ENG: Reading2 Assignment

Tune for Bears to Dance to by Robert Cormier

In this novel, Henry works for a Mr Hairston, who runs a shop.

Read the extract below and answer the question on language features.

“Potatoes to bag up,” he called over the shoulder of a customer, and Henry made his way down to the cellar, where a bin of potatoes awaited him. He always tried to hurry the job because the cellar was dark and damp and he often heard rats scurrying across the floor. One day, a grey rat squirted out of a bag of potatoes and Henry had leapt with fright, his heart exploding in his chest. He was afraid of a lot of things – the closet door that never stayed closed in his bedroom, spooky movies about vampires – but most of all, the rats.”

Question

…a grey rat squirted out of a bag of potatoes…

(a) What is unusual about the writer’s use of the word ‘squirted’ in this sentence?

A Moment of War by Laurie Lee

This extract is from a memoir by Laurie Lee, in which he describes arriving in Spain during the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s.

The people in the kitchen were a people stripped for war – the men smoking beech leaves, the soup reduced to near water; around us hand-grenades hanging on the walls like strings of onions, muskets and cartridge-belts piled in the corner, and open orange-boxes packed with silver bullets like fish. War was still so local then, it was like stepping into another room. And this was what I had come to re-visit. But I was now awash with sleep, hearing the blurred murmuring of voices and feeling the rocks of Spain under my feet. The men’s eyes grew narrower, watching the unexpected stranger, and his lumpy belongings drying by the fire.”

Question

(a) Why is the expression “silver bullets like fish” particularly suitable in this situation?

(b) What other expression conveys a similar idea to silver bullets like fish?

Tunes for Bears to Dance to by Robert Cormier

In this extract Mr Hairston, who runs a shop, is talking to his young assistant Henry and making comments about his customers.

“The customer’s always right,” he proclaimed one day, as if he could read Henry’s mind. “But only in the store. When buying. Otherwise, they’re only people. Stupid, most of them. Don’t even know a bargain when they see one. So, why give them a bargain?”

Question

(a) What is unusual about the way Mr Hairston speaks?

(b) What does this suggest about his character?