Touch

Question 1

Who was Hugh Lewin?

Answer 1

A boarder at St John’s College, who matriculated in 1956.In July 1964 he was held under the country’s 90-day detention law and later sentenced, with other members of the African Resistance Movement, to seven years’ imprisonment for protest sabotage activities against apartheid.

Question 2

What does the speaker want?

Answer 2

The speaker wants ‘to ask someone to touch [him]’ because it has been so long since he has been touched with affection and compassion.

Question 3

What does the slow rhythm of lines 3-5 suggest?

Answer 3

The slow rhythm of lines 3-5 suggests that the author wants this first touch to be gentle and slow so that he can savour the experience.

Question 4

Does the speaker feel isolated?

Answer 4

Yes, he has been isolated from real life and has existed without affection where the only touch he has experienced has been invasive or aggressive. The speaker has become so conditioned by prison life and his sense have become deadened that he needs to relearn what it is to be normal and needs to ‘learn
again how life feels’.

Question 5

What is the significance of the repetition of ‘touch me’?

Answer 5

The repetition of ‘touch me’ in lines 3 and 6 evoke the speaker’s attitude of yearning (longing) to be touched affectionately.

Question 6

What is the mood in the first stanza?

Answer 6

The mood in the first stanza is wistful.

Question 7

What is the repetition of the phrase ‘seven years’ a reference to?

Answer 7

The repetition of the phrase ‘seven years’ is a reference to the seven years in which he was imprisoned.

Question 8

What does ‘untouched’ refer to?

Answer 8

‘untouched’ reinforces that he has not been touched with care.

Question 9

Why is he ‘out of touch’?

Answer 9

He is ‘out of touch’ because he has been in prison and has lost touch with the world outside the prison gates.

Question 10

What does the use of ‘untouchable’ suggest?

Answer 10

The use of ‘untouchable’ suggests that as a political prisoner he was perceived as a pariah in society and was
othered.

Question 11

The speaker understands that he is considered ____ and a danger to society.

Answer 11

undesirable

Question 12

What does the use of touch foreground?

Answer 12

The different use of touch in these words foreground the need of the speaker to be ‘touched’ as it is something
which has been denied him so long and the words evoke negative connotations of ‘touch’ which he is desperate to
escape.

Question 13

What connotations of touch are conveyed?

Answer 13

Both positive and negative connotations of touch are conveyed – those that are gestures of affection and those that are contradictory and violent and dehumanising.

Question 14

What is the mood in stanza 2?

Answer 14

The mood is one of melancholy as it amplifies his despondent attitude at how ‘touch’ has come to represent everything that is harmful and diminishing.

Question 15

What does the lack of punctuation in lines 10-18 convey?

Answer 15

The lack of punctuation in lines 10-18 conveys how unending the seven years without the warmth of ‘touch’ has felt which is enhanced by the use of enjambment suggesting that it has been continual.

Question 16

What is the function of the dash in ‘Untouched – not quite’?

Answer 16

The function of the dash in ‘Untouched – not quite’ is used to provide an explanation regarding the type of touch he has experienced.

Question 17

What is the use of the colon in line 22?

Answer 17

The use of the colon in line 22 introduces an explanation of way in which the ‘fists’ have touched him.

Question 18

What does the diction of ‘fierce’ and ‘mad’ convey a sense of?

Answer 18

The diction of ‘fierce’ and ‘mad’ is aggressive and conveys a sense of the force of the fists and the brutality that is
occurring.

Question 19

What figure of speech is ‘fists’? (2)

Answer 19

• The figure of speech is synecdoche (the part represents the whole) and the fists represent the warders who carried out the beating.
• It can also be identified as a transferred epithet (an epithet –adjective- is transferred from the thing it actually
  describes to something else in the sentence). In this case, the fists are not mad but the warders who are using the fists are mad.

Question 20

What does the faster rhythm mimic?

Answer 20

The rhythm becomes faster and mimics the speed of the ‘fists beating beating’.

Question 21

The repetition of the ____ enhances the forcefulness of the fists and the pain he experienced.

Answer 21

onomatopoeia

Question 22

How is the increased rhythm in lines 23-29 created?

Answer 22

The increased rhythm in lines 23-29 is created through the lack of punctuation and frequency of monosyllabic
words.

Question 23

How is the speaker’s anguished tone expressed?

Answer 23

The speaker’s anguished tone is conveyed through ‘screaming’ and the use of simple sentences conveying his fear in ‘don’t touch me please don’t teach me’.

Question 24

What does the use of ‘paws’ suggest? (2)

Answer 24

• The use of ‘paws’ conveys invasiveness and hands that are not gentle and are deliberately intrusive.
• It also suggests that the prisoners were dehumanised and diminished through the way they were touched.

Question 25

What does the repetition of ‘paws’ in lines 30 -39 remind the reader?

Answer 25

The repetition of ‘paws’ in lines 30 -39 reminds the reader that he could not escape the invasion
of these ‘paws’ as they were part of his daily routine.

Question 26

What is the function of the dashes in lines 34-35?

Answer 26

The function of the dashes in lines 34 – 35 explain the daily routine in which he was subjected
to the ‘paws’.

Question 27

The diction used to describe the speaker’s experience in prison “patting paws”; “prodding paws” and “probing away” with the alliteration of the ____reinforcing the invasiveness of the paws highlights the guards’ ____ in causing the prisoners discomfort.

Answer 27

‘p’

highlights

Question 28

What is the effect of the words ‘heavy’ and ‘indifferent’?

Answer 28

The emotive effect of ‘heavy’ and ‘indifferent’ contributes to prisoners having to submit themselves to the ‘probing’ and be submissive as it is taking place and ‘probing away all privacy’.

Question 29

What does the slower rhythm in stanza 5 convey?

Answer 29

The slower rhythm in this stanza conveys the slow deliberate nature of this procedure.

Question 30

What is the speaker’s tone in stanza 5?

Answer 30

The speaker’s tone is resigned to what he has to endure daily.

Question 31

What does the repetition of ‘want’ in lines 40-50 reinforce?

Answer 31

The repetition of ‘want’ in lines 40 – 50 reinforces his yearning attitude for some gentle, human connection.

Question 32

what does the repetition of ‘again’ remind the reader?

Answer 32

The repetition of ‘again’ reminds the reader that he has not had this for so long and it is necessary for his well-being.

Question 33

What is the tone shift in lines 49-50?

Answer 33

The tone shifts to imploring in lines 49-50.

Question 34

What is the significance of the poem being written in free verse?

Answer 34

The poem is in free verse which is contradictory to the situation in which the speaker finds himself.

Question 35

What does the use of enjambement do?

Answer 35

The use of enjambment conveys the idea of time passing slowly and his time in prison seeming endless which is heightened by all stanzas, exception for stanza
three, being one long sentence.

Question 36

What could the indentation of the stanzas suggest?

Answer 36

The indentation of the stanzas, exception for stanza three, could possibly suggest the distance between the speaker and the touch for which he longs.