A Minor Role

Question 1

Who is the speaker in A Minor Role?

Answer 1

Woman dealing with an unnamed illness

Question 2

What are the key events in A Minor Role?

Answer 2

Attempts to reflect her life as a dying patient — everyone’s eyes seem to be on her, waiting for any sign of weakness

Societal pressure to force her into a false sense of happiness

Admits that it is not better to die — ultimately the false sense of hope she gives herself may be worth it

Question 3

What is the extended metaphor in A Minor Role?

Answer 3

Life as a play, and the narrator has a minor role on stage (we all play a small part and continue to pretend)

Question 4

What is the significance of caesuras in A Minor Role?

Answer 4

…

Question 5

What is the significance of using continuous verbs in A Minor Role?

Answer 5

Shows no time to reflect because she is dying

Question 6

What images are portrayed in A Minor Role?

Answer 6

Semantic field of hospitals, war, funeral and stage)

Question 7

What does the intertextuality of Oedipus Rex act as in A Minor Role?

Answer 7

The voice of society

Question 8

What is the structure of A Minor Role?

Answer 8

Mainly regular, with occasional irregularity
- reflects attempt at calm and order, but sometimes fail

Lots of enjambment and caesura
- reflects anxiety, agitated mind, and constant action, no time to stop

Question 9

What is the form of A Minor Role?

Answer 9

Dramatic monologue