Tell my son to hold on to his gun COCKCROW QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. COCKCROW PAST QUESTIONS. COCKCROW LITERATURE POEMS. BECE Cockcrow Literatures Questions. HOME SWEET HOME BY KEN SARO-WIWA

Home Sweet Home by Ken Saro-Wiwa: Characters, Summary and Literary Devices (COCKCROW LITERATURE)

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Home Sweet Home by Ken Saro-Wiwa: Characters, Summary and Literary Devices (COCKCROW LITERATURE)

COCKCROW QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. COCKCROW PAST QUESTIONS. COCKCROW LITERATURE POEMS. BECE Cockcrow Literatures Questions. HOME SWEET HOME BY KEN SARO-WIWA

Are you a student of literature or a lover of the art? Then, this one from Ken Saro-Wiwa is one of them you may have read. In this write up, I am going to capture the summary of the short story and some literary devices used in creating a such a pure and well curated art. Highly recommended for learners preparing for their literature in English exams.

Before we proceed to look at the summary and literary devices, let us take some look at this poem from Kobina Ey Acquah.

A Wreath of Tears by Kobina Eyi Acquah

 

Kobena Eyi Acquah

Your funeral was so quiet,

and small -almost too small,

it is said for a man your stature

5 You must

have preferred it that way –

having buried so many yourself

and knowing as you did

how private grief must be

10 how loss remains,

at the end Personal

We would have sent flowers

but bow they had fallen

callously into disrepute

and not wanting to offend

we did not

Instead

from the garden of memory

suddenly blooming as with first rains

20 we plucked, with care

a rose here, an ivy there, ferns, lilies

chrysanthemums

and drop by tearful drop we wove

a wreath from our personal loss

25 We wear it

around our heart, privately

It will outlast any tombstone

And you would

Have preferred it that way.

 

Below are some meaning of words used in the poem, run yourself through and have full grasped of the poem.

  • Stature (line 4): importance, status, rank, eminence
  • Preferred (line 6): desired, chosen, wished,
  • Grief (line 9): sorrow, heartache, anguish, pain, misery
  • Callously (line 14): heartlessly, cruelly, cold-heartedly
  • Disrepute (line 14): dishonour; discredit, disrespect, disregard,
  • Memory (line 18): remembrance, recollection, recalls.
  • Blooming (line 1 9):flourishing, prospering, promising,

Now, move to the short story written by Ken Saro-Wiwa

Home Sweet Home Short Story By Ken Saro-Wiwa

Here, we will take a look at the all the characters in this story and their specific roles. The characters of the story are as follow:

Characters

  • Sira: The main character’s best friend
  • Duzia: A physically challenged man who sat in Dukana town square
  • Waale: Sira’s mother’s best friend The main character whose name isn’t mentioned.

Summary of Home Sweet Home (Cockcrow Literature)

A young girl who had finished the university was on a journey back home to her village. Her aim was to be a teacher because she believed in giving back her services to the community.

The journey to Dunkana was long and the bus was crowded. She reminisced about her mother and her childhood friend Sira. She and Sira had been like sisters and had gone to school together but then Sira’s education had ended and now she had four children out of wedlock.

There was a saying that “Home is home”, which meant that home is much better than all the places you may visit houses all the technologies in the big cities. And the mud houses were better than any king’s palace. And disagreeing with would mean to be disloyal to the community.

The driver of the bus was from Dunkana. He was very proud of himself- and treated everyone else unkindly. He also tried to impress the young woman- all to no avail.

The young woman dozed oil in the bus. When she woke op. the bus had reached Dunkana. Her mother was waiting for her.

When they got home, the whole village had come to welcome her, for it was rare for young people to go to the city and return to the village. And they were proud of her. She danced and sang with them.

When night fell, the people dispersed. Waale, Sira’s mother, came to visit them. She had grown very old. Waale praised the young woman and talked about her future with her mother. Later, the young woman asked her mother what had happened to her friend Sira.

Her mother told her that Sira had given birth to twins who had died and that she had run away. The young woman felt sorry for Sira her friend. She could not sleep that night so she lay awake and listened to the familiar sounds welcoming her back to the only home she knew and loved.

Some Examples of Literary Devices in Home Sweet Home

  • Point of view: First person narrative.
  • Imagery: The descriptive language appeals senses-we can almost “see” (with our imagination) the nature often place and “hear” the sounds being described. It creates living the image of simple country dwellers with struggling conditions.
  • Some, taking a cursory look at it, would have some, taking considered Dunkana a clearing in the tropical rainforest peopled by three or four thousand men, women and children living in rickety mud huts and to be making a miserable living from small farmlands in the forest or from some fishing in the steamy creeks around the village
  • Mood: The mood of anger and frustration is portrayed by the way the driver handled his driving as described her: I must have exasperated him by my silence and studied indifference to his antics. And he took it out on me by pressing harder on the accelerator, And when the passengers at the back of the lorry complained and wailed aloud for caution and care, he drove even more furiously, whistling noisily the while, careless of our limbs and lives.
  • Personification
  1. “Progress” spluttered lazily down the long, dirty road which stretched before us like the coated tongue of an ailing man (“Progres” was a bus which was being personified as human).
  2. We drove past sleepy little villages hacked out of the forest, fondly embracing the earth and foliage.
  3. Dunkana slunk off noiselessly, the surrounding darkness swallowing them as they disappeared from Mama’s house (180)-If darkness swallows anything, “darkness” is personified.
  • Metaphor:
  1. I should think Dukana will be floating on a sea of wealth
  2. Its driver was the son of the soil, that is to say his umbilical cord was buried in Dunkana

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