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Welcome to our blog, In this post, we’re sharing the IGNOU MEG 2 Solved Question Paper of December 2023 examination, focusing on British Drama.
This guide is here to help you prepare for your exams with clear answers and explanations. Whether you’re just starting or revising for your exams, this resource will make studying easier and more effective.
In this post, we’ll discuss all the answers including the short and long answer questions.
You can also download all previous year question papers of MEG 2 from our website.
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Question 1
(a) “Hell hath no limits, nor is circumscribed in one self-space, for where we are is Hell, and where hell is, there must we ever be.”
Answer:
This line is spoken by Mephistopheles in Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus. It presents a chilling notion of damnation, not as a physical location but as a spiritual state. Mephistopheles reveals that hell is not confined but exists wherever God’s grace is absent. The quote reflects the Renaissance conflict between spiritual faith and human ambition. It foreshadows Faustus’s doom—though he enjoys worldly pleasures, he never escapes spiritual torment. Mephistopheles, despite his power, remains in hell, warning Faustus of the same fate. The line emphasizes the play’s central theme: the consequences of forsaking divine salvation.
(b) “But you have no idea how frightfully interesting it is to take a human being and change her into a quite different human being by creating a new approach for her.”
Answer:
This passage from George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion is spoken by Henry Higgins. It reflects his excitement about transforming Eliza Doolittle from a flower girl into a refined lady. While Higgins views this as a fascinating experiment, the underlying emotional strain on Eliza is apparent. The phrase “fight back my tears” reveals the pain caused by class manipulation. The quote critiques the rigid class structures in Edwardian society and questions the ethics of altering someone’s identity for personal curiosity. Shaw uses this moment to highlight both the allure and the emotional consequences of such social engineering.
(c) They know and do not know, what it is to act or suffer.
They know and do not know, that action is suffering.
And suffering is action. Neither does the action suffer.
Nor the patient act. But both are fixed.
Answer:
This passage is from T. S. Eliot’s Murder in the Cathedral, voiced by the Chorus. It reflects the existential paralysis of people caught in the web of suffering and fate.
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(d) “Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss. Her lips suck forth my soul: see where it flies! Come, Helen come, give me my soul again.”
Answer :
Spoken by Faustus in Doctor Faustus, this line marks his tragic downfall. He invokes Helen of Troy, not for love, but to distract himself from impending damnation. Her kiss symbolizes his final choice—pleasure over redemption.
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(e) I shall make a duchess of this draggle- tailed guttersnipe.
Answer:
This line from George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion is spoken by Professor Henry Higgins, reflecting his ambition to transform Eliza Doolittle, a Cockney flower girl, into a refined lady. The phrase “draggle-tailed guttersnipe” displays Higgins’ class prejudice and arrogance, while the transformation into a “duchess” reflects the play’s central theme of social mobility through language and appearance. Shaw critiques the rigid British class system and the superficial basis of societal acceptance. Higgins’ attitude also highlights the imbalance of power in his relationship with Eliza, raising questions about identity, autonomy, and gender roles. The line encapsulates Shaw’s satire on class snobbery.
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Question 2
2. How do you understand the interplay of Renaissance and Reformation strain in Elizabethan tragedy? Discuss with suitable examples.
Answer:
The interplay of Renaissance and Reformation strains in Elizabethan tragedy reflects a dramatic period of transition — a moment when medieval perspectives were giving way to a more human-centric view of the universe, influenced by the Renaissance, while the Reformation challenged longstanding religious structures and certainties. This combination profoundly influenced the themes, character struggles, and moral perspectives of many Elizabethan plays.
The Renaissance was a period marked by the rebirth of classical knowledge and humanism. It placed human ability, creativity, and curiosity at the center of its world view. The Reformation, meanwhile, challenged the universal authority of the Roman Catholic Church and insisted on a more direct, personal relationship with God. Together, these two movements encouraged a dramatic exploration of human potential and human conscience — the soul’s ability to shape its own destiny — and this finds rich expression in tragedy.
For example, in Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus, we observe this interplay profoundly. The protagonist, Faustus, embodies Renaissance humanism in his boundless curiosity and his rejection of traditional knowledge. His ambitious quest for power and knowledge reflects the Renaissance view that man is a microcosm of the universe — a creature made in the image of God — and therefore capable of great achievements. At the same time, Faustus finds himself stranded in a moral and theological crisis — a dramatic reflection of the Reformation’s emphasis on individual conscience and direct relation to God. His eventual downfall underscores the tragedy of ignoring divine bounds in the human quest for knowledge.
In Hamlet, this tension is visible in Hamlet’s own doubts and struggles. He finds himself torn between a medieval view of fate, revenge, and the afterlife and a Renaissance view that emphasizes human will, conscience, and responsibility. His tragedy lies in the conflict between the two perspectives — a reflection of a society in transition.
Therefore, the interplay of Renaissance humanism and Reformation theology in Elizabethan tragedy is not a simple opposition but a rich and dramatic fusion. It highlights human potential and creativity while also wrestling with the moral implications of those ambitions. The result is a dramatic form that expresses the deep anxieties and contradictions of its age — a rich, multifaceted view of human destiny in a world where the certainties of the past were fading and a new, more subjective view of human nature was dawning.
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Question 3
3. “Look Back in Anger is fundamentally rooted in gender and class conflict.” Discuss.
Answer:
John Osborne’s Look Back in Anger (1956) is a powerful expression of discontent in post-war British society. At its core, the play is profoundly influenced by conflicts of gender and class, reflecting a world in transition. The protagonist, Jimmy Porter, personifies the struggles of a generation that finds itself stranded between the traditions of the past and the promises of a future that fails to materialize. His discontent highlights not only his own dissatisfaction but also a wider critique of British society’s class structures and gender roles in the 1950s.
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Question 4
4. Bring out the nature of tragic conflict of Doctor Faustus.
Answer :
Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus is a rich exploration of the tragic conflict that lies at the center of its protagonist’s downfall. The tragedy of Doctor Faustus is not a conflict between two external forces but it’s a profoundly internal conflict — a battle within the soul of Faustus himself. His downfall arises from the collision of his immense ambitions, his desires for power and the knowledge, and his conscience, which constantly pulls him back toward the God and redemption.
At the outset of the play, Faustus is presented as a scholar of great ability who finds himself discontented with the limits of human knowledge. His conflict starts from his own dissatisfaction — the feeling that traditional disciplines like logic, medicine, and law are restrictive and powerless in comparison to the promises of magic. His ambitious soul desires a power that borders on the divine. His decision to pursue black magic, therefore, reflects a dramatic internal conflict between a rejection of human limitation and a temptation to become more than a mere scholar.
This conflict evolves into a dramatic moral struggle once Faustus enters into a pact with Mephistopheles and Lucifer. His conscience repeatedly pricks him ; the Good Angel and the Bad Angel personify this internal division i.e the two opposing voices within him — one urging him toward redemption, the other toward damnation. His doubts and desires become a dramatic tug-of-war. There are numerous moments in the play where the Faustus wavers, contemplating whether to repent and seek the God’s mercy. However, each time, temptation and temptation’s promises pull him back into darkness.
The tragedy lies in the fact that this conflict is not forced upon Faustus by external fate; it comes from his own choices and desires. His downfall is a result of his own free will — choosing knowledge, power, and earthly pleasures over eternal peace. The character’s tragedy underscores Marlowe’s view of human potential and human downfall; when a person disregards conscience and moral boundaries in the quest for power, tragedy becomes a dramatic and inexorable outcome.
Ultimately, the conflict of Doctor Faustus is a conflict within the human soul — a battle between the aspiration and conscience, temptation and redemption the reflecting universal human struggles. His tragedy highlights the perils of unchecked ambition and the human tendency to destroy oneself in the face of temptation.
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Question 5
5. Critically discuss The Playboy of the Western World as a tragedy.
Answer:
J.M. Synge’s The Playboy of the Western World (1907) is a rich and complex play that straddles the borders of tragedy and comedy. At first view, it may seem a comic piece — filled with humorous dialogue, improbable events, and exaggerated character traits — yet upon closer consideration, the play reveals a profoundly tragic dimension beneath its comic surface. The tragedy lies in the human condition it expresses: a community’s deep dissatisfaction with its own ordinary life, its susceptibility to illusion, and the eventual disillusionment when the illusion falls away.
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Question 6
6. Discuss the unique aspects of the structure of Waiting for Godot with suitable/appropriate examples.
Answer:
Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot (1953) is a landmark play in the Theater of the Absurd, and its structure is profoundly unconventional and unique. The form of the play reflects its thematic content — the human condition of waiting, uncertainty, and the feeling of entrapment — through a dramatic structure that rejects traditional plot, character development, and resolution.
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