Students' answers to exam questions:

What picture of the narrator do you get from the poem? Which of these words best describe her tone? Explain your choice.

1) The picture that I get of the narrator is that she is optimistic in  life and gives everything a person’s quality as if it is all alive. She is optimistic because she gives everything a bright side and looks at it from a good side.

Alia El Hossieny

2) Her tone is observant as she gives vivid details and description to the objects around her: the trees, the dead leaves , the grass and the clouds.

Youssef Wael Hatem

3) The narrator is talking about nature. She pictures the ocean’s waves clashing sound and the leaves floating in the air. The clouds are passing across the blue sky making the sunshine glance to the grass. The poet is extremely observant and happy.  She captures all the beauty of nature and describes it in a poem with a variety of adjectives.

Nadine Wael

4) The poem gives a picture of the narrator: a hopeful, excited young being, soaring through the storm, keen and eager and delighted to see every beautiful thing. Only one word could describe her tone: excited, the lines indicate her eagerness to soar the skies and explore the splendours the storm aroused.

Abdullah El Hakim

Bronte’s poem helps us to imagine the power of the storm through the uses of powerful imagery .Pick TWO figures of speech and explain them fully.

1) ‘’The bare trees are tossing their branches on high’’ Bronte uses this personification to show that the storm was so powerful, and the winds were strong that tree was bare of their leaves and swayed strongly and their branches broke. This makes the storm seem more vivid and easy to imagine. ‘’The long withered grass in the sunshine is glancing’’ This is also personification used to show the storm has led for the grass to wither but it still looks stunning in the sunlight.

Mahmoud Ramzy

2) The poet uses powerful imagery to create an image in our mind. She uses a personification in ‘’The dead leaves, beneath them, are merrily dancing’’ She describes that the leaves are dancing ,but they couldn’t to picture that the wind carries the dead leaves away as if they were dancing. This signifies that the leaves are loose and the wind is powerful. The second figure of speech is when she uses a metaphor in ‘’and hear the wild roar of their thunder today!’’ The thunder doesn’t roar but its sound is so high and like its roaring This signifies that the thunder’s sound is like roaring of the lion.

Youssef Amir

How do you feel reading the above poem? Describe your mood and use verses from the poem to support your answer.

I felt excited as I was reading the first line, ‘my soul is awakened, my spirits soaring.’’ It showed that the sense of excitement has started because there is a powerful storm coming and storms always give a sense of excitement to me rather than fear and this means that I am feeling that a storm is coming every time I read this poem.  

Mahmoud Shady

In the light of this headline that appeared in Johannesburg Mail, consider the effect of the racial discrimination on the blacks.

Left rudderless and working for meagre wages, it is not surprising that crime rates among the blacks are on the rise. Beside, the whites has disrupted the black man’s world and refuse to accept them in the new world, for they are afraid that the black’s gain education and become more powerful. This makes the white man avoids helping the black man to continue exploiting them for their own personal gain. As a result, blacks are suffering from ignorance, poverty and diseases which makes them steel and beat people as a source of life.

Farah Ahmed

Do you think Gertrude is a victim or a villain? Explain fully and give evidence to support your answer.

1) I think Gertrude is a villain, as she is normally corrupt she is a woman of streets with a child. She is morally and spiritually sick. Also, she is a sinner and her soul is lost because of all the sins she has done. This is her job, she makes and sells liquor. She has been to prison more than once. She sleeps with many men for her price. She didn’t adhere to the values and morals of her tribe and church. I believe that the culture of Johannesburg cannot change a person. She does not care about her child and leaves him without even knowing where he is. Finally, I believe that her immorality is distasteful and very upsetting not only to Kumalo, her brother, but to any community. Alia Bahig

2) A sensitive and debatable topic is whether blacks twisted and corrupted by the whites’ discrimination are considered villains or victims. Gertrude is one example, and I believe that she is both a villain and a victim. Accordingly, she shouldn’t have been sucked away into sin and Johannesburg’s temptations, yet it is not a fault of her own that she was excluded from the new world. At first it was essential to adhere to sin to be able to survive: she and her child, but later she had the choice to return, but didn’t seize it. Kumalo at first is angry and regards her as a villain thinking that ‘’ you have shamed us.’’ Then he sees she was forced by whites’ faults and forgave her saying, ‘who am I not to forgive?’’

Abdullah El Hakim

Comment fully on the following quote:                                                   

“How does one find one’s way in such a confusion?

Kumalo said these words to himself in Johannesburg when he saw Johannesburg's high buildings , cars , stations and its other facilities . He felt very confused and scared. For a simple man of God,he found himself in a complicated world full of dangers and traps while his own world is simple and natural . Kumalo has lived his life in a simple tribe that has no technology, but when he sees little liveliness,he feels very scared and nervous as he said "God watch over me, God watch over me. "

Youssef Emara