AQA A-Level English Literature A Paper 2: Texts in shared contexts (2A), June 2025: Question 4

25 marks · Hard difficulty · Extended Response

Examine the view that, in Scars Upon My Heart, women never challenge male authority, writing about at least two poems.

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Question

Question 04: 'Examine the view that, in this anthology, women never challenge male authority. You must write about at least two poems in your answer. [25 marks]'
Question text

or

04 Examine the view that, in this anthology, women never challenge male authority.

You must write about at least two poems in your answer.

[25 marks]

Mark scheme

Show the mark scheme Mark scheme for Question 04 on Scars Upon My Heart edited by Catherine Reilly. It outlines indicative content across assessment objectives AO1 through AO5, suggesting poems such as Wedderburn Cannan's 'Lamplight', Stuart's 'Forgotten Dead, I Salute you', Bedford's 'The Parson's Job', Mitchell's 'He Went for a Soldier', Barrington's 'Education', and Collin's 'Women at Munition Making'.

Question 04

Scars Upon My Heart – ed. Catherine Reilly

Examine the view that, in this anthology, women never challenge male authority.

You must write about at least two poems in your answer.

[25 marks]

Possible content:

Please refer to pages 4 to 7.

AO5 Explore literary texts informed by different interpretations

Students might consider:

• that the ‘women’ referred to in the question may refer to poets, or narrators/characters, or both

• poems that never challenge the decision of male partners who choose to go to war; for example,

Wedderburn Cannan’s ‘Lamplight’

• poems such as Stuart’s ‘Forgotten Dead, I Salute you’ that support male authority through

suggesting that the sacrifice of men who died in war should always be honoured

• poems such as Bedford’s ‘The Parson’s Job’ that accept the spiritual authority of men

• poems, such as Comfort Mitchell’s ‘He Went for a Soldier’, that challenge male authority through

showing young soldiers go to war because of false patriotic ideals

• poems such as Barrington’s ‘Education’ and Collin’s ‘Women at Munition Making’ that challenge

the male influences that create war

• etc.

AO4 Explore connections across literary texts

Focus might be on:

• the extent to which female WW1 poetry often supports the patriarchal aspects of war through

memorialising and accepting the necessity of male sacrifice

• the female acceptance of men who choose to fight

• how women are pressured to accept male authority through the political and religious responses to

war

• the forms of female dissent against a war controlled by men

• etc.

AO3 Demonstrate understanding of the significance and influence of the contexts in which

literary texts are written and received

Focus might be on:

• the female experience of male partners who choose to go to war

• the experience and attitudes of the home front

• the differing roles of women during the war that might challenge patriarchal attitudes

• the social consequences and expectations of bereavement governed by male expectations

• the forms of female dissent against male authority

• etc.

AO2 Analyse ways in which meanings are shaped in literary texts

Focus might be on:

• aspects of poetic form and genre

• aspects of structure, eg use of stanzas

• aspects of language, eg rhyme, rhythm, imagery

• methods that might present male authority in differing ways

• etc.

AO1 Articulate informed, personal and creative responses to literary texts, using associated

concepts and terminology, and coherent, accurate written expression

• quality of argument

• organisation of ideas

• use of appropriate concepts and terminology

• technical accuracy.

Accept any valid interpretations, any valid comments on contexts and any valid discussion of

authorial methods.

Option 1

Section B: Drama and Prose Contextual Linking

How to answer it

Scars Upon My Heart: Women Challenging Male Authority

AQA A-Level English Literature A • Paper 2 • 25 Marks

What this question tests

A concise revision summary of assessed Assessment Objectives (AOs) for Section B / Anthology:

  • AO1 (Argument & Expression): Constructing a coherent, sustained critical debate in response to the absolute proposition ("women never challenge").
  • AO2 (Authorial Methods): Analysing poetic craft—form, metre, stanzaic patterning, irony, voice, and imagery—and how these shape attitudes toward patriarchal hegemony.
  • AO3 (Contexts): Exploring socio-historical WW1 contexts (suffrage, state propaganda, maternal duty, domestic ideology, munition work, conscription, military command).
  • AO4 (Connections across texts): Comparing thematic parallels and contrasting attitudes between at least two poems from Scars Upon My Heart.
  • AO5 (Different Interpretations): Interrogating whether female voices endorse, acquiesce to, or subvert male military, political, and domestic dominance.
Question 04 • 25 Marks

Question Breakdown & Prompt Analysis

"Examine the view that, in this anthology, women never challenge male authority."

🧠 Exam Technique: Unpacking the Absolute

The prompt hinges on the absolute word never . Top-band (Band 5) essays avoid simple binary agreements:

  • Deconstruct "Women": Does this mean the poets (biographical context), the speakers (narrative persona), or female subjects within the poems?
  • Deconstruct "Male Authority": Define its forms—military commanders, politicians, spiritual/clerical authorities, husbands, romantic partners, or patriarchal wartime propaganda.
  • Thesis Formula: While some poets appear complicit, reinforcing patriarchal duty and memorialisation, others deploy subversive irony, grief, or direct socio-political critique to dismantle male institutional authority.

❌ Common Errors to Avoid

  • One-sided validation: Agreeing unreservedly that women were entirely passive victims with no voice.
  • Ignoring Authorial Method (AO2): Retelling the narrative of the poem without analysing caesura, rhythm, rhyme schemes, tone, or structural shifts.
  • Writing on only one poem: The rubric strictly mandates writing about at least two poems. Failing to balance texts caps marks significantly.
  • Treating the anthology as homogeneous: Assuming all female WW1 poets held uniform suffragist or pacifist perspectives.

💡 Key Knowledge: Selecting Your Comparative Poems

Choose complementary or contrasting poems that offer rich analytical scope under AO2, AO3, and AO5:

Poems Supporting / Acquiescing to Male Authority:
  • May Wedderburn Cannan – 'Lamplight': Relegates female life to passive waiting; reflects voluntary acceptance of romantic devotion alongside male martial duty.
  • Muriel Stuart – 'Forgotten Dead, I Salute You': Upholds the sanctity of male sacrifice; canonises the fallen soldier within traditional heroising paradigms.
  • Ruth Comfort Mitchell – 'He Went for a Soldier': Depicts initial acceptance of patriotic recruitment tropes ("drums and marching feet"), though undercut with tragic futility.
  • Adela Bedford – 'The Parson's Job': Yields unquestioningly to the moral and spiritual authority of the Anglican Church and clergy.
Poems Actively Challenging Male Authority:
  • Lilian Marion Barrington – 'Education': Directly attacks patriarchal indoctrination and educational systems that condition young men into cannon fodder.
  • Mary Gabrielle Collins – 'Women at Munition Making': Subverts the traditional domestic image; decries the perversion of maternal/nurturing roles to feed men's machinery of slaughter.
  • Teresa Hooley – 'A War Film': Implicitly condemns the detached patriarchal military state while watching cinema audiences consume warfare as spectacle.
  • Margaret Postgate Cole – 'The Falling Leaves': Subtly subverts traditional epic military heroism through fragile, naturalistic imagery of untimely decay.

📐 Essay Architecture: Step-by-Step Comparative Framework

  1. Introduction: Define male authority (state apparatus, chivalric codes, church). Challenge the prompt's absolute term "never" . Establish an integrated thesis comparing text A (subversion/challenge) and text B (overt complicity masking grief or compliance).
  2. Argument 1 (Direct Political & Institutional Defiance):
    Focus on how female poets indict male political and military architectures.
    Example: Collins's 'Women at Munition Making' exposes how female labor is hijacked by male violence. Analyse the semantic field of sacrilege vs. holy motherhood ( "hands that make the kill" ) to challenge the patriarchal state's war machine.
  3. Argument 2 (Challenging Cultural Mythmaking & False Ideals):
    Focus on indoctrination and schoolboy militarism.
    Example: Barrington's 'Education' critiques the systemic training of boys by schoolmasters and statesmen. Explore poetic satire, regular verse forms mimicking regimentation, and tone to demonstrate conscious intellectual dissent.
  4. Argument 3 (Apparent Acceptance, Domestic Compliance, or Mourning):
    Contrast with poems demonstrating reverence or obedience (e.g., Cannan's 'Lamplight' or Stuart's 'Forgotten Dead').
    AO5 Debate: Does internalising male sacrifice constitute compliance, or is female elegiac memorialisation its own reclamation of narrative agency outside male military censorship?
  5. Conclusion: Synthesise findings. Conclude that while structural patriarchy restricted overt rebellion, the anthology demonstrates sophisticated moral, rhetorical, and emotional rebellion against male authority.

✅ Model Analytical Paragraph (AO1, AO2, AO3 & AO5 Synthesis)

"Contrary to the assertion that women 'never challenge male authority', Mary Gabrielle Collins's 'Women at Munition Making' mounts an explicit ethical indictment against the male-orchestrated war effort. Collins exposes how the patriarchal industrial-military complex corrupts women's traditional roles as lifegivers. Through the startling juxtaposition of sacred maternal imagery with lethal armaments—describing women whose hands were made to 'tend the small, sweet bodies of their children' now producing 'grim munitions of death' —the poet subverts wartime recruitment rhetoric that glorified female factory labor. The jarring caesurae and heavy trochaic stresses reinforce the unnatural distortion of female agency serving male-directed destruction. While conservative contemporaries such as Adela Bedford uphold paternalistic institutions in 'The Parson's Job', Collins refuses deference, positioning male authority not as noble protectors, but as the architects of moral sacrilege."

Examiner Commentary: Clear thesis addressing the prompt; tight comparative awareness; high-level technical AO2 vocabulary (caesura, trochaic stress, juxtaposition); sharp contextual grounding in WW1 home-front mobilisation (AO3); direct engagement with alternative interpretations (AO5).

Topics

WW1 and its aftermath · Scars Upon My Heart

Question and mark scheme from the AQA A-Level English Literature A examination, Paper 2: Texts in shared contexts (2A), June 2025. QuestionVault is an independent revision resource; questions remain the copyright of the awarding body.