From A Passage to Africa

Question 1

Notes on the piece as a whole

Answer 1

Autobiography/recount, discursive essay - presents a debate on whether what he does is right or wrong.

Question 2

‘A thousand’

Answer 2

Deliberately large, round number - shows there were many stories he could’ve told

Question 3

‘Hungry, lean, scared and betrayed’

Answer 3

Emotive words in a list for emphasis

Question 4

‘Faces’

Answer 4

Synecdoche

Question 5

‘Criss-crossed’

Answer 5

Semi-formal register, relating to reader

Question 6

‘Will never forget’

Answer 6

Future tense with NO conditional, hook

Question 7

‘End of 1991 and December 1992’, ‘Just outside Gufgaduud’

Answer 7

Scene setting, provides context and engages reader

Question 8

‘Back of beyond’

Answer 8

Idiom

Question 9

‘Aid agencies had yet to reach’

Answer 9

Shows it’s very remote

Question 10

Note on who the narrator focuses on

Answer 10

The one who affects him the most is not the one who is suffering the most

Question 11

‘Ghost village’, ‘ghoulish’

Answer 11

Similar descriptions to provide textual cohesion

Question 12

‘Journalists on the hunt’

Answer 12

Not there to help, deliberately shocking metaphor

Question 13

‘The search for the shocking is like like the craving for a drug: you require heavier and more frequent doses the longer you’re at it’

Answer 13

Simile, continues, suggests desensitisation

Question 14

‘Same old stuff’

Answer 14

Sibillance, dismissive

Question 15

‘Collect and compile’

Answer 15

Alliteration

Question 16

‘Comfort of their sitting rooms back home’

Answer 16

Shows how people don’t care about things, especially if they’re not affected by it

Question 17

‘There was’ (repeated at the beginning of 2 consecutive paragraphs)

Answer 17

Anaphora, provides cohesion

Question 18

‘Final, enervating stages of terminal hunger’

Answer 18

Emotive, graphic

Question 19

‘By the time Amina returned, she had only one daughter’

Answer 19

Indirect, more moving

Question 20

‘No rage, no whimpering, just a passing away’, ‘simple, frictionless, motionless’

Answer 20

Tripling

Question 21

‘Just a passing away… from a state of half-life to death itself’

Answer 21

Implies that she never really lived because of poverty and her situation

Question 22

‘Famine away from the headlines….’

Answer 22

Quotes his own report

Question 23

‘Drew me’

Answer 23

Conventional metaphor

Question 24

‘Decaying, ‘festering, ‘shattered’ etc

Answer 24

Shocking and very graphic descriptions

Question 25

'Deposed dictator [...] took revenge on whoever it found in its way'

Answer 25

Inhumane, use of 'it' also makes them seem much less human

Question 26

'Gentle V-shape'

Answer 26

Juxtaposition, shocking

Question 27

'And then there was the face I will never forget'

Answer 27

Own paragraph, signals what is coming, 'will' is definite future tense

Question 28

'Twin evils of hunger and disease'

Answer 28

Deliberately shocking metaphor

Question 29

'Sucked of'

Answer 29

Metaphor, suggests something vampiric

Question 30

'Degeneration', 'disgusting', 'revulsion' etc

Answer 30

More shocking vocabulary

Question 31

'Yes, revulsion'

Answer 31

Speech-like, engages reader.

Question 32

'To be' repeated x2

Answer 32

Anaphora

Question 33

'Your hands', 'you've held'

Answer 33

2nd person, personalises experience and engages reader

Question 34

'Will shroud'

Answer 34

Definite future tense, morbid

Question 35

'Fleeting meeting'

Answer 35

Rhymes

Question 36

'It was not' x2

Answer 36

Anaphora, emphasis

Question 37

'How could it be?'

Answer 37

Rhetorical question, makes the reader even more aware of their suffering

Question 38

'I could not explain'

Answer 38

Encourages the reader to think

Question 39

Notes on the face

Answer 39

Only talks about it once enough suspense has been built, anticlimactic, especially when compared with other examples of suffering that theoretically should've affected him more

Question 40

'What was it about that smile?'

Answer 40

Rhetorical question

Question 41

'You might give if you felt you had done something wrong'

Answer 41

2nd person, engages reader

Question 42

'Turned the tables'

Answer 42

Idiom

Question 43

'Me and him... us and them... rich world and poor world'

Answer 43

Tripling, emphasises contrasts, as would be used in a speech

Question 44

'Ground down by conflict'

Answer 44

Metaphor

Question 45

'How should I feel to be standing there so strong and confident?'

Answer 45

More rhetorical questions

Question 46

'I could muster'

Answer 46

Implies he has very little

Question 47

'I have one regret'

Answer 47

Feels guilty

Question 48

'I never found out what the man's name was'

Answer 48

Showing his guilt due to the fact that this man has had a profound influence on him but he doesn't know a simple thing about him, dehumanising

Question 49

'I owe you one'

Answer 49

He's been shown a new moral viewpoint

Question 50

Notes on ending of passage

Answer 50

Not discussing his experiences by the end but it has morphed into a general essay using his experiences as evidence. Last paragraph is a summary