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O-LevelLiterature in EnglishPoetry2010/12 · Oct/Nov 2016 · Q525 Marks

Read this poem, and then answer the question that follows it: The Lost Woman... My mother went with no more warning than a bright voice and a bad pain Home from school on a June morning And where the brook goes under the lane I saw the back of a shocking white Ambulance drawing away from the gate. She never returned and I never saw Her buried. So a romance began. The ivy-mother turned into a tree That still hops away like a rainbow down The avenue as I approach. My tendrils are the ones that clutch. I made a life for her over the years. Frustrated no more by a dull marriage She ran a canteen through several wars. The wit of a cliché-ridden village She met her match at an extra-mural Class and the OU summer school. Many a hero in his time And every poet has acquired A lost woman to haunt the home, To be compensated and desired, Who will not alter, who will not grow A corpse they need never get to know. She is nearly always benign. Her habit Is not to stride at dead of night. Soft and crepuscular in rabbit- Light she comes out. Hear how they hate Themselves for losing her as they did. Her country is bland and she does not chide. But my lost woman evermore snaps From somewhere else: 'you did not love me. I sacrificed too much perhaps, I showed you the way to rise above me And you took it. You are the ghost With the bat-voice, my dear. I am not lost.' (Patricia Beer)

  1. (a)How does Beer strikingly convey the complex relationship the speaker has with her mother in The Lost Woman...?[25]

Mark scheme

Marking points from the official mark scheme (Oct/Nov 2016). The mark or mark type is shown in brackets.

  1. [25-23] Sustains personal engagement with task and text; sustains a critical understanding of the text showing individuality and insight; responds sensitively and in detail to the way the writer achieves effects; incorporates well-selected reference to the text skilfully and with flair.

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About this question

Topic
Poetry, O-Level Literature in English (syllabus 2010). Structured question, 25 marks.
Source
O-Level Literature in English, Oct/Nov 2016 Paper 1 Variant 2, question 5.

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