WAEC SSCE - Literature In English - 2021

Maelezo ya Majibu

A dramatic performance without words is called a mime. Mime is a type of performance art that involves acting out a story or scene using gestures, facial expressions, and body movements, but without speaking. The goal of mime is to communicate a message or tell a story to the audience through non-verbal means. It is often performed in a theatrical setting, and can be comedic or serious in nature.

Maelezo ya Majibu

An inscription on a tombstone is an epitaph. An epitaph is a short text or verse that is written on a tombstone or monument to honor or commemorate a deceased person. It often includes the person's name, dates of birth and death, and a brief message that reflects on their life, personality, or accomplishments. Epitaphs can be serious, humorous, religious, or sentimental, and are meant to provide comfort and closure to the loved ones of the deceased.

Maelezo ya Majibu

The most intense part of a conflict is the climax. This is the point in the conflict where tensions are at their highest and the outcome of the conflict is uncertain. It's the part of the story where the protagonist and antagonist confront each other directly and the stakes are the highest. The climax is usually the most action-packed and emotionally charged part of the conflict, and it's where the story reaches its peak of intensity. After the climax, the story moves into the denouement or resolution, where loose ends are tied up and the conflict is resolved. The deus ex machina is a plot device where an improbable event or character suddenly appears to resolve the conflict, but it is not typically considered the most intense part of a conflict.

Maelezo ya Majibu

The speaker is involved in putting on a play.

Maelezo ya Majibu

Speaker X has not done any of the options mentioned in the question. In the given extract, Speaker X is asking Speaker Y to sing again because they are enamoured with their singing and are also attracted to their appearance and virtue. Speaker X even goes on to say that they love Speaker Y at first sight. Speaker X has not escaped from the city, fallen into a world of dreams, woken up from an induced sleep, or abandoned a loved one.

Maelezo ya Majibu

Maelezo ya Majibu

The poem is about appearances. Specifically, it describes the "mask" that people wear to hide their true emotions and experiences. The speaker suggests that society doesn't want to see the pain and suffering that people are going through, so they put on a mask to hide it. The poem acknowledges the pain that people feel while trying to maintain a certain appearance, but ultimately argues that the world prefers the illusion of happiness to the reality of suffering.

Maelezo ya Majibu

An aside is something a character says on stage that is meant for the audience alone. It is a theatrical device used to reveal a character's inner thoughts or feelings directly to the audience, without other characters on stage being aware of it. The purpose of an aside is to provide the audience with insight into the character's motivations or to provide additional context to the scene. It is usually spoken in a lower voice or in an aside tone and can be marked by the character turning towards the audience or breaking the fourth wall.

Maelezo ya Majibu

The feeling conveyed in the passage is the tender care of his mother. This is shown through her actions of stroking his hair and trying to comfort him when he had questions or was upset about events in his life. The heart shape of her face is described as being imprinted on the boy's mind, showing the impact she had on him and the fond memories he had of her.

Maelezo ya Majibu

Utopia is a term used to describe an ideal society or community, where everything is perfect and everyone lives in peace and harmony. It is often used to describe a place or situation that is perfect or ideal in every way, without any flaws or problems. The term "utopia" comes from the Greek words "ou" (meaning "not") and "topos" (meaning "place"), so it literally means "no place". Utopia is often seen as a fantasy or a dream, because it is very difficult to achieve such a perfect and ideal society in reality.

Maelezo ya Majibu

The speaker is addressing actors. This can be inferred from the context of the passage, in which the speaker is asking the actors to review their parts and rehearse for a play they will perform. The speaker also expresses concern about being observed by other people in the city, suggesting that they need a private location to practice their play. This is consistent with the idea of actors rehearsing for a theatrical production. Therefore, it can be concluded that the speaker is addressing a group of actors.

Maelezo ya Majibu

Maelezo ya Majibu

Maelezo ya Majibu

Maelezo ya Majibu

The speaker in the extract is Quince.

Maelezo ya Majibu

The line "Does it stink like rotten meat?" makes use of the sense of smell. It describes the potential odor of a deferred dream, suggesting that it could become unpleasant, much like the smell of decaying flesh. The question implies that the dream may become something undesirable and unpleasant over time, which can be associated with a foul smell. Smell is one of the five senses, and it refers to the ability to perceive scents and odors through the nose.

Maelezo ya Majibu

Maelezo ya Majibu

The mood of the poem is one of uncertainty or doubt. The speaker is asking questions about what happens to a dream that has been postponed or delayed. They are considering various possibilities for what might happen, but they don't seem to have a clear answer.

Maelezo ya Majibu

Maelezo ya Majibu

A short play performed in the pause between the act of a longer play is an interlude. An interlude is a short play, entertainment, or musical performance that is performed between the acts of a larger play or opera. It was a common practice in medieval and Renaissance theatre, and was used to provide a break in the action, add some humor, or add additional entertainment for the audience.

Maelezo ya Majibu

Maelezo ya Majibu

The odd item in the list is "literary appreciation." It doesn't fit in with the other items, which are all narrative techniques used in writing. "Literary appreciation" refers to the act of enjoying and valuing literature, not a specific technique used in writing.

Maelezo ya Majibu

The rhyme scheme of the first stanza is "aabcc". The first and second lines end with words that rhyme with each other ("lies" and "eyes"), the third and fourth lines end with words that rhyme with each other ("guile" and "smile"), and the fifth and sixth lines end with words that rhyme with each other ("subtleties" and "lies"). The third and fourth lines also partially rhyme with the first two lines, and the fifth and sixth lines partially rhyme with the third and fourth lines.

Maelezo ya Majibu

Maelezo ya Majibu

Maelezo ya Majibu

Maelezo ya Majibu

Maelezo ya Majibu

A pause within a line of poetry is called a caesura. It is a deliberate interruption or break in the middle of a line of verse. It can be indicated by punctuation such as a comma, semicolon, or dash, or it can occur naturally in the flow of the words. The caesura is used to create a pause for emphasis, to change the rhythm of the verse, or to divide a line into two distinct parts.

Maelezo ya Majibu

The stanza described with three lines and a rhyme scheme of ABA, BCB, CDC is called terza rima. Terza rima is a form of poetry that originated in Italy and was used by Dante in his famous work, "The Divine Comedy." In terza rima, the first and third lines of each stanza rhyme with each other, while the second line of each stanza rhymes with the first and third lines of the following stanza. This creates a chain-like rhyme scheme that continues throughout the poem.

Maelezo ya Majibu

The chorus normally features prominently in drama. A chorus is a group of performers who sing, dance, and speak together in unison. In drama, the chorus serves as a narrator, commentator, or participant in the action of the play. They can represent a group of people, such as citizens or soldiers, or they can be a group of supernatural beings, such as gods or spirits. The chorus helps to set the tone and mood of the play, and can also provide background information or commentary on the events that are unfolding on stage. The chorus can sing, chant, or speak their lines, and their performances are often accompanied by music or movement. Overall, the chorus plays an important role in enhancing the dramatic effect of the play and engaging the audience in the story.

Maelezo ya Majibu

Speaker Y is Helena. In the extract, Speaker X is cautioning someone against leaving the city and trusting someone who doesn't love them. In response, Speaker Y reassures the other person that their virtue is valuable and that they themselves do not feel like they are in the darkness of the night when they see the other person's face. This dialogue suggests that Speaker Y is deeply in love with the other person, and willing to defend them against any perceived attacks on their reputation or honor. The other options (Titania, Pease blossom, Hippolyta) are not supported by the context of the extract.

Maelezo ya Majibu

A dramatist is someone who writes plays. This means they create the script, the dialogue and the characters for a theatrical performance. They are responsible for putting the story and ideas down on paper, ready to be performed by actors on stage.

Maelezo ya Majibu

A story that explains a natural phenomenon or justifies the beliefs of a society is called a myth. Myths are traditional stories that often feature gods or heroes and are used to explain how the world works, why things are the way they are, and how people should behave. They can be found in many cultures around the world and are often passed down through oral traditions. Myths can include explanations for natural phenomena such as the creation of the world, the changing of the seasons, or the origin of animals.

Maelezo ya Majibu

Maelezo ya Majibu

Maelezo ya Majibu

Maelezo ya Majibu

The answer is C. for different reasons. Speaker X is telling speaker Y that it is not modest to leave the city and put herself in danger with someone who does not love her. Meanwhile, speaker Y is trying to convince speaker X that he is trustworthy and that he values her virtue. They both have different reasons for being in the woods and are not hiding or spying on each other. Therefore, the answer is C. for different reasons.

Maelezo ya Majibu

A recurring idea, image, or group of images that unifies a work of literature is called a motif. This means that the same symbol or idea keeps appearing throughout the work, which helps to create a sense of unity and coherence. For example, in "To Kill a Mockingbird," the mockingbird is a motif that appears throughout the novel, representing innocence and vulnerability. The repetition of this symbol helps to reinforce the novel's themes and create a deeper meaning for the reader.

Maelezo ya Majibu

Maelezo ya Majibu

The main actors in this extract are Quince and Bottom.

Maelezo ya Majibu

The dominant literary device in this excerpt is the rhetorical question. This is because the author asks a series of questions that are not intended to be answered directly, but rather to provoke thought and create emphasis on the potential consequences of a deferred dream. The questions also serve to build up a sense of anticipation and create a mood of uncertainty about what might happen to a dream that is put off for too long. Overall, the use of rhetorical questions in this excerpt helps to convey the theme of the poem, which is the negative effects of delaying or denying one's aspirations.

Maelezo ya Majibu

The phrase "the lawyer addressed the bench" is an example of metonymy. In this figure of speech, a word or phrase is used to represent something else that it is closely associated with. In this case, "the bench" is used to represent the judge or judges who are sitting on the bench in a courtroom, and "the lawyer" is addressing them in court. The use of "the bench" in place of "the judge" is a common metonymy in legal contexts.

Maelezo ya Majibu

The rhythmic pattern of the above line is iambic. The line consists of ten syllables and follows an iambic meter, which means that it contains five iambs. An iamb is a metrical foot consisting of two syllables, with the first syllable unstressed and the second syllable stressed. In the line "When you are old and grey and full of sleep", the first syllable in each iamb (marked in bold) is unstressed, and the second syllable is stressed. This creates a pattern of da-DUM, da-DUM, da-DUM, da-DUM, da-DUM, which is the rhythm of iambic pentameter. Many famous poets, such as William Shakespeare and John Keats, have used iambic pentameter in their works.

Maelezo ya Majibu

Maelezo ya Majibu

The main character is inquisitive, meaning he is curious and asks many questions. He is asking his mother about various events and experiences, trying to understand why they happened.

Maelezo ya Majibu

The statement "I feel a million times better than I felt yesterday" is an example of hyperbole. This is because the speaker is exaggerating their feelings to emphasize how much better they are feeling compared to the previous day. Using the phrase "a million times better" is an exaggeration because it is impossible to feel a million times better, as feeling good is a subjective feeling and cannot be measured in numerical terms.

Maelezo ya Majibu

The dominant feeling in the passage is nostalgia. The passage describes a childhood memory in which the narrator reflects on past experiences and conversations with his mother. Although the memories involve some negative events, such as being in a fight or witnessing others engaging in destructive behavior, the overall tone is one of fondness and longing for the past. The narrator's mother is portrayed as a source of comfort and reassurance, which contributes to the nostalgic feeling of the passage.

Maelezo ya Majibu

Maelezo ya Majibu

Maelezo ya Majibu

Maelezo ya Majibu

In Alex Agyei-Agyiri's Unexpected Joy at Dawn, Nii's encounter with the man nicknamed "I-Put-it-to-me" (also called Tally O) is a small but telling episode that dramatises the theme of survival under harsh, repressive conditions and prepares the way for the later fortunes of Nii's sister, Mama Orojo.

The setting of the encounter: the curfew. The soldiers in power have imposed a curfew that forbids movement at night, yet ordinary people still have to get home when the day ends. Nii, whose wife Massa lies bedridden and dependent on him, has stayed out and now has to slip home after the curfew hour. To beat the soldiers and the vigilante patrols on the streets, he uses his wits and pretends to be a lunatic, and in this way he passes safely through the security net to his own door.

The meeting itself. As Nii reaches his house he notices a man sitting on the stump of a tree in front of his door, biding his time to get past the curfew. He passes the man and enters. This stranger is I-Put-it-to-me, an illegal gold miner and a member of the Daga group of miners. Soon an army lance corporal comes into Nii's room, having caught I-Put-it-to-me for breaking the curfew. Like Nii, I-Put-it-to-me survives the danger by sheer ingenuity, and both men escape arrest for the offence. Their shared cunning under the same threat quietly links the two characters.

The irony and significance of the encounter. The meeting is deeply ironic. This same I-Put-it-to-me later cheats Nii's own sister: on Mama Orojo's flight to Ghana he sells her a fake gold ring, so the man Nii once brushed past at his door turns out to be a swindler who exploits his family. The Daga group to which he belongs is also the group in which Joe, the man connected to Mama Orojo, works and dies in the mines. The encounter therefore does more than show two men outwitting a curfew; it exposes a society in which survival depends on trickery and deceit, where the same sharp wits that save a man from soldiers are turned to cheating others.

Conclusion. Nii's brief encounter with I-Put-it-to-me shows the resourcefulness forced on people by military repression and hardship, and, through its later irony, it binds Nii's story to his sister's and underlines the atmosphere of insecurity and dishonesty that pervades the world of the novel.

Maelezo ya Majibu

The title of August Wilson's play Fences is highly appropriate, for the fence is both a literal object built on stage and a rich symbol that gathers up the play's central themes.

The literal fence

• Throughout the action Troy and Cory are slowly building a wooden fence around the Maxson yard, a task Rose has asked for.
• The unfinished fence is a constant physical presence, and the labour of building it frames the family's quarrels and conversations.

Fences that keep people in (love and protection)

• Bono observes that some people build fences to keep the ones they love close. Rose wants the fence because she is trying to hold her family together and keep her loved ones safe within it.
• The fence therefore stands for Rose's love and her wish to protect husband and son from a hostile world.

Fences that keep people out

• The fence also symbolises the barriers Troy builds against death. He boasts that he has fenced Death out of his yard and dares him to come.
• It suggests the defences people raise against danger, disappointment and mortality.

Fences of separation and division

• The fence marks the emotional walls that grow up between the characters: between Troy and Cory, whom he drives away, and between Troy and Rose after his betrayal.
• It reflects the racial barriers of segregated America that fenced black men like Troy out of opportunity, such as the colour bar that kept him out of professional baseball.

Irony of completion

• The fence is finished only late, by which time Troy's own fences have shut out his son and wounded his wife. The completed fence encloses a broken family.

Conclusion

The title Fences is apt because the fence operates on every level of the play: as a real structure, as a sign of love and protection, as a defence against death, and as an image of the social and emotional barriers that divide people. The single image thus unifies the whole drama.

Maelezo ya Majibu

Love and marriage form the central theme of Wole Soyinka's The Lion and the Jewel. The play examines competing attitudes to courtship, marriage customs and the union of the sexes, set against the wider clash between tradition and modernity in the village of Ilujinle.

Rival views of marriage

• Lakunle's romantic, Western view. The schoolteacher preaches a modern, companionate marriage: no bride-price, a wife as an equal partner, courtship with kisses, and city-style romance drawn from magazines. Yet his ideas are shallow and unworkable in the village.
• Sidi's traditional pride. Sidi values the bride-price as proof of her worth and virginity. She will not surrender her honour for Lakunle's fine words and demands that custom be respected.
• Baroka's polygamous tradition. The Bale sees marriage as the privilege of the strong man. He already has many wives and a favourite, Sadiku, and he pursues Sidi as another jewel for his household.

The contest for Sidi

• The plot is a courtship contest in which love is bound up with pride, custom and cunning rather than pure affection.
• Baroka wins Sidi by guile, and their union celebrates virility and native tradition; Lakunle's bookish romance is defeated.

The bride-price and custom

• The dispute over the bride-price shows how marriage in the play is a social and communal matter, governed by custom, not merely a private feeling between two people.

Comment on the theme

• Soyinka treats love and marriage with comedy and satire. He mocks Lakunle's undigested modernity while affirming the vitality of tradition through Baroka.
• The closing marriage dance and Sadiku's celebration of fertility present marriage as a communal, life-affirming institution rooted in African custom.

Conclusion

Through the rivalry of Lakunle and Baroka for Sidi, the play stages three attitudes to love and marriage, romantic-modern, proud-traditional and shrewdly polygamous, and finally endorses rooted native custom over borrowed Western romance.

Maelezo ya Majibu

In Alex Agyei-Agyiri's Unexpected Joy at Dawn, Mama Orojo is Nii's long-separated sister who has settled in Nigeria and become a devout member of the Amen Kristi church. Her relationship with her fellow worshippers reveals both her deep faith and the comfort and community that religion offers her while she hopes for reunion with her lost brother.

A devoted and respected member

• Mama Orojo is a sincere and committed Christian who finds in Amen Kristi a spiritual home and a family to replace the blood relations she has lost.
• The congregation holds her in high regard for her generosity, her piety and her steadiness of character.

Generosity and motherly care

• As a successful businesswoman she supports the church and its members materially, sharing her wealth and standing by those in need.
• She acts as a mother-figure within the fellowship, offering counsel, prayer and encouragement, so that the church members become a substitute family.

Mutual support and hope

• The church members in turn give her fellowship and sympathy in her loneliness and in her longing to find Nii.
• Prayer and worship within the community sustain her faith that she will one day be reunited with her brother, a hope the novel finally rewards.

Faith set against a corrupt world

• Her wholesome relationship with the church contrasts sharply with the greed, xenophobia and violence of the wider society through which Nii struggles.
• Amen Kristi thus stands as a small circle of love and decency amid national disorder.

Conclusion

Mama Orojo's relationship with her fellow church members at Amen Kristi is one of mutual love, respect and support. The church becomes her surrogate family, sustaining her faith and hope, and her generous, motherly conduct within it marks her as a figure of goodness set against the harshness of the world outside.

Maelezo ya Majibu

None

Maelezo ya Majibu

Setting is one of the most powerful elements in Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights. The two houses and the wild Yorkshire moors are not mere background; they shape character, mirror emotion and drive the meaning of the whole novel.

The two contrasting houses

• Wuthering Heights stands high and exposed, battered by storms. Its name itself means turbulent, stormy weather. It is stern, wild and comfortless, and it reflects the passionate, harsh natures of Heathcliff and the elder Catherine.
• Thrushcross Grange, sheltered in the valley, is refined, calm and comfortable. It reflects the gentle, civilised, somewhat weak Linton family.
• The movement of characters between the two houses charts the clash of two worlds: raw passion against social refinement.

The moors

• The open moorland is the natural home of Catherine and Heathcliff's love. As children they roam it freely, and it symbolises their wild, boundless, untamable bond.
• The moors also stand for freedom, danger and the supernatural; Catherine's spirit is imagined wandering there, and Heathcliff longs to be reunited with her upon it.

Weather and atmosphere

• Storms, wind, snow and darkness accompany moments of crisis and violent feeling, so that nature echoes the turbulence of human passion.
• Lockwood's nightmare and Catherine's ghost at the window gain their eerie force from the bleak, isolated setting.

Isolation

• The remoteness of the setting shuts the characters into an intense, enclosed world where their passions grow extreme, unchecked by ordinary society.

Conclusion

The setting of Wuthering Heights works almost as a character in its own right. Through the contrast of the two houses, the symbolism of the wild moors and the pathetic fallacy of storm and weather, Bronte externalises the passions of her people and gives the novel its brooding, elemental power.

Maelezo ya Majibu

In Wole Soyinka's The Lion and the Jewel, the contest for the village beauty Sidi is fought between the young schoolteacher Lakunle and the old chief Baroka, the "Lion" of Ilujinle. Lakunle loses her for several linked reasons.

His refusal to pay the bride-price

• Sidi insists on the bride-price as proof that she is a virgin and a woman of honour. Lakunle, calling the custom savage and out of date, refuses to pay it.
• To Sidi this refusal looks like meanness or an attempt to cheat her of her dignity, so she will not marry him on his terms.

His empty modern talk

• Lakunle is full of borrowed Western ideas and grand speeches about progress, magazines, cars and city life, but he does nothing practical and cannot back his words with action.
• His half-baked civilisation makes him seem foolish and pompous rather than admirable, and Sidi loses respect for him.

His timidity and weakness

• Lakunle is hesitant, cowardly and physically feeble. He talks of love but shrinks from decisive action.

Baroka's cunning

• Baroka, though old, is shrewd and experienced. He spreads a rumour that he has become impotent, knowing it will reach the proud Sidi.
• Curious and feeling safe, Sidi visits the palace to mock him. There Baroka flatters her, plays on her vanity with talk of putting her image on a postage stamp, and finally seduces her.
• Once Sidi has lost her virginity to Baroka, the bride-price question is settled and she chooses the virile, clever "Lion" over the ineffectual teacher.

Conclusion

Lakunle loses Sidi because his shallow, undigested modernity, his refusal to honour tradition by paying the bride-price, and his personal weakness make him no match for the wily, self-assured Baroka. The play thus favours rooted native wisdom over borrowed, empty Westernisation.

Maelezo ya Majibu

In August Wilson's Fences, Raynell is the daughter born to Troy Maxson by his mistress Alberta, who dies giving birth to her. Although she appears only late in the play, Raynell makes an important contribution to its plot and meaning.

Fruit of Troy's infidelity

• Raynell's birth is the direct consequence of Troy's affair with Alberta. Her arrival forces Troy to confess his adultery and shatters his marriage to Rose.
• Troy brings the motherless baby home, and his plea, that she is innocent and needs care, tests Rose's charity.

Rose's redemption and growth

• Rose agrees to raise Raynell as her own, saying the child is fatherless and womanless but not so; the baby will have a mother.
• In taking in Raynell, Rose shows generosity and strength, and her decision marks the reordering of the household on her own terms rather than Troy's.

Symbol of innocence and new life

• Raynell represents fresh, blameless life growing out of Troy's sin, a sign of hope and continuance after his failures.
• Her small garden and her growing up embody the idea that new life carries on despite the fences and disappointments of the older generation.

Reconciliation in the final scene

• Years later, on the day of Troy's funeral, Raynell meets her half-brother Cory, who has refused to attend.
• Together the two children sing the old blues song about Troy's dog "Blue" that their father used to sing. This shared song softens Cory's bitterness and helps reconcile him to his father's memory.
• Raynell thus becomes the link between the past and the future and the means by which the family finds a measure of peace.

Conclusion

Though a minor character, Raynell drives key developments: she exposes Troy's betrayal, occasions Rose's noble decision, symbolises innocent new life, and finally helps bring about the reconciliation and healing with which the play closes.

Maelezo ya Majibu

Agostinho Neto's The Grieved Lands (also rendered The Grieved Lands of Africa) is a poem of protest and hope. It shows Africa as a land that has suffered deep and repeated pain under slavery and colonialism, yet has refused to die and continues to survive and rise.

How Africa suffered

• The very title, "grieved lands", presents the whole continent as wounded and mourning, sorrow spread across the land itself.
• The poem recalls the historical injuries of Africa: the violence of slavery, the chains and the auction-block, and the humiliations of colonial conquest.
• Neto piles up references to the pain endured, the sweat, blood and tears of the African people exploited and oppressed by foreign masters.
• The land is pictured as watered by suffering, its peoples degraded and their dignity trampled over long centuries.

How Africa survives still

• Against this catalogue of grief the poem insists, through emphatic repetition, that the grieved lands are "rising", "growing" and coming to life again.
• The repeated affirmation that the lands rise conveys defiance and unquenchable vitality: suffering has bruised Africa but not destroyed it.
• Images of dawn, growth and awakening suggest new life, renewal and the coming of freedom after the long night of oppression.
• The endurance of the people, their refusal to be broken, becomes proof that Africa lives on and moves towards liberation.

Technique that carries the theme

• Neto uses insistent repetition and parallelism to hammer home both the depth of the suffering and the certainty of the survival.
• The tone shifts from grief to triumphant hope, mirroring Africa's passage from bondage towards resurgence.

Conclusion

In The Grieved Lands, Neto records the historic agony of slavery and colonialism written into the very soil of Africa, but he transforms that grief into a song of survival. The grieved lands, though deeply wounded, rise, grow and live still, embodying the poet's faith in Africa's endurance and eventual freedom.

Maelezo ya Majibu

Adah, the heroine of Second Class Citizen, grows from a poor, overlooked Ibo girl into a determined woman who insists on shaping her own life. Her growth in confidence and determination is the backbone of the novel.

Early determination against the odds

• As a child in Lagos, Adah nurses a secret dream, her "Presence", of travelling to the United Kingdom and bettering herself.
• Denied schooling because she is a girl, she boldly sneaks off to school on her own and later works hard to win a scholarship, showing early strength of will.

Building a footing

• She secures a good post at the American Consulate library in Lagos, earning more than many men and gaining a measure of independence.
• She marries Francis but uses her earnings and her savings to finance his studies in England and to bring herself and the children over, taking charge of the family's future.

Confidence under hardship in London

• In England she meets racism, cramped housing and her husband's idleness, yet she keeps her library job and provides for the household.
• She refuses to accept the second-class role marked out for her, insisting on decent lodgings and on educating her children.

Pursuit of her dream to write

• Her deepest ambition is to become a writer. She composes her first novel, The Bride Price, and is proud of it.
• When Francis burns the manuscript in contempt, she is wounded but not broken; the act hardens her resolve rather than killing her dream.

Final independence

• Adah at last leaves Francis, taking her children and facing single motherhood with courage.
• By the close she stands as a self-reliant woman who has grown from timid dependence into confident self-determination.

Conclusion

Adah's journey is one of steadily rising confidence: from a girl fighting for schooling, to a working wife bankrolling her family, to a writer and single mother who chooses dignity over subjection. Her determination in the pursuit of her dreams makes her one of African literature's memorable strong women.

Maelezo ya Majibu

In Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, Mary Rambo is the warm-hearted black woman who takes in the narrator after he collapses following his ordeal at the Liberty Paints factory hospital. Though a minor figure, she plays an important role as a symbol of nurturing, of racial memory and of ordinary black endurance in Harlem.

Her character

• Mary is motherly, generous and morally grounded. She feeds and shelters the narrator without demanding rent when he has no money.
• She is proud of her people and of their history, urging the narrator to remember where he comes from and to do something worthwhile for the race.
• She is practical, patient and strong, a stabilising presence after the confusion and violence the narrator has suffered.

Her role in the novel

• Refuge and recovery. Mary's home is a place of healing where the narrator regains his strength and sense of self after being nearly destroyed by the factory and hospital.
• Link to roots and identity. She represents the folk values, the Southern black heritage and communal warmth from which the narrator has drifted; she reminds him not to lose himself in the city.
• Moral touchstone. Her selfless kindness contrasts with the exploitation the narrator meets from the Brotherhood, the college and white employers, throwing their manipulations into relief.
• Spur to leadership. Her hope that he will become a credit to the race helps push him towards a purpose, even though he later abandons her home when he joins the Brotherhood.

Significance

• Mary embodies the dignity and resilience of the ordinary black community that the various ideologies in the novel try to use.
• Leaving her house marks a stage in the narrator's loss of authentic identity; remembering her marks his lingering conscience.

Conclusion

Mary Rambo is the nurturing mother-figure of Invisible Man. Her kindness, pride in her race and moral steadiness make her both a refuge for the narrator and a reminder of the roots and communal values he risks betraying in his search for recognition.

Maelezo ya Majibu

The eviction scene in Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man is a turning point. Wandering through Harlem, the narrator comes upon an elderly black couple being thrown out of their apartment into the winter street, and his response to the scene launches his public career.

What he witnesses

• The narrator sees the old couple's household possessions piled on the pavement by the marshals: their few pitiful belongings, including free-papers, a torn Bible and other relics of a life reaching back to slavery.
• The sight of these objects stirs him deeply; they evoke the long history of black suffering and dispossession, and he is moved by the old woman's grief and the crowd's mounting anger.

His response

• Almost against his own intention, the narrator begins to speak to the gathering crowd. His improvised speech both restrains the people from senseless violence and voices their outrage.
• He discovers a sudden power of oratory, an ability to sway a crowd and to give shape to collective feeling.
• The crowd, roused, carries the furniture back upstairs, briefly defying the eviction, before the police intervene.

Consequences

• Brother Jack of the Brotherhood witnesses the speech and, impressed by the narrator's gift, recruits him into the organisation.
• The episode therefore begins the narrator's involvement with the Brotherhood, which will later use and betray him.

Significance

• The scene awakens the narrator to his own talents and to a sense of solidarity with dispossessed black people.
• It links his personal story to the wider history of the race, since the evicted couple carry the very documents of freedom and bondage.
• Ironically, the moment of his fullest human sympathy also draws him into an ideology that will render him more "invisible" than ever.

Conclusion

At the eviction the narrator finds his voice, his cause and the beginning of his fatal alliance with the Brotherhood. The experience is a milestone in his growth, fusing personal ambition, racial memory and the manipulations that will drive the rest of the novel.

Maelezo ya Majibu

Gerard Manley Hopkins's Binsey Poplars mourns a row of aspen trees felled beside the river at Binsey. The poem's grief is intensified by its rich sound patterning, and alliteration, assonance and repetition are central to its music and meaning.

Alliteration

• Hopkins repeats initial consonants to bind lines and imitate action, as in the felling of the trees: All felled, felled, are all felled, where the recurring f falls like the axe.
• Phrases such as Of a fresh and following folded rank and wind-wandering weed-winding bank use clustered f and w sounds to convey the graceful order of the trees and the gentle motion of the riverbank.
• The alliteration knits the verse tightly together and gives it an incantatory, lamenting quality.

Assonance

• Repeated vowel sounds enrich the texture, as in the long, mournful vowels of quelled or quenched in leaves the leaping sun, where the echoing sounds slow the line and deepen the elegiac tone.
• The recurring open and long vowels sustain the sorrowful, singing movement that suits an elegy for the lost trees.

Repetition

• Whole words and phrases are repeated for emphasis and emotional force: felled, felled, are all felled drives home the totality of the loss.
• The refrain-like lines Since country is so tender / To touch, her being so slender and the repeated strokes of havoc stress how easily and how completely nature can be destroyed.
• The reiteration of hew and delve, and the warning that ten or twelve / Strokes of havoc unselve / The sweet especial scene, hammers home the theme that a few careless blows can undo an irreplaceable beauty.

Combined effect

• Together these devices create Hopkins's characteristic "sprung rhythm" and dense musicality.
• The sound patterns enact the poem's grief, making the reader hear the rhythmic fall of the axe and feel the tender fragility of the natural world that human carelessness destroys.

Conclusion

Alliteration, assonance and repetition are not ornaments but the very heart of Binsey Poplars. They give the elegy its haunting music and force home its lament that once nature's delicate beauty is hewn down, it can never be restored.

Maelezo ya Majibu

Buchi Emecheta's Second Class Citizen is largely a protest against the low status forced upon women in both African and immigrant society. The treatment of women is shown through Adah's experiences and those around her.

Denied education

• As a girl in Lagos, Adah is almost not sent to school at all, because the family spends its scarce money educating her brother Boy. Girls are treated as less deserving of learning.
• Adah has to fight and scheme even to attend school, revealing how female ambition is discouraged from childhood.

Valued only for marriage and money

• Women are seen as a source of bride-price. Adah's relatives look forward to the dowry she will fetch rather than to her own fulfilment.
• A wife's worth is measured by her ability to bear children, especially sons. Motherhood is expected as a duty rather than chosen.

Domination by husbands

• Francis treats Adah as his property. He beats her, spends her earnings, refuses to work himself, and expects her to serve both him and his family.
• He opposes her use of contraceptives and her desire to write, burning the manuscript of her first novel, The Bride Price, to crush her independence.
• Francis relies on the support of his parents and the customs that place a wife beneath her husband and in-laws.

Double burden as immigrants

• In London women like Adah face racism as blacks and inferiority as women, making them, in the novel's terms, second-class citizens twice over.
• Adah must earn wages, keep the home and raise the children while her husband contributes little.

Resistance and change

• Against this treatment Adah asserts herself: she works, educates herself, controls her fertility and finally leaves Francis to raise her children alone.
• Her defiance shows Emecheta's belief that women can rise above the second-class role society assigns them.

Conclusion

Women in the novel are generally treated as inferior beings, denied education, exploited for bride-price and children, and dominated by men. Yet through Adah, Emecheta insists on the woman's right to dignity, independence and self-expression.

Maelezo ya Majibu

None