task-1-mark-scheme-and-model-answer

AO2

• Analyse the unseen passage, strengthened by the use of well-selected quotations and close references to the text

• Include commentary on narrative techniques and the narrative structure of the passage, and explore the ways these things shape meaning

• Discuss the effects of language, form and structure in a well-developed and consistently detailed way

AO3

• Integrate your discussion of the contexts in which the passage was written, but do not let this dominate your response

• Draw contextual links to other examples of literature in the chosen topic area

• Explore the contexts in which the passage is received and integrate this into your response, considering the differences in reception over time

AO1

• Write a well-structured, sustained and consistent argument which is developed in detail

• Write fluently and with confidence

• Use any critical concepts and/or terminology accurately

• Write accurately, with correct spelling, grammar and punctuation

Critical analysis

• The extract is written in the third person, but events are seen from Garraty’s perspective (one of the “Walkers”)

• Presentation of “Crowd” – removal of individuality into a collective identity – writer gives it a personality of its own

• It has power but no real control

• No definite article – it is not “the” crowd or “a” crowd – it is just “Crowd” – emphasises that it is a single entity – individuals are incorporated into this collective identity

• Town is described as having been “swallowed, strangled, and buried” suggesting a complete transformation from “normality” – it has been “gorged and gutted” giving the impression of horrific acts committed on it

• “Crowd” is personified as a creature but only with a “Voice” and an “Eye” – it is both “God and Mammon”

• Details of Garraty’s mental and physical responses to the scene help create a sense of impending disaster

• Garraty’s mixed emotions and the death of the “mercifully blasted” Milligan – only character who is described “shifty-eyed” – saved them all = sacrifice 

• Town is reduced to a shell of its former self – however, “fat ladies” and “pompous men” still places its inhabitants into collectives – just replaces one collective for another

• Use of objects such as streamers and confetti – normally celebratory – are now something to be ploughed through and a sheeting blizzard – wintery – bleak and depressing

• Contrast between the peace normally associated with a long walk with the long walk here

• Choice of 100 teenage boys – contrast with feminine – boys being made to suffer (but not men – before they commit any “crimes”?)

• Removal of any identifying place names to numbers (“202”) – further removes any sense of individual place

• “Crowd” also contrasts with the actions of “the crowd”. Described as being in the “gigantic throes of its labor all around him” as the Major stands holding his salute “ramrod stiff” – crowd in the middle of what seems to be a type of painful ecstasy

Incorporating context

• Written in the 1970s and offers a distortion of normality

• Battle for survival and distortion of the past to accommodate the tyrannical rule imposed by the Major – the Major stands holding his salute “ramrod stiff”, reminiscent of images of Hitler standing before an ecstatic crowd in the late 1930s and 1940s

• The 1970s American setting with references to “cotton candy” and John Travolta feels quite familiar and ordinary

• This juxtaposes with the shock of the violent game being played out

• Crowd as a “Voice and an Eye” = rise of surveillance and CCTV at the time – also links to surveillance as a dystopian trope

• Reminiscent of parades popular in American culture, such as the 4th July or Thanksgiving parades

• Links to other dystopian texts where ordinary people are controlled or manipulated by the state, such as 1984 and The Handmaid’s Tale

• Cheering of the Walkers, committed to what they are doing despite the very real possibility of their imminent death, could be compared with the Two Minutes Hate in 1984

• Garraty could be linked to other victims in dystopian societies (such as the handmaids)

• Major like the Commander in The Handmaid’s Tale – patriarchal – called by their title to show they are in charge

• Could compare to The Hunger Games or Squid Game – where competitive games become a brutal spectacle – King is dealing with the gameification of life and death