Chingonyi's Context
How old was Chingonyi when he moved from Zambia to the UK to live with his mother?
Six.
In the poem, the fisherman initially sees something in his nets that appears natural and beautiful. Identify:
- the quote that suggests his finding is natural/beautify
- a technique that Chingonyi uses to make this discovery initially seem beautiful
"underwater blooms" - floral visual imagery in the word choice of "blooms" presents his finding as a blossoming piece of sea vegetation that inspires images of flowers and vibrant marine life.
Identify the technique and the effect/significance of the shoe sizes across the poem.
A metaphor or symbolic timestamp that signal his growth / aging over the span of that year.
Identify FOUR different types of figurative language
Metaphor, simile, personification, onomatopoeia, allusion, idiom
1. FLE Language (0500)
2. Literature in English (0475)
At what age did Chingonyi lose his mother?
Thirteen
The poem begins and ends with the idea of the fisherman having to “navigate the blue”. Identify the technique and explain how the meaning of this idea changes from the beginning to the end of the poem.
At the beginning, while it does hint to us that the fisherman is navigating in sadness, the ballad form prompts us to think perhaps that is caused by loneliness or an ordinary explanation. By the end of the poem, after having learned his discovery of the drowned migrants and his inability to reassure his children anymore, the image of the fisherman navigating the blue suggests his misery is caused by trauma and the circular structure indicates that this is an inescapable emotion he will continue having to endure.
How does Chingonyi indirectly share details about their family's social class? Provide two quotes and explain how they support your answer.
1. "her days are riven / between shift patterns and her only son" - reveals her life is shaped/consumed by parenting or working; a choice or sacrifice that one does not need to make if financially secure
2. "next day she’s back to underground / tunnels, thousands riding the same choppy waves" conveys how his mother returned to work despite detecting illness, commuting on the metro; public transportation usually a symbol of working class vehicles.
The name of the technique referring to two images that sharply contrast each other (E.g. underwater blooms / clumps of matted human hair)
Juxtaposing imagery
True or False: we are studying a Shakespeare play in the literature course.
False
1. His father passed away
2. He moved to the UK to live with his mother.
Chingonyi juxtaposes the children's fears imagined “monsters” with the fisherman’s real experience of horrifying human suffering. What effect does this create?
It creates irony as we understand his child's fears are imaginative and thus non-existent, whereas the father confronted a horrifying vision of human suffering in reality, so we empathise with why he no longer feels able to comfort or reassure his children.
The poem moves from the speaker’s youthful experiences with music and socialising towards his mother’s illness and death. How does this change in focus reflect the speaker’s maturation?
The change reflects the speaker's matured perspective: shifting away from his focus on social performance to gradually realising his mother's sacrifices and recognising the importance of his relationship with her.
What are 4 different techniques/features you could look at if you were analysing language in a poem?
word choice (diction), connotations, semantic field, noun, verb, adjective, adverb
Identify each of the Cambridge iGCSE assessment components in both courses (i.e not the assessments you will complete in school).
1. FLE Language:
- Paper 1 Reading
- Component 3: Coursework Portfolio (3 writing assignments)
2. Literature:
- Paper 1: Chingonyi's poetry and prose novel: Brooklyn
- Paper 2: Drama and unseen text
Which Luvale tradition is reserved for young boys' transition into manhood which Chingonyi failed to undergo? AND explain what caused him to miss this.
Kumukanda. He failed to undergo this rite of passage as he was living in the UK and part of the ceremony requires the presence of cultural ancestors.
Identify FOUR themes (must be longer than one-word) explored in this peom.
- The confronting experience of human suffering
- Misery caused by trauma
- The impact of trauma on one's identity
- Emotional burden from exposure to violent human accidents
Towards the end of the poem, the speaker describes a “discord of two languages”. What does this metaphor suggest about the relationship between culture and the speaker’s identity?
The “discord” suggests that the speaker experiences tension or disconnection between his different cultural/language identities. His mother speaking in his “mother tongue” connects him to his cultural heritage, while the “discord” suggests that this native language is no longer a secure form of communication for him. It can therefore reflect loss of culture and distance across generations
Identify FOUR different structural techniques
rhyme scheme, meter, sonnet, ballad, formal verse form, blank verse poem, volta, circular structure, non-linear poem, narrative poem, eulogy, free-verse poem, caesura, enjambment, anaphora, refrain
What is the amount of time we have for each Cambridge iGCSE exam in both courses?
Language Paper 1 = 2 hours
Lit Paper 1 Poetry and Prose = 1.5 hours
Lit Paper 2: Drama and Unseen Text = 2 hours
Explain how Chingonyi aspects of both his personal and social context have influenced his meaning and message in 'Fisherman's Song' and 'A Proud Blemish'
- Personal: Chingonyi was thirteen when his mother passed away, which he explores autobiographically in the poem, sharing his experience growing up whilst his mother was ill and eventually died during that year
- Social: Chingonyi was navigating his adolescence immersed in British youth culture. Chingonyi draws on this in the poem, referencing the kind of trendy music (2-step) and social behaviour such as performance, partying, reckless experimentation that influenced teenagers
Fisherman's Song:
- Social context: Reflectng the deaths of refugees who risk their lives fleeing from war-torn countries, Chingonyi responds to the political and social migrant crisis with a humanitarian view.
Structurally, the poem sounds like a comforting ballad or lullaby, yet its subject matter is horrifying. Explain the relationship between the poem's form and subject matter and the effect Chingonyi wanted to achieve.
There's a contrasting relationship between the poem's musical ballad form and the horrifying subject matter of the confronting experience of violent human suffering from the migrant crisis. By subverting our expectations of a lullaby-like sea shanty, Chingonyi intensifies the horror and unease in the fisherman's discovery of drowned migrants and is inescapable misery based on this trauma.
Challenge: The title A Proud Blemish is oxymoronic: it carries two contradictory ideas. How Chingonyi explore contradictory ideas across the whole poem?
Contradictory themes. This is a poem about:
- Both affection and guilt towards his mother.
- Both youthful social performance and matured perspective prioritising mother
- Both love and grief
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Identify FIVE form and structural features you have seen in Chingonyi's poetry so far.
You must be able to comment on the effect created by each.
2. Slant rhyme
3. Lullaby rhythm created by alternating iambic tetrameter and trimeter
4. Autobiographic poem
5. Free-verse poem
What is the name of the play and playwright which we will study for Literature: Paper 2?
An Inspector Calls by J.B Priestley