Eng1501 Exam 2024

FULL NAMES : FRANCINA MFOLO
STUDENT NUMBER : 68545835
MODULE CODE : ENG1501
ASSESSMENT : OCT/NOV EXAMINATION 2024
DUE DATE : 14 OCTOBER 2024

QUESTION 1 : SHORT STORY( “SUPERMARKET SOLILOQUY BY MOIRA LOVELL” )
Questions:
1) Briefly define what a soliloquy is and then explain why the author has chosen to use this word in
the title of this story? Use quotations to support your argument. (10)
-Soliloquy means a speech in which a person expresses thoughts aloud when alone or without
addressing anyone .The author has chosen to use this word in the title of the story because is about a
middle aged woman by the name of Janet ,who went in to a shopping supermarket ( grocery store ) .As
she walk by the products she reflect back about olden days .In this extract she reminisce about her
breast and how full they were in the past ,For example “A little further on there's a refrigerator shelf
stacked with great plastic breasts of milk. You hold one in each hand, feeling the weight, pressing them
gently. They are as full as yours used to be . A brimming cup of C. And nippleless” . She thinks aloud
alone while pushing a trolly and weighing things without talking or addressing to anyone (Thinking out
loud ) .
2) Identify what type of narration is used in the passage and explain how this form of narrative style
influences our perception of what is taking place in the extract. Provide quotations from the passage
to support your answer. (10)
The type of the narration that is used in the passage is second person narration .It is defined as a
narrative method where the reader is the main character and mostly uses the words like “you ,yours
,your” to address the reader .This form of narrative style influences our perception by making the
reader himself or herself feel like going through that journey in the moment ,meaning that the reader
might be in an impression that the events are happening directly to them .For example ,” . The one you
choose has a gammy wheel, which seriously affects your gait and reminds you that you are not a spry
young mother with a comatose cutie out for a walk, but a middle-aged woman with a bare cupboard
and intimations of mortality.” Sentence 2-6.,The author uses more “You’s” to emphasize the second
person narration .
3) Explain how the structuring of the sentences in the passage establish its tone. Quote to support
your answer. (10)
The structuring of the sentences in the passage establish its tone by slow ,calm and thoughtful narration
.The author uses the speaker as someone in a thoughtful moments ,for example “On the right, as you
enter, eggs, bulging in their trays ,lie like wards of pregnant women waiting to deliver the contents of
their stomachs . ” ,The tone is established by imagery as it takes us down the road of thinking about the
hospital beds for pregnant women waiting to deliver ,That is how the sentence structure is established
by the length complexity ,combination and variation .
4) Briefly indicate what you consider to be the themes of this passage and consider whether the
passage offers the possibility of overcoming loss. Support your position using quotes from the
passage? (10)
Indication of what I consider to be themes of the passage are being thoughtful and reminisce ,she
compares her breasts now thinks they are like a brimming cup of C ,for example ” . A brimming cup of C.
And nippleless from full . As yours are now, .It offers the possibility of overcoming loss ,for example ,” .
You take down a tray. One egg's already broken in its bed. Stickily. Prematurely. And the porcelain
womb, cracked, can't be repaired with glue. It's finished. Like yours.” ,A loss of an egg , the moment
when the egg is cracked and sticky ,one can never eat it as she compares it to a porcelain ,when cracked
you cannot even repair it with a glue ,same applies to an egg ,you cannot use glue to repair it so it’s a
loss .
5) Based on the extract, how does the author characterise the narrator through her body using food as
a metaphor? Support your discussion through quotes from the passage.
The author characterizes her body in the past using food , plastic of milk .For example ,” . As yours are
now, awaiting reconstruction. For a moment, weighing the smooth packets in the scale of your palms,
you think you won't bother, after all, with that final artifice. You have no need now of nipples. Either for
feeding or for flirting.” As she is weighing the smooth packets there ,she compares them with her
nipples not there anymore because she doesn’t have a need to have them whether for flirting or breast
feeding .Since she is a middle-aged woman and given birth her breast seem shrinked and less seem alive
than before she gives birth .
QUESTION 2 : NOVEL BY NTHIKENG MOHLELE “SMALL THINGS “ .
Nthikeng Mohlele takes us on the road of the speaker’s experience after 18 years of an imprisonment
,small things .In this essay I will unpacking how the changes in the of Johannesburg reflect the changes
that the main character in the novel is experiences to his own life and circumstances ,and specific
descriptions of the changes in setting and developments in the life of the main character ,chapter 3 .
The novel experiences the setting of the city of Johannesburg as it changes through out the years of his
imprisonment .After 18 years jailed ,the speaker comes to his home in 284 Hope street ,Meadowlands
but finds it as a flower shop occupied by someone and registered officially to that person ,”The yard
now is thriving flower shop belonging to a deaf Mozambican Cobbler .” It is reasonable after years of
neglect and abondance throughout the years ,it is ought to be occupied .In this situation ,He was forced
to stay homeless in the city squares to and to bath in public toilets .
The narrator finds Johannesburg unfamiliar after 18 years ,Late night as he was walking along Nelson
Mandela bridge after his released from jail ,he was approached by an unknown male /dark figure
.Although Nelson Mandela bridge displays change and freedom ,still the city creates an atmosphere that
the city is still unsafe .,”youth die unpredictable deaths “ (Mohlele ,2013:10) .The dark figure asks the
speaker less serious questions and money ,in the end he shot the speaker three times and left him to die
.He was hospitalized at Milkpark hospital .He was visited by two investigating cops for questioning and
he dislikes that .
He does not believe in the justice system or bringing dark figure to the cop’s statement but finds it hard
to be upfront about the issue of the police “How do I tell the investigating officers to leave me alone
?,That I have no interest of chasing ghosts ?To my mind ,no man should hold power of life and death
over others .But to his mind there are perhaps compelling reasons to murder strangers in cold blood
.How can I be expected to know what those reasons are ?”(Mohlele 2013:25 ) .He later recovers .
After time of being homeless and broke ,he gets a job as an information officer at the company called
Tourism information center in Newtown .In his free time or days he works at laundry service company to
make extra funds to rent a town house at 144 Verona estates .His life is coming together a long tragic
and misery of life in the streets ,he now affords to rent estates .
In conclusion ,The changes of the City of Johannesburg in Nthikeng Mohlele’s small things is explored
therally .In this essay I showed how changes of the city can impact someone in both two ways positive
and negative especially when you are someone from jail and released after years and years .I took you
through the experience of the narrator after the release from prison .

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FULL NAMES : FRANCINA MFOLO

STUDENT NUMBER : 68545835

MODULE CODE : ENG1501

ASSESSMENT : OCT/NOV EXAMINATION 2024

DUE DATE : 14 OCTOBER 2024

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