Anthology: A passage from Africa Flashcards
What is the target audience for this extract?
Adult Readers of newspapers/magazines that live in more favourable conditions
Tone: At the beginning, callous, “inured” and distanced?
- “What might have appalled us … no longer impressed us much.”
- Admits it himself - “this sounds callous”, “the ghoulish manner of journalists”
Tone: “Revulsion” for the dying and sick?
- “a mixture of pity and revulsion”
- “The degeneration of the human body … is a disgusting thing.”
Tone: Death described dispassionately?
- “same old stuff”
- “No rage, no whimpering, just a passing away — that simple, frictionless, motionless deliverance from a state of half-life to death itself. It was, as I said at the time in my dispatch, a vision of ‘famine away from the headlines, a famine of quiet suffering and lonely death’.”
Tone: At the end, more personal (and less distance)?
-Pities them: “they aspire to a dignity that is almost impossible to achieve”
Tone: Curious of the man’s identity
- “I had to find out.”
- Regrets the fact that he never “found out what the man’s name was”
What is interesting about the smile?
The unknown man’s smile moves him while the hardship of the others do not.
How does he feel Futility?
Futility - the man will never read the article, even though it is written almost in dedication to him
Tone: The unknown man’s smile moves him while the hardship of the others do not?
-“In those brief moments there had been a smile, not from me, but from the face. It was not a smile of greeting, it was not a smile of joy — how could it be? — but it was a smile nonetheless”
Tone: Tone changes from almost indifferent to hopeful/hopeless?
- “I resolved there and then that I would write the story of Gufgaduud with all the power and purpose I could muster”
- “the only adequate answer a reporter can give to the man’s question”
What is the purpose of this peace?
- To show the conditions
- Recounting the impact that the experience has had on him.
- Reveals how the News industry really works.
- Makes us question the difference between us and the Somalis.
What are the techniques used here?
- “The search for the shocking is like the craving for a drug” - Simile, on the addictive nature of the journalistic process
- “She was rotting” - hyperbole
- “The shattered leg had fused into the gentle V-shape of a boomerang” - figurative language
How does the passage start?
It brings us straight to the point. He said he saw many faces, but this one was different.
What is the writing style?
narative, descriptive
What is the aim of this peace of writing?
The aim of this peace of writing is to inform people about Africa and the journeys that the journalist had.
