Circumcision

Question 1

Having hauled down my pyjamas

Answer 1

• authentic experience

Question 2

They dragged me, all legs and teeth,

Answer 2

• atmosphere of violence

- resistance

Question 3

That fateful afternoon, to a stool

Answer 3

• never be the same

Question 4

Before which the barber hunkered

Answer 4

• doctor who carries out circumcision

- haunched

Question 5

With an open cut-throat. He stropped it

Answer 5

• sharpening the knife

Question 6

On his palm with obvious relish.

Answer 6

-

Question 7

I did not like his mustachios, nor

Answer 7

-

Question 8

Hid conciliatory smile. Somehow

Answer 8

• reassure the speaker

Question 9

They made me sit, and two cousins

Answer 9

• force

Question 10

Help a leg apiece. The barber

Answer 10

-

Question 11

Looked at me; I stared right back,

Answer 11

• bravado

Question 12

Defying him to start something.

Answer 12

-

Question 13

He just turned aside to whisper

Answer 13

-

Question 14

To my cousin who suddenly cried

Answer 14

-

Question 15

‘Oh look at that golden bird,’

Answer 15

• distraction

Question 16

And being only six I looked up;

Answer 16

• naive and young

Question 17

Which was all the time he needed

Answer 17

-

Question 18

To separate me from my prepuce.

Answer 18

• foreskin

Question 19

‘Bastard, sonofapig,’ I roared,

Answer 19

• outraged and angered

Question 20

‘Sister-ravisher, you pimp

Answer 20

• worst words he knows

Question 21

and catamite,’ While he applied

Answer 21

-

Question 22

Salve and bandaged the organ.

Answer 22

• pain

Question 23

Beside myself and indignation

Answer 23

-

Question 24

and pain, I forgot the presence

Answer 24

• pain made him forget who were around him

Question 25

Of elders, and cursed and cursed

Answer 25

• he learnt the crass from children’s games

Question 26

In the graphic vocabulary

Answer 26

-

Question 27

Of the lanes, acquired at leap-frog,

Answer 27

-

Question 28

Marbles, and blindman’s bluff.

Answer 28

-

Question 29

Still frothing at the mouth they fetched

Answer 29

• still angry when he was taken home

Question 30

Me to bed, where an anxious mother

Answer 30

• relates to his age

Question 31

Kissed and consoled me. It was not

Answer 31

-

Question 32

Till I was alone that I dared

Answer 32

-

Question 33

To look down at my naked middle.

Answer 33

-

Question 34

When I saw it so foreshortened,

Answer 34

-

Question 35

Raw, and swathed in lint, I burst

Answer 35

• Shocked and horrified

Question 36

Into fresh tears. Dismally

Answer 36

-

Question 37

I wondered if I would ever

Answer 37

-

Question 38

Be able to pee again.

Answer 38

• despair

Question 39

This

Answer 39

• reflective tone

Question 40

Was many many years ago.

Answer 40

• significant memory even though it was so long ago

Question 41

I have since learnt that it was more

Answer 41

-

Question 42

Than a ritual, for by the act

Answer 42

• it means more, he understands that

-

Question 43

Of a pull and downward slash,

Answer 43

-

Question 44

They prepare us for disappointments

Answer 44

• realisation that it made him understand the absence of hope

Question 45

At the absence of golden birds

Answer 45

-

Question 46

Life will ask us to look at

Answer 46

-

Question 47

Between our circumcision and death.

Answer 47

• Loss of innocence

- many events alike to this

Question 48

Overview

Answer 48

• Speaker’s experience vs. speakers realisation
• narrative style
• enjambment (a sense of prolongment)
• metaphors about life