Aufgabe Vorschlag B1 - 1 · Abitur Hessen Englisch GK 2022

Material 1

Amanda Craig: Hearts and Minds (excerpt from the novel, 2009)

In the novel – a portrayal of multicultural London and the intertwined lives of recent immigrants – the protagonist Polly Noble, a human rights lawyer and single mother, attends a dinner party organised by Hemani, a first-generation immigrant. She is driven to the party by Job, her regular driver with African roots.

Job laughs. Again, their gazes meet in the mirror. I shouldn’t be sitting in the back seat, Polly thinks.

Yet if she were to sit in front, she wouldn’t feel at ease. She talks to Job more than she does to Bill, or

to Theo 1: an odd thought.

A straggle of small shops along the Caledonian Road selling pet food, mirrors, ironware and food flash

5 past. It’s always a bit of a shock, leaving her own quiet street and seeing what lies just a block away;

the poverty and squalor, the ugly council buildings and run-down commerce. Polly is just old enough

to remember how English shops had once closed for half of Saturday and half of Wednesday as well

as all day on Sunday. She can remember her mother coming back triumphant from the corner shop

saying, ‘Open at eight p.m.! We’ve just become like New York!’

10 It is unthinkable now, to live as her parents had done, going to work only from nine till five and

enjoying the benefits of newly formed education and health services. What paradise it had seemed!

Now, in order to pay their exorbitant mortgages, and ever more exorbitant fuel prices, British adults

have to work long hours – the longest, it’s said, in Europe. Unless they are very rich, women are

expected to work as well as have children; without the little cafés, the cleaners, the au pairs, the

15 builders, and the late-night shops – all dependent on migrant labour – the professional classes could

not manage. But we too are being squeezed, Polly thinks. Even to get into a good prep school 2,

Robbie 3 had had to compete against the sons of oligarchs 4 and ambassadors, and every year her

children have to sit gruelling internal exams in order not to be chucked out 5 to make way for more.

‘Job, how did you get to school?’ she asks.

20 ‘I walked. Over hill, over dale, thorough bush, thorough briar.’ 6

‘Was it far?’

‘Only five miles.’

‘Wasn’t it dangerous?’

‘Sometimes there were snakes.’

25 ‘Oh.’ Polly closes her eyes, imagining a small boy in the bush. ‘How horrible.’

‘There are many snakes in Africa,’ says Job, laughing. ‘They are less dangerous than men.’

[…] ‘Would you go back if you had a different leader?’

‘Of course. I love my country, and my people. But until something changes, I have to stay here,

praying the police never stop me.’

30 ‘If they do, Job, I’ll try to help you. You do know that, don’t you?’

‘Thank you,’ he says gravely. ‘I hope I will not need it, madam.’

They arrive in Muswell Hill 7, where Hemani and Daniel now live.

[…]

Ellen and Ivo are there already. Polly is delighted; alongside Daniel and Hemani they are her favourite

35 couple, for Ivo is always entertaining and full of good gossip, as is Ellen.

‘How’s work?’ Ellen asks and Polly sighs.

‘Grim. I used to be proud of living in a country which helps refugees,’ she says. ‘But now people think

I’m doing something bad.’

‘Does it ever occur to you, honey, that they might have a point?’

40 ‘Ellen, you have a foreign nanny, don’t you?’

‘Sure,’ says Ellen oblivious. ‘You know, Tamara’s first words were in Mandarin?’

[ Ellen shows them a picture of her and Ivo’s daughter. ]

‘Beautiful,’ Polly says.

‘Ah, but you know why that’s so,’ says Hemani. ‘The more you mix up different gene pools, and

45 different nationalities, the more you get children in whom faulty genes are suppressed.’ […]

‘That’s our problem, Polly.’ Ivo is on form, she sees. ‘We’re too English.’

‘Ivo, don’t be an idiot,’ says his wife.

[…]

‘Nobody is English anymore, have you noticed?’ Ivo says. ‘We’re all British.’

50 ‘Excuse me’, says Daniel. ‘Whenever there is a World Cup match you can’t move without seeing

St George crosses 8 hung from cars and council flats. The problem is that the English have become the

underclass, covered with colonial guilt.’

‘What, we should be singing the national anthem in front of the Union Jack in schools?’

‘At least reimpose 9 proper border controls and ID cards.’

55 ‘How can you say that, Hemani?’ Polly asks.

‘Because, obviously, too many new immigrants makes it bad for those of us who got here first,’ says

Hemani. ‘There’s a limit to how much a culture can absorb, and we’re long past it.’

‘Oh I hate all this us and them!’ Polly exclaims passionately. ‘When we invaded places like Africa and

India, we broke down a door, and now we don’t like it that they come here, just as we went there.

60 Well, tough. It’s not a question of morality. There is no us and them. There’s just people. We’re all

migrants from somewhere.’

(770 Wörter)

Amanda Craig: Hearts and Minds, London 2009, S. 196–199.

1 Bill – Polly’s lover; Theo – Polly’s ex-husband

2 prep school – short for preparatory school: a private school where students are prepared for entry into a higher form of education

3 Robbie – Polly’s son

4 oligarch – generally refers to influential and wealthy business people, often from Russia

5 to chuck out – to throw out

6 “Over hill, over dale [valley], thorough bush, thorough briar [thorny plant].” – quote from Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”

7 Muswell Hill – a rather well-to-do North London suburb

8 St George cross – here: the English flag (a red cross on a white background)

9 to reimpose – to reestablish, to reinforce

1 Outline life in Britain as presented in the excerpt. (Material 1) (30 BE)