CXC ENGLISH

Hello there. Today we continue working on the short stories on the English B syllabus, paying close attention to the narrative devices. We’re not forgetting your preparation for English A, so we have our usual handful of challenging exercises. Read on now, and enjoy your CXC English page.

ENGLISH B—Short Stories Last week we looked at John Wickham’s Blood Brothers and saw CONFLICT between two thirteen-year-old brothers. This week we turn to Blackout by Roger Mais. The plot.

A white American woman is in Jamaica, smoking a cigarette as she waits for a bus. A black Jamaican man approaches her and asks for a light so that he can smoke the small stub he has carefully saved. She has no matches and is uncomfortable to let him light his cigarette from hers: it seems too intimate. When she realizes that he is offended, she holds out her cigarette for him to take, but instead of taking it, he bends over her hand and lights his own from hers. Apparently that is too much intimacy for her, so as he stands up and begins to enjoy his smoke, she casually flicks her half-smoked cigarette onto the ground. Naturally the man is even more offended. They talk, but their conversation is very uncomfortable. He believes that no one is superior to anyone else and tells her that if she were a man he’d give her something to think about, while she is thinking that back home a man could be lynched for less rudeness than that. Thankfully the bus arrives and she gets on. She had been quite confident and self-assured until that incident, but now she is shaken. For his part, he waits until the bus leaves and then bends down to pick up the half-smoked cigarette she has thrown away.

Conflict. Inside himself the man is in conflict. He wants to see himself as being proud and dignified, free to associate with this white woman on equal terms (by asking her for a light). Despite himself, though, he bends down and picks up the cigarette she has thrown away, losing his pride and dignity as he does so.

The woman, too, in conflicted within herself. She wants to think that she’s a free spirit, that she’s not racist and that she is quite comfortable being in Jamaica, associating with black folk. But she is clearly fooling herself. She shows her racism and her discomfort in several ways: she is suspicious of the ‘slinking’ shadow of the man approaching; she feels that giving him a light is too intimate a gesture; she throws away the halfsmoked cigarette; she remembers (almost with appreciation) that black men were lynched in America; she thinks there is something ‘indecent’ about having a conversation with a black man; she fights with herself not to look back at him as the bus pulls away.

This conflict INSIDE each of them is increased by the conflict BETWEEN them. He insists on his dignity, freedom and pride as a citizen of a free country; she clearly feels superior and somewhat contaminated by being so near to him. She is uncomfortable with the dignity and self-respect he displays.

Irony. The story depends on irony for its effect. The man presents himself as being proud and dignified, yet ironically he stoops to pick up a cigarette stub thrown into the gutter by a white woman. The woman presents herself as being free of racist thinking (after all, she’s alone apparently on holiday in Jamaica), yet her mindset is full of racist assumptions. Both of them are self-deceived.

Setting/Landscape. The story is set in Jamaica with a white American woman as one of the two main characters. Because of the war-time blackout, the place is shadowy and so the approaching young man appears like a ‘slinking blacker shadow’. The interplay of black and white, light and dark is important, not only because of their black/white skins, but because of the ‘darkness’ of their encounter: neither of them can really ‘see’ or understand the other. The darkness, along with rumours of ‘bands of hooligans’ in the area, also creates an uneasy atmosphere of mistrust that increases as the story progresses.

PUNCTUATION PRACTICE

Replace the asterisks in the following passage with the appropriate punctuation. In some instances, no punctuation at all is needed. Check the bottom of the page for our answers.

My brother is a lot of fun* my sister* though* is more serious* you can tell the type of person my brother is from the things in his room* boxing gloves* a skateboard* a cricket bat and a sound system* my sister*s room also tells it*s own story* a story about a really nerdish individual* all the shelves are full of books* and instead of sport*s equipment* there is a computer on which she does her work* the other day my sister promised to play table-tennis with me* instead* she spent the evening on some Maths problem* what a pain* how did I manage to get a boring sister like that*

SUMMARIZING

Read the following passage and write a summary of approximately 80 words on what happened to the Roman roads during the first few centuries after the Romans withdrew.(We have underlined the main ideas to help you.)

Check our summary at the bottom of the page, and compare it with your own.

Soon after the Anglo-Saxons invaded Britain, the Roman roads began to deteriorate. The wooden bridges were the first to go, and the roads were broken at certain points unless fords were available near by; wash-outs occurred in hilly districts, severing the roads at culverts and creating very awkward obstacles; trees were blown down and blocked the roads in forest districts. All these incidents tended to break the roads into discontinuous sections, some of which could still be usefully employed for local traffic. The Saxon settler did nothing to improve the roads for perhaps a century after the initial breakdown, merely making use of such parts of them as remained in passable condition.

By that time long stretches were quite overgrown and useless, whereas others were still usable as rough trackways; that is why today the line of what was once a Roman road may change abruptly from a motorable road of admirable straightness to a rough green lane or to overgrown remains of the original agger (the embankment on which the actual Roman road was built). Even if the Saxon could not use the road as a thoroughfare, he often found the long straight line of overgrown agger useful as a boundary bank between his own land and his neighbour’s. Thus it often happens today that parish boundaries follow Roman roads and may be useful indications of lost portions of them.

Where the roads continued to be used there was, of course, no maintenance or upkeep, so that the surface and then the foundations were gradually worn away, especially on hills where the water action along the ruts deepened them. As traffic increased in later centuries, the damage got worse; some parts of the roads became impassable sloughs and went out of use, or became wet green lanes. This process continued until in the eighteenth century private companies were allowed to improve the roads, and then set up a turnpike or toll-gate where tolls could be levied on all who used the roads.

These turnpike companies often re-aligned the road, and used as material for the new road the Roman agger that had remained undisturbed till then. Or else, where the new road followed the old course and the agger was still high and well preserved, it was cut down flatter and the material widened out to provide a base for the broader road that the more up-to-date standards required—a process which we know was carried a stage further in the greatly increased widening of our arterial roads such as Watling Street. (Adapted from I.D. Margary, Roman Roads in Britain)

ANSWERS Punctuation Practice My brother is a lot of fun. My sister, though, is more serious. You can tell the type of person my brother is from the things in his room: boxing gloves, a skateboard, a cricket bat and a sound system. My sister’s room also tells its own story—a story about a really nerdish individual! All the shelves are full of books, and instead of sports equipment, there is a computer on which she does her work. The other day my sister promised to play table-tennis with me; instead, she spent the evening on some Maths problem. What a pain! How did I manage to get a boring sister like that? Summarizing. Roman roads deteriorated after the AngloSaxon invasion. Bridges went first, and roads were broken in places where there were no nearby fords. In hilly districts, roads were washed away, and in forested areas, trees fell down, blocking roads. Thus the roads were broken into discontinuous sections. Some stretches became overgrown and useless, some were rough trackways, and in places the overgrown road was turned into a boundary bank. Where roads were still used, both surface and foundation were gradually worn away.