WAEC SSCE - Literature In English - 2020 (Prose)

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7. The relationship between fathers and their children. In Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto, the ties between fathers and their children are largely marked by tyranny, ambition and the tragic sacrifice of the young to the will of the old. The dominant figure is Manfred, Prince of Otranto, whose treatment of his own children is coloured by his obsession with securing his line and his usurped title. Toward his sickly son Conrad he shows more anxiety for the dynasty than love for the boy, and Conrad's grotesque death beneath the giant helmet at the very opening plunges the family into crisis. Toward his daughter Matilda, Manfred is cold, neglectful and dismissive, valuing her far less than his lost son, and in his blind fury he finally, and mistakenly, stabs Matilda to death, the ultimate perversion of fatherhood. His scheme to divorce his wife Hippolita and marry the young Isabella, his intended daughter-in-law, further shows a father subordinating every natural bond to selfish ambition. In contrast stands the good father Theodore's line and the rightful heritage of Alfonso; the restoration of the true bloodline at the close corrects the unnatural relations Manfred embodies. Walpole thus uses the father-child bond to explore tyranny, inheritance and the punishment of usurped ambition.

8. The presence of ghosts and spirits. As the first Gothic novel, The Castle of Otranto relies heavily on the supernatural, and ghosts and spirits pervade its action. The story is set in motion by prophecy and portent, and the castle is haunted by the wronged spirit of Alfonso the Good, the rightful former lord whom Manfred's family usurped. Supernatural manifestations abound: the enormous helmet that crushes Conrad, the giant limbs and armour that appear about the castle, a portrait that sighs and steps from its frame, a skeletal spectre in a hermit's habit, and bleeding statues. These wonders build an atmosphere of terror and mystery, but they also serve a moral and structural purpose. They are agents of divine justice, working to expose Manfred's usurpation and to restore the true heir. The climactic apparition of the vast form of Alfonso, rising amid thunder to proclaim Theodore the rightful prince, shows the spirits vindicating right against wrong. Thus the ghosts and spirits are not mere decoration; they express the theme that heaven punishes usurpation and that hidden guilt cannot escape supernatural retribution.

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5. Bigger's last moments with Max. In Richard Wright's Native Son, the final meeting between Bigger Thomas and his lawyer, Boris Max, in the death cell is one of the most powerful scenes in the novel. Awaiting execution for the killing of Mary Dalton, Bigger at last begins to talk openly, reaching a kind of self-understanding he has never had before. Where Max had defended him as a product of a racist, oppressive society, a victim shaped by fear and blind circumstance, Bigger in these last moments claims his acts as his own. He confesses the disturbing truth that in the very violence that doomed him he felt, for the first time, alive and free: "what I killed for, I am". This chills Max, who cannot fully accept it. The scene shows Bigger accepting responsibility and finding a terrible, hard-won sense of identity even on the edge of death. It also exposes the gap between Max's sociological pity and Bigger's lived reality. The parting is bleak yet strangely affirming: Bigger faces death without whining, having found meaning, and he asks Max to tell his mother he was all right. The scene crowns Wright's exploration of oppression, fear and the search for selfhood.

6. Bigger's visits to Bessie. Bessie Mears, Bigger's girlfriend, is central to the second phase of the novel, and Bigger's visits to her reveal both his character and the destructiveness of the world that made him. Bessie is a poor, overworked black woman who drowns her weariness in drink, and Bigger goes to her for comfort, sex and, later, help. After the killing of Mary, Bigger turns to Bessie and draws her into his crime, using her to help with the botched ransom scheme against the Daltons. His visits show his exploitation of her: he takes from her what he needs while giving little in return, treating her much as the white world treats him. When Bessie becomes a liability and a witness who could betray him, Bigger murders her brutally, first raping her and then killing her with a brick and throwing her body down an air-shaft. The Bessie episodes therefore expose Bigger's capacity for cruelty, the cheapness of black life in the novel's world (her death is barely noticed by the authorities compared with Mary's), and the way oppression breeds further violence among the oppressed themselves.

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1. Fofo's visit to Maa Tsuru. In Amma Darko's Faceless, Fofo's visit to her mother, Maa Tsuru, is a moving and revealing episode that exposes the broken bond between mother and child and the wider collapse of the family. Fofo, a street girl, returns to the home she fled in search of understanding after the murder of her sister Baby T. Instead of comfort she finds a mother worn down by poverty, superstition and the domination of men. Maa Tsuru, believed to be cursed, has surrendered her authority to the ruthless Kpakpo and is unable, or unwilling, to protect or reclaim her daughters. The visit shows the reader how neglect and hardship have severed natural affection, how a mother can fail her children under the weight of want and male manipulation, and it deepens Fofo's, and the reader's, understanding of the forces that pushed the girls onto the streets. The reunion is painful rather than tender, underlining the theme of the disintegration of the family.

2. Men as oppressors of women. To a very large extent, Faceless portrays men as oppressors of women. Nearly every female character suffers at the hands of a man. Maa Tsuru is exploited and abandoned first by Kwei, the father of her early children, and then dominated and impoverished by Kpakpo, who cares nothing for her daughters' welfare. Baby T is sexually abused, first by Onko and then by Kpakpo's arrangements, and finally forced into child prostitution that ends in her murder, all engineered or enabled by men. Fofo, too, faces the constant threat of male violence and abuse on the streets. The men in the novel exploit women sexually and economically, evade responsibility for their children, and use women as objects of pleasure and profit. Yet Darko balances this picture: not all men oppress. Kabria's husband Adade, and the men connected with the MUTE organisation and the media, work alongside the women to expose injustice and seek reform. Above all, the strong women of MUTE, Kabria, Sylv Po, Dina and others, resist and fight back, showing female agency against male oppression. So while men are largely presented as oppressors, the novel also offers examples of cooperation and hope, and celebrates women's capacity to combat their oppression.

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3. How Alani rejects his ancestry. In Bayo Adebowale's Lonely Days, Alani, the city-dwelling son of the widow Yaremi, represents the younger generation that has turned its back on its roots. His rejection of his ancestry is shown chiefly through his abandonment of the village and its values. Drawn to urban life, he distances himself from Kufi, the ancestral home, and from the traditional obligations that bind a son to his kin. He neglects his widowed mother in her time of greatest need, failing to stand by her against the harsh widowhood customs she endures, which is a betrayal of filial and ancestral duty. His absorption in modern, city ways loosens his hold on the customs, communal ties and reverence for the past that define his people. In distancing himself from the land, the extended family and the traditions of his forebears, Alani embodies the erosion of ancestral loyalty under the pressures of modernisation, one of the novel's central concerns.

4. The advice of the three widows to Yaremi. After the death of her husband Ajumobi, Yaremi is comforted and counselled by fellow widows who have walked the same lonely road. The three widows, drawing on their own painful experience, advise her chiefly to be strong, patient and self-reliant. They urge her to endure the hardships and humiliations of widowhood with courage and dignity, and to resist being crushed by grief and loneliness. They counsel her to be cautious of suitors and of men who might seek to exploit a widow's vulnerability, and to guard her independence rather than rush into another attachment. They encourage her to find strength in work, in her own resourcefulness and in the solidarity of fellow widows, so that she may stand on her own feet. Their advice, born of hard-won wisdom, both consoles Yaremi and steels her to face the injustices of the widowhood tradition. Through their counsel Adebowale exposes the plight of widows in a patriarchal society while celebrating female endurance, solidarity and self-reliance.