JAMB Literature in English 1986 Past Questions

The oracle warns us that we we have left our pot unwatched, and our food now burns.'
This statement in The Gods Are Not To Blame refers to

'...the toad likes water but not when the water is boiling'. King Odewale in the Gods Are Not To Blame uses this proverb to explain why he

Baba Fakunle: How much did he give you boy?
Boy: Ten cowries, Baba.
Baba Fakunle: Hand him back nine.
The order to return nine cowries was given by Baba Fakunle because he

''When the frog in front falls in a pit, others behind takes caution... When crocodiles eat their own eggs, what will they will they not do to the flesh of a frog?''
In the context of The Gods Are Not To Blame, the person who made this statement is alleging that king Adetusa

Odewale shifts the blame for his tragedy from the gods to himself and claims that his tragedy is a result of his own weakness. The weakness he claims is love of

The treatment meted out to Cinna the poet in Julius Caesar shows

The specific case cited by Antony in his funeral oration to show that Caesar was not as ambitious as Brutus made him out to be, was that Caesar had

Shakespeare based the story of Julius Caesar on

'...He would be crown'd.
How that may change his nature, there's the question
It is the bright day that brings forth the adder.
And that craves wary walking...'
According to this passage, the crowning of Julius Caesar is

In Julius Caesar, one occasion when the misunderstanding of the ordinary people of Rome caused a big problem was

In Mission To Kala, Medza regarded himself as a professional failure because he

Medza's Mission To Kala was important mainly because it

The attitude of the young men of Kala towards their chief can be described as

'Why the hell can't some of you caught him for me
Are you going to let a boy make a public laughing stock of his own father?
The speaker of these words is the father of

From Madza's behavior after his return to Kala
it can be deduced that the most important lesson he learned from his sojourn in Kala is that

The protagonist of Charles Dicken's Great Expectations is

The effect of Pip's association with the inmates of Satis house was made to make him

Joe Gargery is important in Great Expectations mainly because he

When Mr. Jagger''s told Joe Gargery to ''bear in mind, that Brag is a good dog, but Holdfast is a better'', what he meant was that

In Great Expectations, Pip's reaction to the news that his fortune had been bestowed on him by Magwitch was

The dominant mood in J.P. Clark's 'Night Rain' is that of

The impression created of the rain in J.P. Clark's 'Night Rain' is that of

From the poem itself, it is easy to tell that J.P. Clark's Abiku' is set in

The tone of Wole Soyinka's 'Abiku is

Which of the following statement is NOT true of the two 'Abiku' poems by J.P Clark and Wole Soyinka?

In the poem 'The Vultures', David Diop suggests that the Christians missionaries were agents of

'The Vultures built in the shadow of their talons
The blood-stained monument of tutelage.'
The image used in the above lines associates the civilizing missions with

Much of the poetic effect of Birago Diop's 'Viaticum' is gained by the poet's use of

The gurgling drums
Echo the stars
The forest howls
And between the tress
The dark sun appears.
The dominant figure of speech in the above lines from Lenrie Peter's 'We Have Come Home' is

The theme of Gabriel Okara's 'piano and Drums' is usually summed up in the phrase

Tunde's long and vigorous speech was followed by a deafening silence.
The phrase deafening silence is used as a figure of speech called

'No; This my hand will rather
The multitudinous seas incarnadine
Making the green and red .'
In the above lines the figure of speech used is

When the speech is written so as to be understood in one way by a certain character, while the audience or another character understands it to have some secret and special meaning, the literary device used in this context is called

The epilogue in a play refers to the

Which of the following is NOT a form of poetic expression

Reversal of fortune as used in the criticism of a literary work describes the

Which of the following could be said to be a permanent feature of a poem?

Which of the following terms is exclusive to drama?

The literary device which uses ridicule to correct social ills is known as

A poem of mourning and dedicated written on the death of an individual is called

A poem written on a grand theme, in an appropriately grand style, dealing with heroic figures is called

Characterization in a novel means the

'' It was dawn, and the windows were dark except for the Workmen cafes. The sky was like a avast flat wall of cobalt, with roofs and spires of black paper pasted upon it. Drowsy men were sweeping the pavements with ten-foot brooms, and ragged families picking over the dustbins. Workmen and girls with piece of chocolate in one hand and bread in the other were pouring into the railway station.'
The picture presented above is one of

Much madness is divinest sense
To a discerning eye;
Much sense is starkest madness.
'This the majority
In this, as all, prevails.
Assent, and you are sane;
Demur,-you're straightway dangerous,
And handled with a chain.
This poem reflects the

The bustle in a house
The morning after death
Is solemnest of industries
Enacted upon earth-
The sweeping up the heart
And putting love away
We shall not want to use again
Until eternity.
The predominant mood of this poem is best captured by the words

'Chini was breathing with a love ripeness in her eye. She was elegant, sophistication, and Nigerian costume with charm. her every movement stimulated a flow of poetry from Francois and an ebb of embarrassment from her. she called him "My mad French lover".'
The tone of this passage is

'Nature sent him into the world strong and lusty, in a thriving condition, wearing his own hair on his head the proper branches of this reasoning vegetable, until the axe of intemperance has lopped off his green boughs, and left him a withered trunk...'
In this passage, axe of intemperance means

From that moment on he began to notice what was happening in town, but in a very inexact way, for Father Anthony Isabel, in part because of his age and in part also because he swore he had seen the devil on three occasions (something which seem to the town just a bit out of place), was considered by his parishioners as a good man, peaceful and obliging, but with his head habitually in the clouds.
The phrase, something which seemed to the town just a bit out of place, is an example of

'In Germany, under the law, everything is prohibited except that which is permitted, in the Soviet Union, everything is prohibited, including that which is permitted'. The last sentence is an example of

'His sleepy mouth, plugged by the heavy nipple Tugs like a puppy, grunting as he feeds'. The repeated u sound in the above passage is an example of