This passage describes a young boy and his family traveling to a spring festival outside their city. As they walk along the road lined with shops, the boy lags behind attracted to the toys. When he catches up to his parents, he pleads for a toy but his father refuses with a stern look. His mother comforts him and redirects his attention to the beautiful mustard flower field they have entered, which stretches for miles like a river of golden light.
This passage describes a young boy and his family traveling to a spring festival outside their city. As they walk along the road lined with shops, the boy lags behind attracted to the toys. When he catches up to his parents, he pleads for a toy but his father refuses with a stern look. His mother comforts him and redirects his attention to the beautiful mustard flower field they have entered, which stretches for miles like a river of golden light.
This passage describes a young boy and his family traveling to a spring festival outside their city. As they walk along the road lined with shops, the boy lags behind attracted to the toys. When he catches up to his parents, he pleads for a toy but his father refuses with a stern look. His mother comforts him and redirects his attention to the beautiful mustard flower field they have entered, which stretches for miles like a river of golden light.
This passage describes a young boy and his family traveling to a spring festival outside their city. As they walk along the road lined with shops, the boy lags behind attracted to the toys. When he catches up to his parents, he pleads for a toy but his father refuses with a stern look. His mother comforts him and redirects his attention to the beautiful mustard flower field they have entered, which stretches for miles like a river of golden light.
ASSIGNMENT (For July, 2022 and January, 2023 Sessions)
BEGLA 137: Language through Literature
School of Humanities Indira Gandhi National Open University Maidan Garhi, New Delhi – 110 068 Core Course of BAG – BEGLA 137 Language through Literature (BEGLA-137)
You are required to do one assignment for the first BAG Course titled Language through Literature Code BEGLA-137, which will be a Tutor Marked Assignment (TMA) and will carry 100 marks. It will be based on blocks 1 to 4.
Aims: This assignment is concerned mainly with assessing your application and your understanding of the course material. You are not to reproduce chunks of information from the course material but to use the skills of critical appreciation that you may have acquired during the course of study. This assignment aims to teach as well as to assess your performance.
Instructions: Before attempting the questions please read the following instructions carefully.
As in day-to-day life, planning is important in attempting the assignment as well. Read the assignment carefully; go through the units on which the questions are based; jot down some points regarding each question and then re-arrange them in a logical order. In the essay-type answer, pay attention to your introduction and conclusion. The introduction must tell you how to interpret the given topic and how you propose to develop it. The conclusion must summarize your views on the topic. Once you are satisfied with your answers, you can write down the final version for submission, writing each answer neatly and underlining the points you wish to emphasize. You should submit the assignment in your own handwriting.
Make sure that your answer:
a) is logical b) is written in simple and correct English c) does not exceed the number of words indicated in your questions d) is written neatly and clearly.
Please remember that it is compulsory to submit your assignment before you can take the Term End Examination. Also remember to keep a copy of your assignment with you and to take a receipt from your Study Centre when you submit the assignment.
1. Write your Enrolment Number, Name, Full Address and Date on the top right corner of the first page of your response sheet(s).
2. Write the Course Title, Assignment Number and the Name of the Study Centre you are attached to in the centre of the first page of your response sheet(s).
-1- The top of the first page of your response sheet should look like this:
ASSIGNMENT NO: …………………….. STUDY CENTRE: ……………………….. DATE:…………………………………….
4. Use only foolscap size paper for your response and tag all the pages carefully.
5. Write the relevant question number with each answer.
Last Date for Submission of Assignment:
For June Examination: 31st March
For December Examination: 30th September
Good Luck!
-2- BEGLA-137: Language through Literature Assignment July, 2022 & January, 2023 Sessions (Based on Blocks 1 - 4)
Max. Marks: 100
Answer all questions.
1. Discuss the relationship between Language and Literature. Also comment on how the literary language is different from ordinary language. (20)
2. Read the whole of the poem Baby Running Barefoot by D.H. Lawrence given below and try to answer the questions given at the end. (10)
When the white feet of the baby beat across the grass The little white feet nod like white flowers in a wind, They poise and run like puffs of wind that pass Over water where the weeds are thinned.
And the sight of their white playing in the grass
Is winsome as a robin's song, so fluttering; Or like two butterflies that settle on a glass Cup for a moment, soft little wing-beats uttering.
And I wish that the baby would tack across here to me
Like a wind-shadow running on a pond, so she could stand With two little bare white feet upon my knee And I could feel her feet in either hand. Cool as syringa buds in morning hours, Or firm and silken as young peony flowers.
(a) What is the picture that comes to your mind when you read the poem? (b) Make a list of the similes used by the poet. (c) How do the similes make the description more vivid to us?
3. Insert appropriate modal auxiliaries in the blanks. The required meanings are given in brackets: (10)
i) You ............... do as you are told. (strong obligation: tone of command)
ii) Children ...............be very noisy. (theoretical possibility) iii) As a child, I. ............... recite the whole of Gita. (general ability in the past) iv) He ………..... be very annoyed with me to write a letter like that. (a necessary conclusion from evidence) v) He was so weak he ............. n't even raise his hand. (general ability in the past) vi) You ................. consult a specialist if you want to. (permission) vii) He ............... smoke heavily. (habit in the past)
--3-- viii) He …………….. come tomorrow. (weak possibility) ix) ‘ ……..... I order a coffee for you?’ (offer) x) ‘……....... you mind opening the door?’ (polite request)
4. Make five words using each prefix ‘pre’ and ‘non’. (10)
5. Make five words using each suffix ‘ism’ and ‘ship’. (10)
6. Put the bracketed verb in the correct form in the following sentences and identify the verb phrase type: (10)
i) He is (sing). __________________ ii) Arun may be (expel). _____________________________________ iii) He has (accept) his mistake. ________________________________ iv) You ought (accept) your mistake. ____________________________ v) Arun has been (watch) the game for two hours. ________________ vi) This song has already been (sing) twice._____________________ vii) As a young man, I used (walk) seven miles a day. _________________ viii) He should have been (punish) for his carelessness. _________________ ix) I was (lead) to believe that the matter had (be) settled.____________________ x) This programme is (be) watched by millions of people all over the country._____________________________
7. Read this passage from the story The Lost Child by Mulk Raj Anand and answer the questions given at the end. (5 x 6 = 30)
It was the festival of Spring. From the wintry shades of narrow lanes and alleys emerged a gaily clad humanity, thick as a crowd of bright-coloured rabbits issuing from a warren, and entering the flooded sea of sparkling silver sunshine outside the city gates, sped towards the fair. Some walked, some rode on horses, others sat, being carried in bamboo and bullock-carts. One little boy ran between his parent's legs, brimming over with life and laughter, as the joyous, smiling morning, with its open greetings and unashamed invitations to come away into the fields, full of flowers and songs.
“Come, child, come,” called his parents, as he lagged behind, arrested by the toys in the shops that lined the way.
He hurried towards his parents, his feet obedient to their call, his eyes still lingering on the receding toys. As he came to where they had stopped to wait for him, he could not suppress the desire of his heart, even though he well knew the old, cold stare of refusal in their eyes.
“I want that toy,” he pleaded.
His father looked at him red-eyed in his familiar tyrant's way. His mother, melted by the free spirit of the day, was tender, and giving him her finger to catch, said;
“Look, child, what is before you.”
--4-- The faint disgust of the child's unfulfilled desire had hardly been quelled in the heavy, pouting sob of a breath, “M—o—th—e-r”, when the pleasure of what was before him filled him eager eyes. They had left the dusty road on which they had walked so far to wend its weary way circuitously to the north, and had entered a footpath in a field.
It was a flowering mustard-field, pale, pale, like melting gold, as it swept across miles and miles of even land, a river of yellow light, ebbing and falling with each fresh eddy of wild wind, and straying at places into broad, rich tributary streams, yet running in a constant sunny sweep towards the distant mirage of an ocean of silver light. Where it ended, on a side stood a dense group of low, mudwalled houses put into relief both by the lower forms of a denser crowd of yellow-robed men and women and by high-pitched sequence of whistling, creaking, squeaking, roaring, humming noises that rose from it, across the groves, to the blue-throated sky like the weird, strange sound of Siva’s mad laughter.
(a) What words and phrases in the opening paragraph suggest the festive mood of the crowd?
(b) In the first paragraph, what is the crowd of people compared to? What figure of speech is it?
(c) Give the meanings of the following expressions:
i) a gaily clad humanity ii) lagged behind iii) receding toys iv) red-eyed v) circuitously vi) put into relief
(d) The mustard field is compared to a river of yellow light. Write the comparison in your own words.
(e) The whistling, creaking, squeaking, roaring, humming noises’ are likened to ‘Siva’s mad laughter. What does this comparison suggest?
(f) What literary device has the writer adopted in the use of words such as ‘whistling’, ‘creaking’, ‘squeaking’, ‘roaring’ and ‘humming’?
