Samuel Beckett, Bertolt Brecht, John Osborne – Previous Year UGC-NET | GATE Questions

1. Match the plays to their setting:
(a) Krapp’s last tape
(b) Happy days
(c) Waiting for Godot
(d) Endgame

(1) a country road;a tree
(2) bare interior; two small windows high up ; grey light
(3) expanse of scorched grass forming a low mound; blinding light
(4) a laze evening in future, white light.

(A) (a)-(3), (b)-(4), (c)-(1), (d)-(2)
(B) (a)-(2), (b)-(3), (c)-(1), (d)-(4)
(C) (a)-(4), (b)-(3), (c)-(1), (d)-(2)
(D) (a)-(2), (b)-(4), (c)-(3), (d)-(1)
Ans: (C)

2. Which of the following plays 18 characterized by the exclusivity of a Single character talking to himself?
(A) A Streetcar Named Desire
(B) Equus
(C) The Misanthrope
(D) Krapp’s Last Tape
Ans: (D)

3. Who makes the following speech in Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot?
“Astride of a grave and a difficult birth. Down in the hole, lingeringly, the grave-digger puts on the forceps.”
(A) Estragon
(B) lucky
(C) Vladimir
(D) Pozzo
Ans: (C)

4. Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot has
(A) three Acts
(B) five Acts
(C) four Acts
(D) two Acts
Ans: (D)

5. One of the following texts was published earlier than 1955. Identify the text:
(A) William Golding, the Inheritors
(B) Philip Larkin, the Less Deceived
(C) William Empson, Collected Poems
(D) Samuel Becket, Waiting for Godot
Ans: (D)

6. Who are Didi and Gogo ?
(A) They are two characters in Endgame.
(B) They are nicknames, respectively, for Lucky and Pozzo.
(C) They are nicknames, respectively, for Vladimir and Estragon.
(D) They are two characters in Breath.
Ans: (C)

7. Samuel Beckett’s trilogy published together in London in 1959 under the English titles is
(A) More Pricks than Kicks, Murphy, Molloy
(B) B. Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable
(C) Molloy, Murphy, Malone Dies
(D) The Unnamable, More Pricks than Kicks, Murphy
Ans: *

8. In Beckett’s Waiting for Godot the characters often use dislocated, repetitious and cliched speech primarily to:
(A) illustrate the essentially illogical, purposeless nature of the human condition
(B) re-create the workings of the subconscious
(C) mock the exaggerated dignity and wisdom of modern, self-professed intellectuals
(D) reinforce the comic action of farcical plots
Ans: (A)

Bertolt Brecht Previous Year UGC-NET Questions

1. Bertolt Brecht’s concept of alienation was a rejection of the idea that realism was the only mode of art a critique of capitalist society should produce. Alienation is best described as
(A) making the audience feel that they do not belong.
(B) distancing artistic conventions to prevent an emotional catharsis.
(C) scripting unnatural behaviour on stage.
(D) a rejection of capitalism or the market.
Ans: (B)

2. In Bertolt Brecht’s Mother Courage and Her Children, which song does Yvette sing to Mother Courage and Kattrin?
(A) “The Song of the Great Souls of the Earth”
(B) “The Fraternization Song”
(C) “The Song of the Great Capitulation”
(D) “The Memorial Song”
Ans: (B)

3. Bertolt Brecht’s Mother Courage and Her Children presents the war-torn Europe as its protagonist as she follows troops with her canteenwagon.
What is the real name of Mother Courage ?
(A) Paula Danckert
(B) Anna Fierling
(C) Jane Vanstone
(D) Jani Lauzon
Ans: (B)

4. Who of the following playwrights rejects the Aristotelian concept of tragic play as imitation of reality ?
(A) G.B. Shaw
(B) Arthur Miller
(C) Bertolt Brecht
(D) John Galsworthy
Ans: (C)

John Osborne Previous Year UGC-NET Questions

1. John Osborne’s Look Back in Anger is an example of
(A) Drawing room comedy
(B) kitchen-sink drama
(C) Absurd drama
(D) Melodrama
Ans: (B)

2. “Why don’t we have a little game? Let’s pretend that we’re human beings, and that we are actually alive.”
This passage forms part of
(A) Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap
(B) John Osborne’s look Back in anger
(C) Samuel Beckett’s waiting for Godot
(D) Harold Pinter’s the birthday party
Ans: (B)

3. Match the character with the work :
(a) Jim Dixon
(b) Jimmy Porter
(c) Joe Lampton
(d) Charles Lumley
(i) Room at the Top
(ii) Hurry on Down
(iii) Look Back In Anger
(iv) Lucky Jim
Code :
(a) (b) (c) (d)
(A) (iv) (iii) (i) (ii)
(B) (iv) (iii) (ii) (i)
(C) (iii) (iv) (i) (ii)
(D) (iii) (i) (ii) (iv)
Ans: (A)