'Life Is Sweet at Kumansenu' Questions.docx



Life Is Sweet at Kumansenu Reading Check How does Bola explain the death of her first six sons? She says that there was a time when she bore children regularly, every two years. Six times she had born a boy child and six times they had died. Some had swollen up and with weak, plaintive cries had faded away. Others had shuddered in sudden convulsions, with burning skins, and had rolled up their eyes and died. They had all died; or rather he had died, Bola thought, because she knew it was one child all the time whose spirit had crept up restlessly into her womb to be born and mock her.What does Musa tell Bola to do with the corpse of her sixth son? She said to break the bones of the quiet little corpse and mangle it so that it wouldn’t come back to torment her alive again.What does she do instead? She marked it with a sharp stick on the left butt cheek before it was wrapped in a mat and taken away.What does Meji say is his reason for suddenly coming to visit his mother and daughter? He had been called.What shocking news reaches Bola near the end of the story? Meji had died at noon on Friday and was buried on Saturday at sundown.First Thoughts 1. When did you begin to guess the truth about Meji? When he was born because he was the 7th child.Shaping Interpretations 2. Nicol uses foreshadowing to hint at what is going to happen later in the story. Go back and see how many clues you can find that foreshadow the truth about Meji. Fill in the rest of the chart using #1 as a guide: ClueWhat It Foreshadows1. The mark on Meji’s body1. He is the same child who has died six times.2. He slept all day until his mother bought him food.2. He is feeling ill.3. His watch is stopped at twelve o’ clock.3. He died at noon on Friday.4.He said that he wanted to thank her for giving him a chance.4. Foreshadowing he was going to die.3. Which passage in the story do you think best sums up its main message? “There was a sudden diffuse flash of silent lightning, and she saw that the yard was empty. She went back heavily and fell into a restless sleep. Before she slept, she said to herself that she must see Mr. Addai next morning, Sunday, or better still, Monday, and tell him about all this, in case Meji was in trouble. She hoped Meji would not be annoyed. He was such a good son.”4. What do you make of Bola’s final comment to Musa, the magician? I think it was good cause she stood up for herself and stood her ground.Connecting with the Text 5. This story takes place several years ago in a village in West Africa, where beliefs and visions of reality may be different from those of your culture. Despite those differences, how does the story suggest values that all people share? It suggest that you stand up for what you want to do and that there are other cultures that do different things and we should get used to what other people are used to.Extending the Text 6. Think of one other person, from real life or literature, who, like Bola, has defied authority or the law (maybe even the laws of science) in order to save a loved one. What do this person and Bola have in common? How are they different? Well in the other book I read called great expectations it had a lot in common with this story like in great expectations the young boy named pip was also in a situation where he had to choose to make choices that may affect his future and so did bola she had to make a choice that would affect her future. I think that bola and pip are different because although pip had to make some very tough choices they really didn’t compare to the choices that bola had to make. 7. Modern social pressures and changes are breaking down many of the old customs in Africa. What evidence of this do you find in Nicol’s story? Do you think such changes are taking place today all over the world? Why, or why not? I don’t think I found any changes of changing of old customs in nicol’s story. I think there are some changes taking place all over the world like government wise or climate wise and all of the above because there is a lot of evidence about it. ................
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