Correct Answer: A. realistic

Correct Answer: B. leper

Correct Answer: A. spirits and ghosts

Correct Answer: B. point of view

Correct Answer: A. a fictional character

Correct Answer: B. flat character

Explanation

Emecheta employs irony to great effect in the novel. The title of the novel is itself ironical. In fact, the novel could have been appropriately titled The Sorrows of Motherhood. Indeed, Emecheta demonstrates that motherhood in the traditional African society which she presents can have no joy. The mothers presented in the novel have no joy. Agunwa, Agbadi's senior wife, dies in despair and shame after her husband has made love noisily to his mistress in their compound with everyone fully awake.

Nnu Ego, the novel's protagonist, demonstrates more than any other character the reward which mothers get in society. Here Emecheta's irony is at its most pungent, her sarcasm most virulent. Nnu Ego suffers pain and distress in her first marriage when she fails to bear children. Amatokwu, her husband unsympathetically packs her off to her father's house. Her problems result from her inability to be a mother. When Nnu Ego moves to Lagos and marries Nnaife, she does bear children - very many of them. Presumably she should be happy and contented now and enjoy a blissful life. But ironically this does not happen. When she bears two male children, Nnaife begins to pay more attention to them than to her. She has borne him male children, and that is her only importance.

The boys belong to their father. This does not stop him from inheriting his brother's young widow Adaku and, running off to Ibuza to impregnate another of his brother's widows, Adankwo, a middle aged woman. Emecheta's use of irony is also seen in her presentation of Nnu Ego s children's attitude towards her. She toils to raise them and pays for the education of Oshia with great strain. Eventually, he goes off to America and abandons her.

He does not write to her, not to talk of sending any money to help her educate the other children. Adim is more sympathetic to his mother's plight, but, he also cares more about his future than about the suffering of the mother who has sacrificed everything for him and his brother. The greatest irony in the novel is that even though Nnu Ego has many children, some of them the prized male" breed, she dies a lonely death in Ibuza. Her only reward is.that "she had the noisiest and most costly second burial Ibuza had ever seen". Finally, there is the irony of a society in transition, yet unwilling to get rid of the old structures within the condition that limit the freedom of women.

Explanation

The society which Bolt presents is a morally decadent one in which the values normally associated with civilized society are destroyed. It is a cynical world in which 'every man has his price.' The king, who is the head of state, unsurps the power of the church because he now finds it convenient to do so. His lack of morals is clearly demonstrated in his desire to sacrifice correct behaviour on the altar of expediency.

The very dispensation which he persuades the Pope to give to allow him to marry his late brother's wife, he now tries to get the Pope to reverse, so that he can divorce his wife and marry another. When the Pope will not co-operate, he seeks through 'legal means, to strip him of all his power. Rather than serve as the fountain of honour and justice, the king perverts justice and debases honour. He is assertive and corrupt, determined to achieve his aims by any means possible. He does not find it difficult to garner support for his scheme because of the moral bankruptcy of the society. One of his most ardent supporters is Thomas Cromwell, an opportunist and an instrument of the King. He, like the King, will ignore all the niceties of conscience to achieve what he desires. The king also gets support from other officials whose primary aim is to keep themselves in comfortable positions. Richard Rich is one such character.

His lack of remorse after he has betrayed More points to the level to which society has degenerated. This is why More's sterling qualities radiate in the play. Social institutions also come in for scathing criticism in the play. The church is censured for allowing itself to be manipulated by the King. And the trial of More exposes the perversion of justice which has become characteristic of the judiciary. The ordinary people too, do not escape Bolt's censure. The woman who gives a "gift" to More in the form of a silver cup is a good example. We see therefore that corruption has become a way of life in the society and that values have been perverted.

Correct Answer: A. time and place