CSS 2016 English Literature Paper

After their gift exchange, are Della and Jim richer, poorer, or just about where they were at the beginning? Have they made a wise decision in sacrificing their most precious possessions?

'The Second Coming' is a magnificent statement about the contrary forces at work in history, and about the conflict between the modern world and the ancient. Elaborate.

Wordsworth in 'Tintern Abbey' clearly indicates a change in his attitude. His sensuous apprehension and coarser pleasures of nature have been transformed into a deeper, sober, and mystical understanding of nature. Discuss in detail.

Many critics take a deterministic view of Hamlet's plot, arguing that the prince's inability to act and his tendency toward melancholy reflection point to a 'tragic flaw' that leads inevitably to his demise. Is this an accurate way of understanding the play?

Edmund is really 'a stranger who never feels at home, who does not really want and is not wanted, who can never belong, who must always be a little in love with death!' What is the cause of Edmund's loneliness in Eugene O'Neill's 'Long Day's Journey into Night'?

The Scarlet Letter makes extensive use of symbols. Bring out some of the most striking symbols and their significance in the novel.

How does literary text in the Western canon reinforce or undermine colonialist ideology through its representation of colonization and/or its inappropriate silence about colonized people?