Correct Answer: A. writes

Correct Answer: C. harsh

Correct Answer: A. a fine balancing between work and pleasure for a child's development

Correct Answer: B. personified

Correct Answer: A. lampoon

Explanation

The major device that sustains the tempo of the play is dramatic irony. Dramatic irony occurs when characters in the play are unaware of the consequences/ significance of their actions in the scheme of things, though, the audience is.

Young Marlow and Hastings, men of the world, are easily led by the joke of Tony into believing that they are in an inn when, in fact, they are in the house of the Hardcastles. Under this ironical impression, they consider Mr. Hardcastle as an inn keeper, his daughter a barmaid. The two are deceived about Kate. Thinking that they are, indeed, in an inn, the object of their visit, Kate, falls to the level of a mere maid at the inn and she is made to tolerate abuse, to the amusement of the audience. Hastings and Miss Neville's elopement plan hinges on her jewels for Hastings who hands them over to Marlow for safekeeping. Seeing that he has no safe place, he, in turn, hands the jewels over to Mrs. Hardcastle who has been looking for the lost gems. This is ironical, as, unknown to Marlow, he has just foiled Hasting's plans and rescued Mrs. Hardcasting from trouble from the trouble of losing Miss Neville's jewels.

Tony is at his pranks again when he rides Mrs. Hardcastle round about the vicinity, pretending to be heading for Aunt Pedigree's place. He dumps his mother in a bog and frightens her that robbers are in the area. The fact, however, as the audience is aware, is that they are not far from the Hardcastle home and there is no gang of thieves. Such use of dramatic irony creates amusing moments in the play.

Points to note:

(a) Dramatic irony occurs where characters in the play are unaware of the consequences/significance of their actions in the scheme of things, but the audience is.

(b) The expectation on the part of Marlow and Hastings that they are in an inn when, in fact, they are in the Hardcastle home.

(c) The deception on Marlow that Kate is a barmaid when, in fact, she is daughter to Mr. Hardcastle and his (Marlow's) future fiancee.

(d) The entrusting of the jewels in care of Marlow who presents it to Mrs. Hardcastle.

(e) Mrs. Hardcastle's believing that she is among a gang of thieves when in fact she has not moved far from home.

Explanation

Both Lantern Yard and Raveloe provide the appropriate setting for the examination of superstition. The casting of lots by the church in Lantern Yard to determine the culprit In the theft of the church money from the Deacon's house is rooted in superstition. The lot falls on Silas who is compelled by circumstances to leave. At Raveloe, when Silas heals Sally Oates' heart disease and dropsy with herbs the fame it initially brings him is overshadowed by rumours of his 'magic powers". As people flock to his cottage for healing Silas withdraws for fear of attracting too much attention to himself.

The night Silas money gets stolen, he wonders whether a thief or a 'cruel hand' has taken the money. This belief in a 'cruel hand' is superstitious and creates a kind of doubt in his mind which compounds his situation. This same belief by others in unseen powers' affects the investigation. The general belief in ghosts heightens the suspicion of the people at the Rainbow Inn as Silas appears looking pale and nonplussed to report his missing money.

Silas believes that his money would somehow reappear or that some trace of it may mysteriously be on the way. This belief is linked up with another which is that the New Year brings luck. When the child Eppie strays into Silas' cottage with her 'little golden head' her appearance is as mysterious as the disappearance of his gold. Eliot's use of superstition sheds light on the simplicity of life in Raveloe. It shows the cultural beliefs of the people which affect the way they relate to outsiders.

For example, Silas' arrival is heralded by so much suspicion because of his pale nature, cataleptic condition and shortsightedness as well as his vocation (weaving). His true identity is there-fore shrouded in the mystery of superstition which is compounded by a secluded life supposedly linked to the devil.

Explanation

This sonnet celebrates the inestimable beauty of a lover. To depict this rare beauty, the poet evokes images of summer in all its splendor in the first three quatrains. First, although the poet views and admires summer for being lovely and temperate, he strongly believes that summer's beauty can in no way be compared to his lover's beauty. This is because while summer's "lease" is short-lived, the persona's lover's beauty is not time bound.

Then, although summer's weather can be both unstable and unpredictable since it is sometimes too hot and sometimes overcast, his lover's beauty will ever remain untainted and serene. And then, to the poet, the lover's beauty is not only unparalleled; it is also eternal. Death itself can never boast of oblitering beauty, for her beauty lives in the very poetry that celebrates her. The person's celebration of his lover's beauty is given the strongest expression in the concluding couplet which underlines his unwavering conviction that as generations of people read this poem, her immortality is assured.

Points to note:

(a) Knowledge of the sonnet form and how and it expresses aspects of his lover's

(i) The contrast with summer's temperate but shortlived nature.

(ii) The comparison with summer's unsteady heat which sometimes keeps its gold complexion dimm'd

(iii) The supremacy of his lover's beauty, being immortal i.e. immortalised by the poem.

(iv) The generations of humanity who read the poem and keep her beauty alive.

Correct Answer: A. Macbeth becoming thane of Cawdor

Correct Answer: B. achronological