Practice theme essay questions for the Core Unit: "Intrigue and Integrity"

After reading Bolt's A Man for All Seasons, Geoffrey Trease's Cue for Treason and Gweneth Lilly On a Scaffold High, write on ONE of the following topics:

1. How well do Thomas More, Peter Brownrigg and Owen Rhys while embroiled in intrigue and treason retain their moral integrity?

2. Personal relationships are powerful factors in decisions of conscience. Peter left home to protect his parents and yet revealed the assassination plot, Thomas More demanded Alice Meg and Roper go into exile, and Gruffydd avoided the grief of a widower by embracing the excitement of the theatre. How were crucial decisions influenced by these characters' personal relationships?

3. "Every age has its hero." Define would you mean by a hero with reference to your reading this term.

4. Peter's loyalty to his Queen drives him to spoil a treasonous plot, Gruffydd's Welsh loyalties won out in the end and More's duty of God and conscience cost him his life. Why do these authors dramatise personal loyalties so much in their stories?

5. "Ultimately our passions are cues for our scaffolds." Burbage, Shakespeare, Gruffydd, Owen Rhys, Peter Brownrigg and Thomas More were passionate in their causes and careers. Do you now believe this is a better way to live? Why?

6. The Shakespearean theatre is a high point in our cultural history. How have our chosen authors celebrated it?

7. "We are all players on the stage of life." Apply this quotation to the works you've read this term.

8. These three works focus on the power and influence of royalty and monarchy in daily life. Describe life under the Tudors as you now understand it. Was it an era of the Common Man?

9. Peter Brownrigg, Bolt's Common Man and Owen Gruffydd are all the ordinary-person storytellers. How much more effective did you find this narrative device in these works? Why?

10. Trease, Bolt and Lilly make extensive use of geographical and cultural settings. How effective did you find nostalgia was an emotional chord in their writings?

11. What have you learnt from reading Bolt, Lilly and Trease in parallel?

G. Smith 1997

Preparation for Treason and Integrity Exam Essay

Consider the characters in your texts and locate them along these scales:
integrity.........................................................................intrigue
trusted ally.....................................................................conspirator
courageous......................................................................coward
concerned for common good..............................individual's greed
martyr............................................................................assassin
conscience.......................................................................conformity
patriotism........................................................................treason
responsibility....................................................................popularity

How do heroes behave? Consider these phrases:

stick to your guns
go with the flow
stood up for their beliefs
..was a prime exemplar
be in the spotlight
duty to fulfil
grand exit
Heroic traits win admiration.
Everyone admires steadfastness in adversity, courage, integrity, loyalty, perseverance.
Is a hero rash, careless, throwing caution to the wind??? heroes don't waver

NB: Note they are not novels; they are "texts."

Model Essay Plans:

TOPIC 1: How to show courage......
1. How our characters learn courage from parents and mentors.
2. How our characters show courage in crises
3. How our haracters lived with the results of courage.

TOPIC 2: "Every age has its hero." Define would you mean by a hero with reference to your reading this term.

Introduction: Essay will show our characters/books celebrated heroes
1. By their actions, all 3 define heroism as "courage beyond peers, the unexpected": Characters More, Gruffyth, Peter
2. Circumstances required and prompted their courage: How settings especially psychological recognise heroism.
3. Cost and consequences of courage: Death, exile, banishment: Plot lines
Conclusion: I define the three as heroes by their characters, their actions in situations, and how they bore its costs.

This essay might begin like this...

In my reading this term, I have be constantly struck by how heroes can appear in every age and situation. The heroes of the epics are often lionised as models for the young. But because it is a trait of human courage, we can expect new heroes to arise because everyday life offers many choices - to be a coward or a hero. Because it takes character to be a hero, some respond better than may be expected and can be hailed as heroes. I read about such particular heroes this term in these selections. All three major characters qualify as heroes because they "showed courage in adversity beyond their peers and beyond what might be expected."

TOPIC 3: "Heroes though driven by passion are not blinded by it."

Passions define us: give goals, they challenge us, superhuman feats, characteristics.

Passions blind us: one eyed, fearless, at all costs, reckless about consequences

Passions bind us: have results, exclude other responsibilities, self chosen.
Sample Student Response:

Study of the theme of Intrigue and Integrity

"Every age has its heroes." Define what you mean by a hero with reference to your reading this term."

In every epoch, Western society has exalted people who seem to show an heroic nature. Our society has defined what a hero is by means of inherited criteria. These socially developed criteria have been used through the ages and continue to be refined. Although the actions of the hero may differ in every age, the fundamentals of the concept can be recognised time and again. This report will identify and apply three fundamental criteria that constitute this shared definition of a hero. These timeless criteria are that a hero is someone who stands for his beliefs, is loyal to his supporters and is honest and not devious. References will be made to Trease's novel Cue for Treason, Robert Bolt's play A Man for All Seasons and Gweneth Lilly's novel On a Scaffold High to argue that different periods use a common definition of heroism.

A hero is someone who stands for what he believes in. Lilly provides a prime instance of this when Owen is described as boldly standing against his father's engagement. The same moral stand occurs in Cue for Treason: Peter is a firm believer in defending the sovereignty of the Queen and the peace of her country. He 'stands' for this when he undertakes a dangerous venture to foil an assassination plot on her. Sir Thomas More in Bolt's play similarly qualifies as a hero by standing firm refusing to compromise his beliefs through perjury. In doing so, he reaffirmed his long held legal principles and his belief in the worth of a man's oath. These examples would indicate that these writers regarded a hero as someone who stands for what he believes in.

In every age, a hero is somebody loyal to his or her supporters. This criterion is used in each of the three texts too. Bolt portrays More as being loyal to the letter and processes of law. He is shown as being loyal to the laws of England, loyal to the English people and to his supporters. Lilly similarly depicts Owen as a boy who ultimately remains loyal to his Welsh kin and, refusing prospects in London, returns to farm the estate that his grandfather bequeathed to him. Similarly, Trease's Peter Brownrigg remains loyal to his family and friends, especially Kit, Mr Raymond and Mr Burbage's actors. Thus to be a hero, one must be loyal to one's supporters.

Heroes can be identified also on a third criterion, that is, whether the subject is honest and not devious. Owen expresses his disapproval at Gruffydd's engagement without obviously attempting to thwart the planned marriage. Thomas More remains so eminently honest to his God, his conscience and to the public that he is executed for his courage. Trease depicts Peter as a boy honest to his father, his friends and especially to Kit. These examples show that a hero must possess integrity both in public and in his heart.

A hero embodies these fundamental values: he is loyal to himself, to his supporters and to his cause. The three texts show that these three criteria are also used by these authors and are commonly used in our Western society. Society identifies a hero as such if he possesses these three. These three criteria continue to be used today whenever we define a hero. These Elizabethean criteria suit me today also.

by Anthony M. 1997 (readily edited; 591 words

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Some advice for dealing with three texts in one essay:

After one reference to a text, forego further references by name and make ready connections between the characters. Thus
Trease's Peter.....does X just as More does.
Bolt defines a hero in the same way as Lilly does in her novel.
In Lilly's novel, Owen and Rhys Gruffydd openly acknowledge their Welch sympathies even when in London....
All three writers, Lilly, Bolt and Trease, offer us characters who ........
To be a hero, one must be steadfast and constant. Peter Brownrigg is just as loyal as Thomas More.