English Literature / Unit 17 ENL 1640 worked example, 60 to 90 seconds
Identifying a Twentieth-Century Writer From a Description
The idea
Use the description's key details. Surveillance and a dictator point to Orwell; engineered pleasure to Huxley; boys on an island to Golding; a whisky priest to Greene; an aristocratic Catholic family to Waugh. Two men waiting point to Beckett; menace in a boarding house to Pinter; working-class rage in a flat to Osborne. A butler's memories point to Ishiguro; four notebooks to Lessing; a teacher and her set to Spark; fairy tales rewritten to Carter; invented slang and a violent narrator to Burgess. A librarian's ironic voice suggests Larkin; animals and violence, Hughes; spade and pen or bog bodies, Heaney. Then confirm with the date.
In practice
The detail names the writer.
Where people slip
Several writers address faith or politics. Decide by the distinctive detail, not the theme.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
Builds on
Unlocks
- Nothing yet depends on this.
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