Game of polo with a headless goat Flashcards
“Game of Polo”
“Headless Goat”
Contrast: sophistication vs uncultured
Polo is normally closely associated with wealth
Headless Goat has connotations with violence and chaos
Big question: Emma being a westerner, how does she view what she sees. Western lens (judgy) and bias or is she simply relaying what she has seen
Repetition of “we” in the first paragraph
Repetition of pronoun makes it seem like a group adventure between her and the two men accompanying her
“best viewing spot”
first paragraph
Uses the superlative “best” to really set the scene for us as the audience
As we’re are reading from the outset, we expect that something’s going to happen immediately. They’re even in the best viewing spot so they’re going to capture the exciting thing
“spot”, “lads”
Use of conversational register and colloquial terms adds a disarming tone to the paragraph and makes it really relatable
Adds a playful and fun element to the text
“you climb inside and point you camera towards the race”
Imperative sentence
This race will be a curious one
Builds up tensions and anticipation and we become interested and intrigued as we are not very educated on these types of races
Unorthodox and dangerous: you wouldn’t really see that in the western world. Already a sense that they perhaps do not have very strict laws here? Already a sense of lawlessness and chaos
“fired up”, “eternity”
Hyperbolic language shows the impatience and excitement that not only she is feeling, but also the spectators of the race
“We waited for eternity on the brow of the hill, me perched in the boot with a zoom lens pointing out”
Complex sentence is fairly slow and builds up our interest and anticipation because not only is she in the best viewing spot, now she’s perched perfectly ready with her camera to witness this chase which intrigues us
Unorthodox and dangerous: you wouldn’t really see that in the western world. Already a sense that they perhaps do not have very strict laws here? Already a sense of lawlessness and chaos
“A villager on a wobbly bicylcle”
Indefinite article ‘a’ and adjective adds humour. It is such a let down after we have become very excited of what is going to happen
It is the opposite of a race
Contrast in technology reflects contrast in worlds (“zoom lens”). Reflects contrast in their worlds.
“Wacky races”
Western cartoon- point of comparison
The Pakistani people obviously take this race very seriously however Emma is comparing it to a cartoon which makes it seems as though it is all a joke to her
Peculiar from Western POV
“Coming, coming”
Repetition and clipped sentences show that they are very impatient and its because they know how this goes
The woman is not very aware of how this pans out and so they just tell her to wait and that the race will happen
“I was beginning to lose faith”
“The lads remained confident”
Contrast between Levine’s own feelings and the two men’s feelings
Contrast between Levine’s pessimism and the men’s optimism shows how the author has seen this through a western lens. She is not used to seeing these types of race and so she is really pessimistic and believe that if it has not started by now, it will never start
However the men know that she just needs to be a bit more patient because they know how this goes and the race will start soon
“donkey-carts”
They spot suddenly that there is a change of course
Mention of donkeys- huge cultural gap and what we expect from a race. Donkey carts are far more rudimentary. Very different
“A cloud of fumes and dust”
Lot of sudden action
Vivid imagery shows us how frenzied the activity is
“some fifty vehicles roaring”
Onomatopoeia creates sudden sense of excitement
