READ THIS
A donkey strays onto the main highway and is struck by a car. Injured, he makes his way onto a small
holding where the narrator finds he has a serious decision to make.
READ THE FOLLOWING PASSAGE:
I sauntered out surrounded by a flurry of chortling fur. And there, stumbling up the drive, his clown's mask
sitting grotesquely about two burning eyes, was the donkey I had consigned to his fate about an hour
before.
My dogs are gentlemen. I told them not to be rude, and their growls died down. The pathetic mask
advanced. The dogs backed away. Irresolute, I waited.
The apparition did not. It stumbled nearer. Two feet from me it stopped, coughed a little, and rested its
heavy brow against the bole of a tree.
His right ear had been terribly gashed by something. His eyes ran blood -- tears of blood; more moving,
I found, than those of Oedipus, the King. A car had side-swiped him, evidently . . .
He stood there quivering, but not in fear. He was not afraid even of the dogs. It was as if he had gone
beyond fear. As if he had somehow been aware of my inhibited impulse to save him, and was now come,
not in reproach, and not as a blackmailer, but as a simple, four-legged fact to dismiss whatever illusion
I nursed about the wisdom of not being my brother's keeper.
Have you looked at the questions in the right column?
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TEST YOURSELF!
Read the left column and then answer the following questions:
"His clown's mask sitting grotesquely about two burning eyes."
- Why was "his clown mask" all skew? (4)
[Need help?]
The donkey had been sideswiped by a car, which had injured his face.
His ear was probably hanging, and there was blood dripping from his eyes which gave him grotesque
features, not unlike those of a clown wearing heavy makeup.
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- What figure of speech is this? (1)
[Need help?]
This, of course, is a metaphor. If it were a simile, it would tell you that his face was like that of a clown.
Instead it tells you that his face WAS that of a clown.
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- Comment on the effectiveness of this figure of speech. (4)
[Need help?]
The metaphor puts across the grotesqueness of the donkey having been sideswiped by a car, dripping
blood from its eyes.
The clown's mask always paints a happy face to mask misery.
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"His eyes ran blood -- tears of blood."
- What figure of speech is being used here? (1)
[Need help?]
Again we are confronted with a metaphor. The sentence does not say that his tears were LIKE drops of
blood but that his tears WERE drops of blood.
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- Comment on the effectiveness of the figure of speech. (4)
[Need help?]
It is a good metaphor, is it not? The author manages to convey not only that the donkey was bleeding
from his eyes, but that he was hurt so badly that he was crying, his tears being drops of blood.
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Who was Oedipus, the King? For what was he renowned? (3)
[Need help?]
Oedipus was a king from Greek mythology who was supposed to have fallen in love with his own mother.
Indeed, an Oedipus Complex refers to a man who is unduly obsessed with his own mother.
Eventually Oedipus put out his own eyes, thereby making himself blind.
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Which TWO factors made the author change his mind about shooting the donkey? (2)
[Need help?]
The author was by no means certain that the donkey would not recover from his injuries. He also
questioned whether it was right for him to make such a decision to kill the donkey.
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What does the writer mean when he says that a "car had side-swiped him"? (2)
[Need help?]
The car had not hit the donkey head-on. Instead, the driver had swerved, and had hit the donkey a
glancing blow with its side.
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Explain the following:
[Need help?]
"Blackmail" is an attempt to gain advantage from a person, usually by offering to hold back
information in return for payment.
In this case, the donkey could be said to be a blackmailer in that he is offering to ease the author's guilty
conscience by allowing the author the chance to look after him, although the writer says that the donkey
was NOT a blackmailer.
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- not being my brother's keeper. (3)
[Need help?]
Being "my brother's keeper" is a biblical quotation which means that we are responsible for our
actions.
"Not being my brother's keeper", therefore, means that the author claims that he is not actually
responsible for the donkey's injuries.
He is also not responsible for looking after the injured donkey.
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