"Marrakesh" quotes Flashcards
“As the corpse went past the flies left the restaurant table in a cloud and rushed after it, but they came back a few minutes later.”
Structure: blunt, striking opening sentence, dramatic impact
Tone: Sense of normality, detached, emotionless
Imagery: sheer volume of flies, how they move and cluster
POVERTY
“When the friends get to the burying-ground they hack an oblong hole a foot or two deep, dump the body in it and fling over it a little of the dried up lumpy earth, which is like broken brick.”
Sentence Structure: the process/stages of the burial
Word Choice: the seemingly callous treatment of the corpse
Simile: the poor quality of the earth
POVERTY
“No gravestone, no name, no identifying mark of any kind.”
Repetition: lack of aspects associated with a dignified funeral.
Tone: Sense of compassion, bleak, solemn tone
ANONYMITY, POVERTY
“Or are they merely a kind of undifferentiated brown stuff, about as individual as bees or coral insects?”
Rhetorical Question: emphasises the internalised racism of those who benefit from colonialism
Word Choice: dehumanises natives
Tone: mocking
COLONIALISM
“I tore of a piece and he stowed it gratefully in some secret place under his rags.”
Word Choice: treatment of bread, valuable and precious to the Arab Navvy
POVERTY
“Many of the streets are a good deal less than six feet wide, the houses are completely windowless, and sore eyed children cluster everywhere in unbelievable numbers, like flies.”
Symbolism: lack of light, lack of life and hope
Simile: sheer volume of flies, ref to opening sentence
Sentence Structure: variety of aspects describing the ghetto
DISCRIMINATION, POVERTY
“Instantly, from the dark holes all round, there was a frenzied rush of Jews, many of them old grandfathers with flowing grey beards, all clamouring for a cigarette.”
Word Choice: depicts hysteria, desperation and the pathetic behaviour of the Jews
DISCRIMINATION, POVERTY
“It takes the dried-up soil, the prickly pea, the palm tree and the distant mountain, but it always misses the peasant hoeing at his patch.”
Sentence Structure: anti climatic, shows how undesirable the agricultural workers are
ANONYMITY
“One could probably live here for years without noticing that for nine-tenths of the people the reality of life is an endless, back bearing struggle to wring a little food out of an eroded soil.”
Word Choice: emphasises the desperation and miserable existence of Marrakesh`s residents
POVERTY
“All of them mummified with age and the sun, and all of them are tiny.”
Metaphor: elderly, shrivelled and dehydrated the old women are, not fit for working.
ANONYMITY
“She accepted her status as an old woman, that is to say a beast of burden.”
Word Choice/Imagery: depicts how the women are viewed as inferior, sub human, dehumanised.
ANONYMITY
“Then for the first time I noticed the poor old earth coloured bodies, bodies reduced to bones and leathery skin, bent double under the crushing weight.”
Emotive Language: creates pity and sympathy for the old women, moving tone reveals compassionate standing point.
ANONYMITY
“But what is peculiarly pitiful is that it is the most willing creature on earth, it follows its master like a dog and does not need either bridle or halter.”
Comparison: continuing loyalty of animals is both remarkable and pathetic.
DISCRIMINATION, ANONYMITY
“Their splendid bodies were hidden in reach-me-down khaki uniforms, their feet squashed into boots that looked like blocks of wood, and every tin hat seemed to be a couple of sizes too small.”
Word Choice: ill fitting and restrictive uniforms
Simile: depicts how clumsy and awkward the boots are
COLONIALISM
“Not hostile, not contemptuous, not sullen, not even inquisitive.”
Repetition: shocked and saddened by the soldiers acceptance of their oppression, bleak, solemn tone.
COLONIALISM, DISCRIMINATION
