Summary
Summary What will they eat by Mzi Mahola
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What will they eat by Mzi Mahola
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1Personification
The speaker says “Once more” and calls
the forest “knowing”. These indicate that
the people have had to run and hide in the
forest before.
A bosom has connotations of warmth,
protection, love. The forest is personified as
providing the people with this.
The first sentence is long as we imagine the people stretching
(“craning”) their necks to peer among the police for the uncle.
The second short sentence of single-syllable words conveys a
let-down, like an anti-climax, as they realise the uncle has not
been brought back.
Irony: Stanza 2
Custom would have called for The police are asking for money,
any visitor to be offered whether it’s a bribe or taxes or
refreshment but these were
bail we don’t know. The
not, so to call them “guests” is
grandparents have nothing to sell
ironic. The speaker uses the
except their cattle, and they
word “guests” sarcastically –
can’t live without them. They
the police were not invited
would be arguing about this.
guests but intruders.
He mentions “all” three, that they were suckling and so
provided milk, one of them was pregnant, which meant
it was one more cow that they were losing, the speaker
refers to them as “our wealth”, “our source of nutrition, /
Grandfather’s status and pride”. They lose the cattle and
the milk, but also since the rural people counted their
wealth in cattle, the grandfather becomes nothing in the
community.
The speaker’s comment is that of
the adult he has become. He says
“a” dog, meaning any dog, and
“a” home, any home. Where a dog
is starving, there will be hunger in
the home, meaning wherever one
sees this. So many people are
starving, not just his own family
back then.
, 2
November Examination 2021 G11 ~ English Home Language P2/3
“Much of the power of this poem is derived from the child voice.”
Discuss the validity of this statement in an essay of
200–250 words, supporting your analysis with reference
to the diction, mood and imagery in the poem.
The poem is narrated by a child observing the
consequences of defaulting on poll taxes in South
Africa during the Apartheid era. His growing
understanding as events play out parallels ours as the
‘witnesses’ of the drama.
Through the child’s innocent incomprehension of the
matter, the reader is assured of the objectivity with which the event is unfolded. The
poet’s voice is disengaged to begin with as he describes the flurry of activity sending
the men fleeing into the mountains. To him it is a game where nature is on their side:
‘The knowing forest … beckoned.’
When the police arrive, and his uncle’s disability results in his capture, the boy himself
does not weep but he observes that the women ‘wailed’. They seem to know
something which he does not. His references to ‘uncle’ and ‘cousin’ identify the
members of his family as intimates. There is artlessness to his descriptions of them, the
cousin who is terrified when he sees his father in handcuffs. Both of them have been
shielded from cruelty by their childhood ignorance. The boy’s ignorance of events is
clear in the gap between the arrest of his uncle and the sudden dramatic
appearance of the police again.
His observer status is reinforced as he and the other children ‘craned our necks’. They
expected to see ‘uncle’, but the reason for the appearance of the authorities is not in
line with the hopeful optimism of a child. It is far more terrible. He has heard about the
black policeman and his reputation for torture. He conjures up a childish nightmarish
vision of the man ‘skullpanda’ but he still doesn’t connect this with his reality. He sees
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