A Level English Literature CAIE

This subject offers 311 topics in 18 modules:

  1. A Handful of Dust (Evelyn Waugh) 20 topics
  2. An Experiment with an Air Pump 20 topics
  3. Long Day's Journey Into Night 20 topics
  4. Sujata Bhatt: Selected Poems from Point No Point 16 topics
  5. The Inheritance of Loss 20 topics
  6. The Merchant of Venice (Shakespeare) 20 topics
  7. The Wild Iris (Louise Glück) 20 topics
  8. Atonement (Ian McEwan) 16 topics
  9. Beloved (Toni Morrison) 20 topics
  10. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof 13 topics
  11. Dracula (Bram Stoker) 20 topics
  12. Hamlet 20 topics
  13. Native Guard (Natasha Trethewey) 17 topics
  14. Poetry: Selected Works by Sylvia Plath 10 topics
  15. Prose: Pride and Prejudice 10 topics
  16. Shakespeare: Measure For Measure 23 topics
  17. Shakespeare: Othello 10 topics
  18. Songs of Innocence and of Experience 16 topics
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  • 18
    modules
  • 311
    topics
  • 119,383
    words of revision content
  • 15+
    hours of audio lessons

This page was last modified on 28 September 2024.

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English Literature

An Experiment with an Air Pump

An Experiment with an Air Pump: Character Analysis and their Motivations

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An Experiment with an Air Pump: Character Analysis and their Motivations

Joseph Fenwick

  • Joseph Fenwick, the central male figure in the 1799 settings, is a man caught between the ideals ofthe Enlightenment and Romanticism.
  • His main motivation is the pursuit of scientific knowledge and the development of the philosophy of the Enlightenment.
  • Fenwick's character is arguably a criticism of scientific rationalism and the notion of progress at any cost.
  • He is willing to sacrifice his daughter's happiness for the sake of his own ambition, which indicates his moral blindness.

Susannah Fenwick

  • Susannah, Joseph's wife, straddles the divide between intellect and emotion.
  • Her main concern is the wellbeing and happiness of her family. Despite not completely, she understands and challenges Joseph's scientific pursuits.
  • Susannah values empathy, compassion, and personal connection, contrasting dramatically with her husband’s values. Hence, she is a symbol of Romantic sensibility.

Thomas Armstrong

  • Armstrong is Fenwick's protégé and represents an unprincipled side of the Enlightenment.
  • He is driven by social climbing and personal gain rather than a genuine love for science or philosophy.
  • His proposal to Maria is calculated, revealing him as ruthlessly ambitious and willing to exploit others for his own benefit.

Maria

  • Maria, the Fenwick's eldest daughter, is portrayed as curious and intelligent, showing interest in her father's experiments.
  • She is torn between her duty to her family (marriage to Armstrong) and her interest in science, resembling a conflict between Enlightenment values and patriarchal societal expectations.
  • Her emotional turmoil and personal struggle are central to the plot.

Harriet

  • Harriet is the younger Fenwick daughter who wishes to break free from the societal constraints of her gender.
  • Her character represents the early feminist critique of women's limited roles.
  • Her motivation lies in her desire for freedom and self-expression in a world that expects silence and obedience from women.

Isobel Bird

  • Bird, a servant at the Fenwick household, is an embodiment of a working-class perspective on the developments of the time.
  • Her experiences underscore the brutal reality of progress's cost, sharply contrasting with the middle-class intellectuals' abstract debates.

Eleanor Laidlaw

  • In 1999, Eleanor is a geneticist facing ethical questions about her work, similar to Fenwick in the 18th century.
  • Eleanor worries about the potential misuse of her research findings, showing a more cautious approach to progress than Fenwick.
  • This character reflects on the continuity of ethical issues in science, indicating that history often repeats itself.

Course material for English Literature, module An Experiment with an Air Pump, topic An Experiment with an Air Pump: Character Analysis and their Motivations

English Literature

Beloved (Toni Morrison)

Beloved: Breakdown of the Narrative Structure

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Beloved: Breakdown of the Narrative Structure

Chronological Disruption in the Narrative

  • Morrison utilises a fragmented timeline in 'Beloved'. The narrative frequently transitions between the present in Cincinnati, Ohio (1873) and different periods of Sethe's past on the Sweet Home plantation - reflecting the characters' traumatic experiences and their struggle for resolution.

  • The disruption of chronological order highlights how the past of slavery is never entirely past - it seeps into the present and continues to affect the characters' lives.

  • 'Beloved' often presents events from the past first, followed by explanations and reactions in subsequent chapters. This retrospective explanation style deepens understanding of the characters and their motivations.

Role of Memory and Flashbacks in the Narrative

  • Morrison uses flashbacks to reveal the deeply traumatic experiences and histories of her characters. These non-linear recollections present the echoing impact of past traumas on the present.

  • Memories in the narrative are often subjective and biased - each character often remembers the same event differently. This emphasises the deeply personal and individual ways in which people process trauma.

  • Memory is portrayed as a living element in the narrative. Just as the characters cannot escape their past, the novel's structure itself feels besieged by history and memory, which intrudes upon the present at unexpected moments.

Diverse Narrative Perspectives

  • 'Beloved' uses an omniscient third-person narrator, switching views between Sethe, Paul D, Denver, and even Beloved. This offers a multi-dimensional portrayal of the experiences and effects of slavery.

  • Morrison also employs free indirect discourse, a form of third-person narration that incorporates characters' thoughts and emotions, allowing for a deeper exploration of their interior worlds.

  • Narrators are not always reliable in 'Beloved', further contributing to the institution of memory as a subjective and often flawed component of the narrative structure.

Supernatural Elements and Their Impact on the Narrative

  • The narrative structure of 'Beloved' incorporates a real ghost, further blurring the boundary between past and present. Beloved’s ghostly incarnation disrupts the narrative, reflecting the characters' disrupted lives.

  • The supernatural intrusions into the narrative from Beloved act as a kind of emotional haunting, forcing characters to confront their buried histories.

  • Morrison's narrative partly operates within the genre conventions of a ghost story which helps render the horrors of slavery and its ongoing effects on the descendants of slaves in a tangible, visceral way.

Course material for English Literature, module Beloved (Toni Morrison), topic Beloved: Breakdown of the Narrative Structure

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