at times fails to understand the
importance and need of the very moment.

Very often we do wish that what if we would have known the correct, time, person
and the correct chore to be attended, life would be so easy, meaningful, hassle-free
and nobody will regret any deed done by them in their lives.

Leo Tolstoy’s “Three Question” has a king as the protagonist of the short story,
who too is busy or rather struggling to get answers of the same three questions:-

a) How can I learn to do the right thing at the right time?

b) Who are the people I most need, and to whom should I therefore, pay more
attention than to the rest?

c) And, what affairs are the most important and need my first attention?

But during all this he forgets that his precious time which he could use in attending
the problems of the people of his kingdom. Thus, in search of correct time, person
and the deed, he spoils his PRESENT which was once PAST and will be FUTURE.

The major theme in “Three Questions” is to live in present. If we start living our
present to the fullest then our life will be fulfilling and we will never repent of not
paying need to any problem or work. Thus, instead of crying on past and just
planning for the future in the very PRESENT won’t solve our problems, on the
contrary we are inviting more problems. If we don’t live the best of TODAY
(PRESENT) we tarnish our YESTERDAY (PAST) {which once was present} and
TOMORROW (FUTURE) {which is once again going to be our present}.

Q3- Major themes in Taslima Nasreen’s poetry.

 Taslima Nasreen is known for her straight-forwardness in her writings. She writes
the bitter truth of life and most of the times writes about her first hand experience.

 She talks about the male dominancy in the society, where there is no space for
woman as an individual. Thus, she is the voice of all the suppressed women in the
society.

 She bares the reality of religion, culture, humanity, society, etc. in her poems.
She is very blunt in pointing out the loopholes in each and every religion, culture,
etc. without being afraid of the consequences. She is a bold writer as she doesn’t
cover her feelings in sober words, she bares it all, she talks about the naked truth.

 In one of her poems- “You Go Girl”, she encourages the girl (woman) to take up a
stand and ask for her rights. Taslima says, life won’t be easy for you, girl, so stand
up with your stiff back and head held high, voice out your opinions loud enough so
that it could be heard by the male chauvinists of the society. She also says that it’s
not very easy for a woman to do all this in this male-dominated society as it might
heart the male ego. If you (girl) stand up, men in the society will call you names, will
call you a woman with a loose character, you have no shame, you are a WHORE but
don’t fall into the trap as they are trying to demotivate you (they can’t tolerate
anybody standing up for their own rights especially a woman) but don’t give in as
these are the testing times. On the contrary, laugh at them, mock at them and then
they themselves will feel guilty; and thus leaving you unconquered. You will be a
threat to their masculinity and dream to other women to become whore like you.

 In one of her short poems “CHARACTER”, she talks about how when a woman
fights for her rights or answers back an atrocity done on her by the society she is
termed as a woman with no character but if she silently suffers then she is an ideal
woman who is never worshipped. This also stands as a reality for all human beings,
i.e., we should silently witness the wrong deeds around us if we really want to
SURVIVE in the society.

In “AT THE BACK OF PROGRESS”, Taslima talks about bosses (males) who enjoy
the topmost position in the institution but behind the locked locked doors molest
women for pleasure and satisfaction by loving them for money or a job offer. If a
woman comes out and tells everybody what she has borne inside, nobody believes
her but it is she who is pointed out as a culprit. How normally or casually the man
lives, goes back home and beats his wife because of some small issu, then comes a
divorce and then a series of marriages alongwith chain of divorces. Thus, we see
even here the woman suffers.

”LIVE” – a poem.

”SO LET THEM RULE THE WORLD” – a poem.

Q4-Themes in William Golding’s “LORD OF THE FLIES”.

 We all say that even if we grow older, still we have a kid in our heart, the childish
innocence who would loved to be pampered. But have we ever thought that there
can be cruelty and brutality in young innocent kids too? This is what is the major
theme of the novel “LORD OF THE FLIES”.

In this novel, there is a bunch of kids stranded on a deserted island do not have
elder with them. So, they are happy that they will have fun. But little did they know
that they will extract fun from other kids’ miseries.

Ralph stands for logic, rationality, but Jack stands for irrationality, impulsive
nature and Jack’s group is known as Hunters’ group, as they usually look out for
food and for that they hunt animals.

Jack’s group begins the hunt and they get a sow (mother pig), the very first stage
of animalistic attitude. Then they eat it and fix the sow-head on the spear and start
dancing around that displaying the primitiveness, tribal behavior and how they
enjoy after killing someone.

Death of Simon:- the rumour that there is a beast on the mountain made all the
boys to be scared. Simon, belonging to Ralph’s camp, a very quiet boy decided to
look out for the “BEAST”. He went on the mountain and found that so called beast
to be a parachutist who crashed on the mountain. With joy, he was coming down
from the mountain, but has mistaken for the beast in the darkness and was killed by
Jack’s group. Unknowingly, they slaughtered his head, put it on an arrow, danced.
When they came to know about what they have done, still they didn’t repent. This
shows the depletion of humanity from the kids. When not in the control of the
society.

Evil had conquered them or rather the evil side of theirs was dominating.

In order to cook, fire was required and for that Piggy’s spectacles. One of the
members of Jack’s group went to steal Piggy’s spectacles and somehow in the thick
curtains of darkness (…on their minds) he pushed piggy from the cliff and he died
and along with it the conch gone broken into pieces which ended the utmost
wisdom (Piggy) and the civilization (conch). Even after this the kids in the Jack’s
group especially Jack himself was not feeling bad about Piggy’s death, on the
contrary he was planning for Ralph’s murder. Fearlessly, these kids have plotted
against each other, 2 of them have

Structuralism:-

Almost all literary theorists beginning with Aristotle have emphasized the
importance of structure, conceived in diverse ways, in analyzing a work of
literature. It designates the practice of critics who analyze literature on the explicit
model of structuralist linguistics. The class includes a number of Russian formalists,
especially Roman Jakobson; but consists most prominently of a group of writers,
with their headquarters in Paris. This movement is a part of a larger movement,
French structuralism, inaugurated in the 1950s by the cultural anthropologist
Claude Levi Strauss, who analyzed on the model of Saussure’s linguistics, such as
cultural phenomena as mythology, kinship relations, and modes of preparing food.
Structuralism says a text has a “center” which controls the meaning of the text and
restricts the signs to play to conclude various meanings… it says the text has the
fixed “center” and it is usually its form or structure which binds the text and
conveys a single particular to readers, i.e., which the author wants to convey. It is
more of author-centric.

Post-structuralism:-

It designates a broad variety of critical perspectives and procedures that in the

1970s displaced structuralism from its prominence as the radically innovative way
of dealing with language and other signifying systems. A conspicuous
announcement to American scholars of the post-structural point of view was
Jacques Derrida’s paper on “Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourse of the Human
Sciences”, delivered in 1966. Derrida attacked the systematic, quasi-scientific
pretensions of the strict form of structuralism.
Post-structuralism says that there is no center in the text as the structuralism says
and so the words, signs are free to play among themselves to conclude various
meanings to different readers. Unlike structuralism, post structuralism dismisses the
existence of fixed “center”. Thus, post-structuralism gives liberty to the readers to
have as many as meanings they want to have from the text. It is more of reader-
centric.