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In what ways does power corrupt in the play Macbeth? Discuss any one character who is corrupted by power in the play. Incorporate the following details and answer in 100-150 words. - English Literature

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प्रश्न

In what ways does power corrupt in the play Macbeth? Discuss any one character who is corrupted by power in the play. Incorporate the following details and answer in 100-150 words.

  1. The character’s traits before coming to power
  2. The character’s degeneration after coming into power
थोडक्यात उत्तर
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उत्तर

In "Macbeth," power corrupts Macbeth profoundly, transforming his character drastically. Before coming to power, Macbeth is portrayed as a valiant and loyal soldier, honoured for his bravery and dedication to King Duncan. His ambition is present but dormant, restrained by his moral compass and sense of loyalty. However, once he seizes power by murdering Duncan, his character rapidly deteriorates. Consumed by guilt and paranoia, Macbeth becomes a tyrant, obsessed with securing his position and eliminating perceived threats. His moral decline is evident as he orders the murder of Banquo and Macduff's family, acts driven by fear and a lust for power. Macbeth's degeneration illustrates how power corrupts him, turning a once noble warrior into a despotic ruler devoid of conscience and humanity. This transformation underscores the play's theme of the corrupting influence of unchecked ambition and power.

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2024-2025 (March) Specimen Paper

संबंधित प्रश्‍न

Use suitable words or phrases from Column A above to complete the paragraph given below.
A Traffic Jam
During power cuts, when traffic lights go off, there is utter ____ at crossroads. Drivers add
to the confusion by ____ over their right of way, and nearly come to blows. Sometimes
passers-by, seeing a few policemen ____ at regulating traffic, step in to help. This gives
them a feeling of having ____ something.


Thinking about Poem

How has the tree grow to its full size? List the words suggestive of its life and activity.


How does the guru mange to save his disciple’s life?


Choose extracts from the story that illustrate the characters of these people in it.

Person character Extracts from the story What does it tell us about their character 
Mrs Bramble (Para 12) "Bill we must keep it from Harold" She was not honest and open with her son; concerned mother
Mrs Bramble (Para 33)  
Percy (Para 109)  
Jerry Fisher (Para 110)  

  


The Mystery of Bermuda Triangle. 

The potential of nature, of discovered and undiscovered elements in our world, persuades us to probe into some of her mysteries and what they may tell us. Prepare yourself then for a true odyssey of the Earth around us. 

Air France Plane Misalng Near Bermuda Triangle 
June 1, 2009 An Air France plane is missing. The Agence France-Presse reported that an Air France Airbus A330-200 wide-body jet carrying 216 passengers and 12 crew members disappeared from the radar screens on Monday somewhere off Brazil's Atlantic coast. 
Flight AF 447 out of Rio de Janeiro was headed for Paris. According to the Mirror, Air France reported that the plane had radioed in, that they were going through turbulence. They also reported that a message, signalling electrical circuit malfunction, was received before it disappeared. 
A search for the missing plane was conducted by the Brazilian Air Force. The French were also involved in the search. 
Another well known case of 1962 vividly brings home the need for careful behind -the-scenes probing. Once again, it involved an aircraft. 

The date was January 8, 1962. A huge 4 engine KB50 aerial tanker was enroute from the east coast to Lajes in the Azores. The captain, Major Bob Tawney, reported in at the expected time. All was normal, routine. But he, his crew and the big tanker, never made it to the Azores. Apparently, the last word from the flight had been the usual routine report, which had placed them a few hundred miles off the East Coast. 
FLASH! the media broadcasted, fed by a sincere Coast Guard, that a large oil slick was sighted 300 miles off Norfolk, Virginia, in the plane's proposed route. The mystery could be breaking ... 
But that was the only clue ever found. Although never proved, it was from the plane, publicly the suspicions were obvious: the tanker and its qualified crew met a horrid and sudden death by crashing headlong into the sea. 
However, the report, which was finished months later, confirmed no such thing. Tawney had been clearly overheard by a Navy transport hours after his last message. This placed him north of Bermuda, hundreds of miles past the spot of the oil slick. There is no evidence, therefore, that the plane and its crew ever met any known fate. 

                   The Sea of Lost Ships 

The ships below represent samples of the many vessels that have mysterioualy vanished in the Bermuda Triangle . 

Many US warships are listed missing by the US Navy between 1780 and 1824 , including the general Gates , Hornet , Insurgent , Pickering , wasp , wildcat and Expervier .

The Rosalle was built in 1838 of 222 tons of wood . In 1840 , she was found deserted but in ship shape near the Bahamas .

Ellen Austin's Encounter disappeared in 1881 in the Triangle

Bermuda Triangle Theories 
The Bermuda triangle is a stretch over the Atlantic Ocean, measuring less than a thousand miles on any one side. The name 'Bermuda Triangle' remained a colloquial expression throughout the 1950s. By the early 1960s, it acquired the name 'The Devil's Triangle.' Bordered by Florida, Bermuda, and Puerto Rico, the location became famous on account of the strange disappearance of ships, as well as aircrafts in the area. A number of supernatural explanations have been put forward with regard to the mysterious disappearances. 
However, many probable logical explanations for the missing vessels include hurricanes, earthquakes, as well as magnetic fields, which render navigation devices worthless. However, most people do not like to accept such boring explanations and instead opt for more interesting options like alien abduction, giant squids, or getting sucked into another dimension. 

Supernatural theories 

Death Rays from Atlantis. 
Rays from the magic crystals, left from the time of Atlantis, deep down in the sea are responsible for the strange sinking of ships. However, several underwater expeditions have revealed places under the ocean that look man-made, but no such crystals have been found. In fact no real proof that Atlantis existed, has been ever found. 
Sea monsters. 
The presence of sea monsters was the most widely believed explanation especially in the earlier times, when their existence was believed to be true. 

Presence of a time warp. 

People claim to be lost in the time warp while going through the region. 

Alien abductions. 
The Bermuda Triangle is a collecting station from where aliens take our people, ships, planes and other objects back to their planet to study. 

Scientific Explanations 
Magnetic Compass 
According to the scientists in the US Navy, this area is one of the only two in the world, where a magnetic compass points to true north rather than magnetic north. This probably caused some navigators to go off course, which is very dangerous because many of the islands in 'The Triangle' have large areas of shallow water where vessels can run aground. They can also sink a long way down as some of the ocean's deepest trenches, from 19 ,000 to over 27 ,000 feet below sea level, are found here. 

Unpredictable weather 
Since the island is situated in the Atlantic Ocean, the weather is influenced by several factors and can change instantly. That means that at one moment the weather is stable, and at another it becomes extremely turbulent accompanied by strong currents of wind along with the hurricanes. 
Formation of methane in the sea. 
Methane can lower the density of water, leading to the sinking of ships. Similarly, methane can cut out an aircraft engine leading to crashes. 
Bermuda Triangle Survivors 
These witnesses constitute a long list of pilots, sailors and fishermen. 

1. It is interesting to note that Christopher Columbus was one such witness. He wrote in his memoir on how his compass acted strangely while sailing through the Bermuda Triangle. He along with another shipmate witnessed a glowing globe of light that seemed to hover over the sea. 
2. It is said that when clouds or fog enter the Bermuda Triangle, strange things start happening. Such a phenomenon has been witnessed with the Philadelphia Experiment in which the USS Eldridge vanished and reappeared later miles away, with some of the crew men warped into the hull of the ship. 
3. In 1901, Anne Moberly and Eleanor Jourdain stepped into a mist and claimed to arrive at a time period before the French Revolution. It is said, that the mist and the ominous clouds might be the key to time travel or entering into other dimensions. 
4. Even a great pilot like Charles Lindbergh witnessed unusual events while flying in the reaches of the Bermuda Triangle. It is said that when he was making a nonstop flight from Havana to St. Louis, his magnetic compass started rotating. His Earthinductor-compass needle jumped back and forth erratically. This has now all been revealed in his autobiography. 

5. Another eyewitness account is that of Bruce Gernon, who flew his plane, a BonanzaA36, into the Bermuda Triangle and encountered a non-threatening mile and a half long cloud. As he neared, the cloud seemed to come alive. It became huge and engulfed his plane. However, a tunnel opened up in the cloud and he went through this tunnel. It had cloud trails swirling around his plane. He also reported that while going into this tunnel, he experienced zero gravity and the only thing that kept him in the cockpit was his seatbelt. 
Whatever be the actual reason, there is an involvement of more than one fact.or behind the disappearances of ships and aircrafts in the Bermuda triangle region. 
The Bermuda triangle continues to evoke a lot of interest. Most people like to read about it. In fact., in the last few decades, island of Bermuda has emerged as a major tourist destination as well; mainly, due to its close proximity with the Bermuda Triangle. 


"They say it was a shocking sight
After the field was won;
For many thousand bodies here
Lay rotting in the sun;
But things like that, you know, must be 
After a famous victory.
"Great praise the Duke of Marlbro'won,
And our good Prince Eugene."
"Why,'twas a very wicked thing!"
Said little Wilhelmine.

"Nay...nay...my little girl,"quoth he,
"It was a famous victory.
"And everybody praised the Duke
Who this great fight did win."
"But what good came of it at last?"
Quoth little Peterkin.
"Why that I cannot tell,"said he,
"But 'twas a famous victory."

Read the lines given above and answer the question that follow.

How does the poet describe the scene on the field after the battle?


For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

Read the lines given above and answer the question that follow.

What is the bliss of solitude referred to here?


We will ponder your proposition and when we decide we will let you know. But should we accept it, I here and now make this condition that we will not be denied the privilege without molestation of visiting at any time the tombs of our ancestors, friends, and children. Every part of this soil is sacred in the estimation of my people. Every hillside, every valley, every plain and grove, has been hallowed by some sad or happy event in days long vanished. Even the rocks, which seem to be dumb and dead as the swelter in the sun along the silent shore, thrill with memories of stirring events connected with the lives of my people, and the very dust upon which you now stand responds more lovingly to their footsteps than yours, because it is rich with the blood of our ancestors, and our bare feet are conscious of the sympathetic touch. Our departed braves, fond mothers, glad, happy hearted maidens, and even the little children who lived here and rejoiced here for a brief season, will love these somber solitudes and at eventide they greet shadowy returning spirits. And when the last Red Man shall have perished, and the memory of my tribe shall have become a myth among the White Men, these shores will swarm with the invisible dead of my tribe^ and when your children’s children think themselves alone in the field, the store, the shop, upon the highway, or in the silence of the pathless woods, they will not be alone. In all the earth there is no place dedicated to solitude. At night when the streets of your cities and villages are silent and you think them deserted, they will throng with the returning hosts’that once filled them and still lover this beautiful land. The White Man will never be alone.
Let him be just and deal kindly with my people, for the dead are not powerless. Dead, did I say? There is no death, only a change of worlds.

Read the extract given below and answer the question that follow.

When will the shores swarm with the invisible dead of the speaker’s tribe? Why?


Of the seven hundred villages dotting the map of India, in which the majority of India’s five hundred million live, flourish and die, Kritam was probably the tiniest, indicated on the district survey map by a microscopic dot, the map being meant more for the revenue official out to collect tax than for the guidance of the motorist, who in any case could not hope to reach it since it sprawled far from the highway at the end of a rough track furrowed up by the iron-hooped wheels of bullock carts. But its size did not prevent its giving itself the grandiose name Kritam, which meant in Tamil coronet or crown on the brow of the subcontinent. The village consisted of fewer than thirty houses, only one of them built from brick and cement and painted a brilliant yellow and blue all over with

gorgeous carvings of gods and gargoyles on its balustrade, it was known as the Big House. The other houses, distributed in four streets, were generally of bamboo thatch, straw, mud and other unspecified material. Muni’s was the last house in the fourth street, beyond which stretched the fields. In his prosperous days Muni had owned a flock of sheep and goats and sallied forth every morning driving the flock to the highway a couple of miles away.

Read the extract given below and answer the question that follow.

What did the Big House look like?


“So that is what you are doing out here? A marshal!” “My dear Miss Fairchild,” said ’ Easton, calmly, “I had to do something. Money has & way of taking wings unto itself, and

you know it takes money to keep step with our crowd in Washington. I saw this opening in the West, and—well, a marshalship isn’t quite as high a position as that of ambassador, but—” “The ambassador,” said the girl, warmly, “doesn’t call any more. He needn’t ever have done so. You ought to know that. And so now you are one of these dashing Western heroes, and you ride and shoot and go into all kinds of dangers. That’s different from the Washington life. You have been missed from the old crowd.” The girl’s eyes, fascinated, went back, widening a little, to rest upon the glittering handcuffs. “Don’t you worry about them, miss,” said the other man. “All marshals handcuff themselves to their prisoners to keep them from getting away. Mr. Easton knows his business.” “Will we see you again soon in Washington?” asked the girl. “Not soon, I think,” said Easton. “My butterfly days are over, I fear.”

Read the extract given below and answer the question that follow.

What does Mr Easton mean by the phrase, “My butterfly days are over, I fear.”


When there was a strong wind, the pine trees made sad, eerie sounds that kept most people to the main road. But Mr. Oliver was not a nervous or imaginative man. He carried a torch – and on the night I write of, its pale gleam, the batteries were running down – moved fitfully over the narrow forest path. When its flickering light fell on the figure of a boy, who was sitting alone on a rock, Mr. Oliver stopped.

Boys were not supposed to be out of school after seven P.M. and it was now well past nine. What are you doing out here, boy, asked Mr. Oliver sharply, moving closer so that he could recognize the miscreant.

Read the extract given below and answer the question that follow.

Whom did Mr Oliver meet in the forest?


Then there it lay in her wet palm, perfect, even pierced ready for use, with the sunset shuffled about inside it like gold—?dust. All her heart went up in flames of joy. After a bit she twisted it into the top of her skirt against her tummy so she would know if it burst through the poor cloth and fell. Then she picked up her fork and sickle and the heavy grass and set off home. Ai! Ai! What a day! Her barefeet smudged out the wriggle— ?mark of snakes in the dust; there was the thin singing of malaria mosquitoes among the trees now; and this track was much used at night by a morose old makna elephant—the Tuskless One; but Sibia was not thinking of any of them. The stars came out: she did not notice. On the way back she met her mother, out of breath, come to look for her, and scolding. “I did not see till I was home, that you were not there. I thought something must have happened to you.” And Sibia, bursting with her story, cried “Something did). I found a blue bead for my necklace, look!”

Read the extract given below and answer the question that follow.

Is the Ending Appropriate?


It was the summer of 1936. The Olympic Games were being held in Berlin. Because Adolf Hitler childishly insisted that his performers were members of a “master race,” nationalistic feelings were at an all-time high.

I wasn’t too worried about all this. I’d trained, sweated and disciplined myself for six years, with the Games in mind. While I was going over on the boat, all I could think about was taking home one or two of those gold medals. I had my eyes especially on the running broad jump. A year before, as a sophomore at the Ohio State, I’d set the world’s record of 26 feet 8 1/4 inches. Nearly everyone expected me to win this event.

Read the extract given below and answer the question that follow.

Why does Jesse Owens dismiss the claim of Hitler as childish?


Read the extract given below and answer the questions that follow:

Lady Adela:  Oh! Charlie, he did look so exactly as if he’d sold me a carpet when I was paying him.
Winsor:   [changing into slippers] His father did sell carpets, wholesale, in the City.
Lady Adela:  Really? And you say I haven’t intuition! [With a finger on her lips] Morison’s in there.
Winsor:  [Motioning towards the door, which she shuts] Ronny Dancy took a tenner off him, anyway, before dinner.

(i) How did Dancy take a ‘tenner’ from De Levis?
How does De Levis later connect this trick with the theft? 

(ii) Why, according to Lady Adela, did Dancy leave the army? Why does she call him reckless? 

(iii) Where had De Levis kept the money which was stolen? Where had he gone after keeping the money? How much did he lose? 

(iv) Why is Winsor outraged when De Levis says he had locked his door? What was the height of the room from the ground? How do they know that the thief did not use a ladder to climb up to De Levis’ room? 

(v) How does General Canynge react when De Levis first accuses Dancy of committing the theft? What is your opinion of De Levis?
Give one reason to justify your answer. 


Read the extract given below and answer the questions that follow:

.......Once again Clover and Benjamin warned him to take care of his health, but Boxer paid, no attention. His twelfth birthday was approaching. He did not care what happened so long as a good store of stone was accumulated before he went on a pension.
       Late one evening, in the summer, a sudden rumor ran round the farm that something had happened to Boxer. He had gone out alone to drag a load of stone down to the windmill. And sure enough, the rumor was true….

(i) In what condition did the animals find Boxer?

(ii) Why did the animals feel uneasy when Squealer told them that Boxer would be sent to a hospital at Willingdon for treatment?
How did Squealer reassure them? 

(iii) How much longer did Boxer expect to live?
How did he plan to spend his remaining days? 

(iv) What was written on the van that took Boxer away? What did Boxer do when he heard the screams of the animals? 

(v) What was the new name given to Animal Farm by Napoleon?
What strange transformation did the animals notice on the faces of the pigs?
What is the significance of this transformation? 


Do the following activity in groups.

Go to the library and collect information about the lifestyle of people in desert areas— their food, clothes, work, social customs, etc. Share this information with the group.


Answer the following question.

The bear grew up but “he was a most amiable bear”. Give three examples to prove this


The following sentence has two blanks. Fill in the blanks with appropriate forms of the word given in brackets.

Hermits are_________men. How they acquire their________ no one can tell. (wise)


Why did the king send two messengers throughout his kingdom?


Give the character sketch of the narrator.


Who was Abbu Khan?


What was the problem of the two shoppers? What were they going to try?


Why and when did Dad say the following?

Fall?


Multiple Choice Question:

Who is the poet of this poem?


Replace the italicised portion of the sentence below with a suitable phrase from the box. Make necessary changes, wherever required.
He has been told not to take risks while driving a car through a crowded street.


Complete the following sentences from memory choosing a phrase from those given in brackets.

Uncle told me ______ while he was away.


Identify the ‘he’ in the first line.


When did the angel appear to Abou Ben Adhem?


What is the phrase 'The Century's corpse outleant' in the poem, The Darkling Thrush, a metaphor for? 


Discuss the absence of human characters in the story, There Will Come Soft Rains. How does this absence contribute to the overall tone and message of the narrative? Answer in 200-250 words.


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