Homework for all PU1 students. Due immediately after Hari Raya holiday.

Below is Paper 1 Question 2 June 2006. This is a humorous text. Much of the the humour is derived by contrasting the great plans of Herman Hochstetter with the actual results: this is irony or ironic humour.

Answer both questions, submit after Hari Raya holiday. Remember a commentary should be around 650 words.

The passage below takes a comic look at patriotism. It is set in a fictional place called Lake Wobegon in America and describes a local custom known as ‘The Living Flag’, an annual ceremony created by shop owner Herman Hochstetter to celebrate the end of World War II.

(a) Comment on the style and language of the passage. [15]

(b) As part of his autobiography, Herman writes a chapter outlining his achievement in creating a ceremony and why it began to go wrong. Basing your answer closely on the material of the extract, write the opening to the chapter (between 120 and 150 words). [10]

On patriotic days, flags flew all over; there were flags on the tall poles, flags on the short, flags in the brackets on the pillars and the porches, and if you were flagless you could expect to hear from Herman. His hairy arm around your shoulder, his poochlike face close to yours, he would say how proud he was that so many people were proud of their country, leaving you to see the obvious, that you were a gap in the ranks.

In June 1944, the day after D-Day, a salesman from Fisher Hat called on Herman and offered a good deal on red and blue baseball caps. ‘Do you have white also?’ Herman asked. The salesman thought that white caps could be had for the same wonderful price. Herman ordered two hundred red, two hundred white, and one hundred blue. By the end of the year, he still had four hundred and eighty-six caps. The inspiration of the Living Flag was born from that overstock.

On June 14, 1945, a month after V-E Day, a good crowd assembled in front of the Central Building in response to Herman’s ad in the paper:

Honor ‘AMERICA’ June 14 at 4 p.m. Be proud of “Our Land & People”. Be part of the “Living Flag”. Don’t let it be said that Lake Wobegon was “Too Busy”. Be on time. 4 p.m. “Sharp”.

His wife Louise handed out the caps, and Herman stood on a stepladder and told the people where to stand. He lined up the reds and whites into stripes, then got the blues into their square. Mr. Hanson climbed up on the roof of the Central Building and took a photograph, they sang the national anthem, and then the Living Flag dispersed. The photograph appeared in the paper the next week. Herman kept the caps.

In the flush of victory, people were happy to do as they were told and stand in place, but in 1946 and 1947, dissension cropped up in the ranks: people complained about the heat and about Herman – what gave him the idea he could order them around? ‘People! Please! I need your attention! You blue people, keep your hats on! Please! Stripe number 4, you’re sagging! You reds, you’re up here! We got too many white people, we need more red ones! Let’s do this without talking, people! I can’t get you straight if you keep moving around! Some of you are not paying attention! Everybody shut up! Please!’

One cause of resentment was the fact that none of them got to see the flag they were in; the picture in the paper was black and white. Only Herman and Mr. Hanson got to see the real Flag, and some boys too short to be needed down below. People wanted a chance to go up to the roof and witness the spectacle for themselves.

‘How can you go up there if you’re supposed to be down here?’ Herman said.‘You go up to look, you got nothing to look at. Isn’t it enough to know that you’re doing your part?’

On Flag Day, 1949, just as Herman said, ‘That’s it! Hold it now!’ one of the reds made a break for it – dashed up four flights of stairs to the roof and leaned over and had a long look. Even with the hole he had left behind, it was a magnificent sight. The Living Flag filled the street below. A perfect Flag! The reds so brilliant! He couldn’t take his eyes off it. ‘Get down here! We need a picture!’ Herman yelled up at him. ‘Unbelievable! I can’t describe it!’ he said.

So then everyone had to have a look. ‘No!’ Herman said, but they took a vote and it was unanimous. One by one, members of the Living Flag went up to the roof and admired it. It was marvellous! It brought tears to the eyes, it made one reflect on this great country and on Lake Wobegon’s place in it. One wanted to stand up there all afternoon and just drink it in. So, as the first hour passed, and only forty of the five hundred had been to the top, the others got more and more restless. ‘Hurry up! Quit dawdling! You’ve seen it! Get down here and give someone else a chance!’ Herman sent people up in groups of four, and then ten, but after two hours, the Living Flag became the Sitting Flag and then began to erode, as the members who had had a look thought about heading home to supper, which infuriated the ones who hadn’t. ‘Ten more minutes!’ Herman cried, but ten minutes became twenty and thirty, and people snuck off and the Flag that remained for the last viewer was a Flag shot through by cannon fire.