Modern times: Literature from 1945 to the present day: exemplar student response

Below you will find an exemplar student response to a Section B question in the specimen assessment materials, followed by an examiner commentary on the response.

Paper 2B, Section B

Comparative texts

'Modern literature shows isolated characters as being profoundly damaged.'

Compare the significance of isolation in two other texts you have studied. Remember to include in your answer reference to how meanings are shaped in the texts you are comparing.

Band 5 response

Modern literature often deals with the search of individuals for an identity within a world where the boundaries of social acceptability are becoming blurred. Their struggle to be accepted as the people they believe they are is often portrayed as an isolating experience and writers can emphasise this isolation by placing these characters within a seemingly stable family situation. This is true of both Yates in Revolutionary Road and Williams in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof where the characters of April and Brick respectively are shown to feel a disconnection from the roles society in general, and their spouses in particular, expect of them to the point at which both characters are profoundly damaged. Both written in the 1950s, these texts enable Yates and Williams to comment on the isolating nature of post-war American society.

Yates focuses his critique of this period on anaesthetised middle-class suburbia and the futile attempts of April to escape the mundane role of wife and mother. Yates makes it clear from the outset that April will not be able to escape this role. The novel opens with April's failure to succeed in an amateur acting role designed to help her settle into the ironically named Revolutionary Road community. April's initially promising performance deteriorates until 'she was working alone, and visibly weakening with every line.' In this description Yates sums up April's decline over the course of the novel until her suicide when, as on stage, 'she'd lost her grip.' The removal of her stage make-up when 'she was alone' is symbolic of the situation April finds herself in: she feels that she is playing the part of dutiful wife and mother but when she removes that mask to be true to herself this isolates her from her socially acceptable self. Yates confirms that this is the key message about isolation in this society when, immediately before her suicide, April concludes that 'if you wanted to do something absolutely honest, something true, it always turned out to be a thing that had to be done alone.'

Yates shows this internal struggle through April's disconnection with people around her, especially with Frank, and extends this disconnection to the reader through the use of a third-person narrator who does not present events from April's point of view until the end of the novel when her suicide signals the futility of her voice. Instead, at various points of the novel, Yates includes Frank's imagined dialogues with April before their actual conversations, so that April's viewpoint is marginalised and Frank's view of what he expects from a wife is foregrounded. In one example, Frank imagines April 'devoting whole hours to the bedroom mirror' and then doing the housework 'in time for his homecoming' only to discover in 'a startling disclosure' that April has spent her day organising their move to Paris.

Ironically, the only person with whom April feels a connection is John Givings, a certified insane man; he proves to be the only character who sees the disconnection between April and Frank and understands that it is caused by her desire to escape the role of dutiful wife and mother that Frank wants her to play: 'I wouldn't be surprised if you had knocked her up on purpose, just so you could spend the rest of your life hiding behind that maternity dress.'

April does try to play the role that society has given her: 'Everything about her seemed determined to prove…that a sensible middle-class housewife was all she had ever wanted to be' but the frequent references to April's boredom and Yates' effective description of her mechanical reaction to Frank show how she is living a lie:

'there was a certain stiffness in the way she was holding him, a suggestion of effort to achieve the effect of spontaneity, as though she knew that a nestling of the shoulder blade was in order and was doing her best to meet the specifications.'

The effect of April's isolation manifests itself in her increasingly unstable behaviour. We might not like Frank's dishonesty and shallowness but our distance from April makes it difficult to understand her manipulative and 'hysterical' behaviour and to feel sympathetic towards her. Yates does, however, offer, through Frank's thoughts and through a late flashback, the possibility that April's instability is due to her unhappy childhood. As Frank observes, 'it's always been a wonder to me that you could survive a childhood like that…let alone come out of it without any damage' but at times this feels like an easy excuse.

In the end, April's failure to persuade Frank to escape the anaesthetised middle-class 'toyland of white and pastel houses' for a life in Paris leads her to take the lonely decision to commit suicide. Whilst it would be easy to blame Frank's lack of understanding of April's needs, Yates' portrayal of the stifling boredom of a middle-class suburban housewife in the 1950s suggests readers should think otherwise. Indeed, his inclusion of April's suicide note confirms this: 'Dear Frank, Whatever happens please don't blame yourself.'

In Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Williams presents Brick as another tragic figure who is profoundly damaged because he is living a lie. Like April, he finds himself unable to conform to the role society hands him out here because of his repressed homosexuality at a time when America did not tolerate relationships outside the heterosexual norm.

The dramatic form is able to visually convey key messages in a way that novels cannot and Williams symbolises the root of Brick's isolation through the marital bed and through Brick's crutch. All of the scenes take place in Maggie and Brick's bedroom, a constant reminder of what society expects of them. Big Mama confirms this when she 'points at the bed' and declares that 'When a marriage goes on the rocks, the rocks are there, right there!' Brick's crutch emphasises that he is a broken man and his injury resulted from his attempt to re-live past times with Skipper. The crutch, like the bed, is ever present and acts as a phallic symbol; it is frequently taken from Brick to emphasise his inability to fulfil the role that society believes he should. We see Brick 'fighting for possession' of the crutch and 'he utters a cry of anguish' when it is removed, which perhaps suggests that he desperately wants to conform.

Unlike the remoteness of April, Williams lays Brick bare for the audience so that we clearly see how society's expectations are isolating him. His dialogue with Big Daddy reveals his knowledge that his homosexuality is unacceptable: 'Don't you know how people feel about things like that?' and a fear of being called 'A couple of ducking sissies', 'Queers' or 'Fairies.' He questions resignedly 'Why can't exceptional friendship, real, real, deep, deep friendship! between two men be respected as something clean and decent?' Like April, he concludes that to be true to yourself is isolating: 'friendship with Skipper was that one great true thing' but 'any true thing between two people is too rare to be normal.' Brick's way of coping with living a lie is to withdraw from society into an alcoholic haze, which means drinking until 'a click that I get in my head…makes me peaceful.' Interestingly, like April, being true to yourself for Brick 'don't happen except when I'm alone.'

Like Yates, Williams is commenting on the profound damage that can occur to individuals within an intolerant society and concludes that, as a result, 'mendacity is a system we live in.' Through Brick, he shows how repressing your true self is 'malignant and it's terminal' and, whilst Brick does not take the drastic step of suicide that April does, by the end of the play there is no resolution, only a further lie that Maggie is pregnant. Whilst readers and audiences today will recognise that attitudes to women and homosexuality specifically have become more tolerant since the 1950s, these texts still effectively convey the damaging nature of isolation which may occur as a result of intolerances in today's society.

Examiner commentary

AO1 

This is an assured response which offers a perceptive argument in relation to the task. The level of technical accuracy is mature and impressive; ideas are organised confidently with appropriate use of concepts and terminology.

AO2 

The candidate's perceptive analysis and discussion throughout are supported by close reference to the text. The candidate shows an assured engagement with a range of ways in which meanings are shaped and discusses them with a clear personal 'voice'.

AO3

The topic of isolation is thoroughly explored in both texts. The candidate takes a central focus of isolation as a result of deviance from society's norms and discusses the resultant consequences with well-chosen examples.

AO4 

The candidate makes perceptive connections between the texts and shows an awareness of isolation as a central issue in modern literature.   The lack of comparison in substantial stretches of the first part of the response, however, precludes it from achieving full marks.

AO5 

The candidate perceptively engages with a range of interpretations and shows an awareness of how the respective genres of prose and drama affect the ways in which isolation is presented.

Overall: 'Perceptive and assured'. This response seems to fit the Band 5 descriptors.

This resource is part of the Modern times - Literature from 1945 to the present day resource package.