Citra Fernando
Setting
The story is located in a village called
Payagala in Matara in the southern coast of Sri Lanka, probably in the middle
half part of the 20th century. The writer attempts to depict the
Sinhala Buddhist culture through names and practices narrated through the eyes
of a neo-liberalist male academic.
Characters
Mahinda - The narrator is a university
educated westernized person with an increasingly broadening views on human
nature. He is capable of self-deprecating humour. True to his chosen vocation
he documents without getting involved – even when help was desperately needed
in the case of both Kusuma and Loku Naenda
Loku Nanda
On the surface she is an obnoxious
hypocritical spinster; however, the description of Kusuma towards the end
invites one to wonder whether the woman Mahinda saw had been shaped by her
socioeconomic circumstances, too. Loku Naenda whose name we never learn is
physically unpleasant, or at least according to the description Mahinda gives. “Unless
they were her relations Loku Nanda kept all men at a safe distance;” however,
Mahinda’s description of her raises the question whether her chastity is really
by choice or forced upon her by her appearance.
She practices popular Buddhism and
performs many a meritorious deed but they are performed out of her need to
outshine others and a desire to obtain comforts in the next life. Of course,
this is not a unique situation.
Due to her being the eldest sibling, her
economic independence and her self-proclaimed religiosity, the aunt commands
respect form her family and acts as the arbiter in family matters. On this
Mahinda says, “Everyone acknowledged Loku Nanda to be the wisest. This was her
own opinion as well – naturally.”
Deprived of good-looks and a husband or
children to lavish her attention on, she is preoccupied with meritorious deeds
in which at least she tries to outshine others. Hence, she gloats about the
fact that her pirith mandapa was “ten
times nicer than” Mrs Welikala’s. Thus the narrator, through juxtaposition of
information, implies that her piety is an accident of circumstances. In the
end, she becomes old and wheelchair-bound and at the mercy of Kusuma whom she
had ill-treated and exploited. “It’s my Karma. It’s My Karma” – she tells
Mahinda. But it is my opinion that she had achieved maturity to understand at
that point that it was her own actions that resulted in the way Kusuma had
turned out, and even in the way she had been left to fend for herself at the
mercy of Kusuma by her kith and kin.
Punch Nanada
“Though she was always singing Loku
Nanda’s praise she had a strange preference for living in our house,” Mahinda
comments on Punchi Naenda. As a spinster, Punchi Naenda, unlike Loku Naenda was
economically dependent and therefore was at the mercy of the benevolence of her
relatives. She thought it was “much better for Kusuma to stay with Loku Nanda
than going off with that Piyadasa and having ten children” which could be read
as a case of sexual jealousy. She is clearly displeased by her elder sister’s
promise to arrange a marriage for Kusuma. Towards the end of the story she
becomes strangely silent.
Kusuma
Kusuma, one of the eight children from a
poor family of toddy-tapers, was raised by Loku Nanda as a replacement servant
for aging Salpi. She allows Mahinda’s aunt to demonstrate her self-proclaimed
generosity on a daily basis. Loku Nanda prevents her from going to Colombo to
visit the Zoo with Mahinda’s family and later from marrying Piyadasa. As she
ages Kusuma turns into a replica of Loku Nanda. She, too, performs meritorious
deeds to obtain a better life in the next birth which in her case is a
justifiable desire, one might say. She channels her frustration, both
socioeconomic and psychological, to religion. She wants “the merits” from her
dhana to be “hers and hers alone”
Themes
· Karma
– one’s deeds determine the kind of life one would have here and in the lives
to come
· Popular
Buddhism – religion as a status symbol; to satisfy one’s ego; as a solace from
the trials and tribulations of life
· Spinsterhood
– fear of marriage; sexual frustration; exploitation
· How
urban pull affect family bonds
Techniques
· Local
hues: names – Mahinda, Kusuma; kinship terms – Loku Naenda, Nangi; places –
Galle, Matara; sweets – Kevun, kokis, aluva
· Irony
- “Everyone acknowledged Loku Nanda to be the wisest. This was her own opinion
as well – naturally.”
· Parallelism
– “Loku Nanada has always been a very practical woman.” “It’s my karma”
Analysis
The title of the short story “Action and
Reaction” refers to both the Buddhist principal of Karma as well as the
Newtonian 3rd Law. Considering the spatiotemporal location of the
short story, Citra Fernando locates the story primarily in village called
Payagala in Matara on the Southern Coast of the post-Independence Sri Lanka,
though there are brief references to Colombo, Mahanuwara and England.
The protagonist as well as the narrator
of the story is Mahinda. He is very much a modern neo-liberalist man shaped by
what he studies; he is a passive observer when it comes to the incidents he
narrates in the story. He studies and records the various characters in his
family and their relations with each other and the world around them in
retrospect with an almost annoyingly superior detachment of a wild-life
photographer recording a particularly gruesome interaction within and between
the species.
One notes a tone of ironic detachment in
Mahinda’s descriptions of the people and events from the word go: “In my family
one regarded my father’s elder sister as a very good and generous woman.” The
use of the phrase “one regarded” invites the reader to dig beneath the façade
to find out if the said aunt was indeed a “good and generous woman”. Next he
states that “those days” he “had a great respect for the opinions” of his
elders. Of course the underlying implication is that, his views have undergone
a change.
Mahinda’s descriptions of Loku Naenda,
as he referred to his father’s elder sister, are liberally laced with irony.
“Loku Naenda never stole,” he says and those words are immediately followed by the
following statement: “she had a large house and garden, a lot of jewellery and
a small coconut property in Matara. She had everything she wanted.” Next he
says, “Loku Naenda’s conduct was always irreproachable” only to add, “She was a
broad woman, a bit on the short side and very dark: her nose and lips were
thick, her skin coarse. She had a large mole on the tip of her nose and another
with a hair on her chin. At the back of head was a very small konde.” This is followed by the droll
comment “Unless they were her relations Loku Naenda kept all men at a safe
distance; and they kept Loku Naenda at an equally safe distance. She had never
married.” Despite his education, Mahinda is completely oblivious to the
possible reasons for Loku Naenda’s own actions and reactions.
Mahinda presents Loku Naenda as the
moral arbiter of the family. So it was to her the matter of Mahinda smoking is
reported by his father who valued his elder sister’s input on the matter. Loku
Naenda appeals to Mahinda’s knowledge of the Buddhist principals of Karma in
instructing him: “Mahinda, there’s no need for me to tell you anything. Why
should I say anything? Your own Karma will deal with you.” Of course, the
sentiment encapsulated in these lines form the central motif of the short story
and foreshadows Loku Nanda’s own fate at the end of the story.
While Mahinda’s parents seem to be
genuinely in awe of their pious and moral relative, Mahinda’s Father’s younger
sister’s relations with her older sister is a little enigmatic. According to
Mahinda Punchi Naenda was also unmarried “so had no household of her own” signalling
her dependence on other’s goodwill as well as Loku Naenda’s unique privileged
status as an unmarried woman with independent means. Punch Naenda according to
Mahinda “was always singing Loku Naenda’s praises” but “had a strange
preference for living in …[their] house” – suggesting that her pious sister may
not be the easiest person to live with. Mahinda’s sister, too, seemed to have
formed quite an accurate picture of Loku Naenda and is not above using her
weaknesses against her as proven by the way she goes about making her aunt
agree to let Kusuma go with them to Colombo by offering her ripe jak fruit and
promising to bring her mangosteen, the following day.
Though dowered, without a family, Loku
Naenda must undoubtedly be suffering both emotionally and physically.
Spinsterhood is an unenviable position in many societies; it generates a sense
of being left on the shelves when it comes to the marriage market. Many
unmarried and widowed women in my limited experience turn to religion for
comfort. Their religiosity becomes a shield against the social stigma attached
to their “unnatural” socio-economic status and in rare cases their religious
affiliations offer a chance to have power over others as in the case of Loku
Naenda. Marx said to have said that religion was the opium of the poor and the
idea could be used to understand what drives people like Loke Naenda and
Kusuma, too, to a large extent: they cling to the promise of a better life to
come with ferocity often proportionate to their dissatisfaction with their
current one.
At this point, Mahinda introduces Kusuma
whose actions are as important as those of Loku Naenda in driving the plot
forward. He compares the “adoption” of a toddy tapper’s daughter from Matara
with the numerous much publicized meritorious acts of his aunt and concludes
that this particular act surpassed all of them. Mahinda, through his
descriptions of Loku Naenda’s religious activities, comments ironically on the
tendency of people to pick and choose and modify Buddhist principles and
practices to suit their own agendas. “Loku Naenda was going to adopt a little
girl from Matara!” The unexpectedness of the news is signalled by the use of
the exclamation mark. And then he rushes on to add:
Not, of course, as a
daughter. No one expected even Loku Naenda to go to such lengths. It was
unthinkable that a toddy tapper’s child could be Loku Naenda’s ‘daughter’ and,
therefore our relative, Loku Naenda had too much consideration, too much common
sense for that. She was a very practical woman. Kusuma was to come to her house
as a servant.
Interestingly, towards the end of the
story, the same Loku Amma, accuses Kusuma whom she say was “like a daughter” of
forcing her to sell her inherited furniture and jewellery presumably so that
she herself could have a better life in which people like Loku Naenda would
have no control over her. The ironic reference to Loku Nanda’s practicality
crops up here and several other times in the course of the story bringing Mark
Antony’s funeral oration at Julius Caesar’s funeral in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar to my mind. Later on the
undergraduate Mahinda notes:
Loku Naenda knew that
she was still a long way from nibbana
and she was in no special hurry to get there. She had no objection to remain in
sansara for a couple of eons or so,
and she was determined to spend those eons as comfortably as possible. She had
always been a very practical woman.
Mahinda seems to interpret the Buddhist
teaching conveyed to him by the village priests on the relation between craving
and the prolongation of samsara only in relation to the activities of Loku
Naenda and not enlarged by his subsequent experiences with the rest of the
world as suggested by the comment:
I remember very well
what the monks in the temple used to say: …If you want too many things your
desire would make you linger in sansara;
you would be prisoner of your desires. That’s what the monks said. But I wasn’t
sure that I understood. Because Loku Naenda, who was wise, seemed to want a lot
in return for whatever she did.
However, an unwary and/or unversed
reader may take Mahinda just as narrator that stands apart from his narrative. By
making such interpretation of the narrator more than possible, one may ask
whether the writer is attempting to generalize Loku Naenda’s views as the norm
and invite ridicule on the faith and its practitioners – a common practice
among some members of the academia of then and now. It was not that Mahinda is
unaware of Loku Naenda’s flaws and thinks of her as the epitome of Buddhist teachings;
in fact, he hints his view of Loku Naenda in his comment on seeing his sister
carrying a plate of ripe jak for her aunt as a bribe the time she wanted her
permission to take Kusuma to Colombo with them: “I decided Nangi was a lot
wiser than I thought her.” More damaging is the fact, knowing what he does,
Mahinda/the writer presents Loku Naenda as the norm and a part of a collective
through the competitive spirit displayed by Mrs Welikala and the other
participants of the pirith ceremony whose
main focus was beauty of the decorations and how to do one better when their
turn came. However, the most damaging is the fact that there is no lay adult[i]
in the story that voice that counterbalance Loku Naenda’s view of Buddhism –
Mahinda (and the writer) looks on with judging eyes but their views are not
articulated. The only voice that makes a ripple comes from a little girl that
is easily swept aside, adding more sins to the accounts of the already sinful.
Next, Mahinda takes us to the day he
meets Kusuma for the first time. She, one of the eight children, was
undernourished, louse-ridden and injured. The narrator’s mother is certain that
no “sane servant” could expect more, an idea to which Mahinda, too, subscribed
at this point. Later, looking back, he disparages their simplistic conclusion
thus: “It was, we felt, the perfect sum total of a servant’s happiness.” Here,
too the theme introduced in the title is reiterated by the various characters
in comments such as “[t]hat girl must have done a lot of merits in her past
life.”
Mahinda’s younger aunt, Punchi Naenda,
hopes that Kusuma would not be too “greedy to steal” and that foreshadows the
fate that awaits Kusuma. Later she asks her sister whether she has caught “her
at it ever”. Mahinda’s irritation with Punchi Naenda’s main preoccupation is
illustrated by his retrospective comment “Punchi Naenda did her best to see
that everyone observed the second precept.” However, he does not, despite his
interest in Freud, attempt to explore a reason for his younger aunt’s fixation
with theft. She being a spinster with no means would have been overly
protective of what little she had and she may have felt that her chance of
happiness may have been stolen by those who were near and dear to her.
The situaltionally ironic character
summaries Mahinda scatters throughout the story such as “Loku Naenda was a very
practical woman” serve to make the reader draw very unflattering conclusions
about the character despite the overt positivity they contain. The narrator
also questions the deeds and words of his own younger self on many occasions.
“I was, of course, the really wise one among the younger lot. In those days, we
all thought ourselves very wise” – he says. Later, looking back at his
undergraduate days he says, “I read a lot, I held forth to my friends, argued
with my teachers. The world in those days was a very exciting place. I was
right at its centre and a very important person.” However, instead of inviting
negativity, these comments help to show that he has moved beyond that as it is
the narrator himself who notes those weaknesses in his young self thus tracing
a development trajectory. This is a luxury the narrative does not other
characters, with the possible exception of Loku Naenda towards the very end of
the story.
The positive changes Kuuma undergoes and
the comment Loku Naenda makes about her servants never leaving her at the
beginning seem to suggest a good end to Kusuma’s story, at least at this point
of the narrative.
The initial conversations between Kusuma
and Mahinda’s sister illustrate the strengths and gaps in Kusuma’s experience
and underscore the vast differences between the backgrounds of the two
children. They also underscore the potentials thwarted by Loku Naenda’s practicality
in opting not to teach Kusuma to read and write: “She had a great longing for
information, for knowledge in those days,” notes Mahinda.
The somewhat comfortable boat is rocked
for the first time by Nangi’s suggestion that Kusuma too should be allowed to
accompany them in their visit to Colombo. She supports her idea in such a way
that the adults were unable to veto
the idea without looking bad themselves. Kusuma’s budding beauty catches young
Mahinda’s attention when she smiles for the first time when she is told by
Nangi about the Colombo trip:
She milled. A little
dimple appeared for a moment. I had never seen that dimple before; I never saw
it again. Her teeth were very small like little gleaming grains of polished
rice. And all the stars in the sky tumbled right into her great black eyes.
The moment is another poignant illustration
of lost opportunity for Kusuma to be someone other than what she becomes in the
end.
Loku Naenda, slighted as well as hurt at
not being included in the invitation, strikes back disproportionally at
catching Kusuma stealing kavuns. She,
who advocated the practice of letting karmic law take its course on the
occasion of Mahinda smoking, takes the law into her own hands and scolds Kusuma
and decrees that there would be “[n]o Colombo for her, no new clothes and
jacket… The karmic law is my constant
guide. No Colombo, no zebras and kangaroos for this creature here. She’ll stay
behind and help me make more kevuns!”
While Nangi indulges in the luxury of
letting tears of disappointment course down her cheeks, Kusuma does not “look
up, … utter a word …[or] shed a tear.” The only outward sign of her agitation is
that “[t]he kevun held tight in her
clenched fist” crumbles and the bits fall on the floor.
Nangi’s conclusion that Loku Naenda is
unkind of course is rejected by Mahinda’s parents. Interestingly, Mahinda does
not voice any opinion on the matter. However, even Nangi’s concern for Kusuma’s
happiness proves to be short-lived and self-serving as she forgets all about
the girl they leave behind the moment she sees her cousin Leela with whom she
could share the holidays.
Mahinda notes a change in the way Loku
Naenda treated Kusuma after what he dubs as “the kevum incident” so that there was “little time to play.” In the years Mahinda spend away from home,
Kusuma takes over the running of Loku Naenda’s house. He sees the changes
Kusuma has undergone during his absence at the pirith ceremony and display an interest in her. He watches her as
she goes about performing her duties:
I watched her as she
worked. She was at this time about nineteen – tall, slender, fair-skinned. Her
hair was tied back in a big konde.
Her face was fuller, rounder but her eyes were as huge as ever. She moved
quickly, lightly. And then all at once I realized that Kusuma was a very beautiful
woman. So I looked often.
At this moment of the story Kusuma is
the polar opposite of Loku Naenda in every possible way. Mahinda also notes
Piyadasa’s interest in Kusuma and goes out of his way to ask Nangi to learn who
he was. But instead of treating him as a rival, Mahinda says he liked Piyadasa
basing his liking presumably on Piyadasa’s fair skin and kind face. The lack of
anger also suggest his interest in Kusuma is artistic and asexual.
Mahinda makes the occasion of the pirith ceremony to spotlight what he
presume to be the religious hypocrisy of his aunt. Not only that, he also makes
a not-so-veiled comment on the priests glorifying the act of giving or “danaparamita” on previous occasions. He
remembers the sermon that day because it is different from the other sermons he
had listened to before according to him. Instead of illustrating the earthly
benefits of giving, the Bodhisathwa in the Jathaka story that day has wished
for the Buddhahood in order to “liberate the unliberated”. This could be read
as the writer’s veiled attempt at offering a counterpoint to the views held by
Loku Naenda. The priest’s words are treated with appropriate responses but not
internalized. Mahinda notes that his aunt had no reservation about a prolonged
stay in samsara as long as her stay was comfortable. As soon as the priest left
she reverts to act in a way contrary to what the priest prescribed; “Did you
notice how Mrs Welikala was eyeing the pirith
mandapaya? It’s ten times nicer than
hers,” she gloats with her sister. Both Punchi Naenda and Loku Naenda take
great joy in thwarting Mrs. Welikala’s attempt to find how they manages to build
such a beautiful structure: Both “laughed gleefully, almost like little girls. For
Loku Naenda, the ceremony is an occasion to re-establish her socioeconomic
prominence over her neighbours. Through the fact that Mrs. Welikala eyeing the pirith mandapa reveals that Mahinda’s
aunts religious hypocrisy is nothing unique at the time.
Two days later Piyadasa meets Loku Nanda
and declares his intentions which leave her “agitated, angry.” Mahinda’s sister
tells him about the cause of the problem. Loku Naenda sees the proposal as
reflection of Kusuma’s ingratitude. Loku Naenda’s version of karmic law is more Newtonian than
Buddhist, one must say. She expects just returns for her investment in Kusuma.
One cannot say that her view on the matter is feudal as feudalism does not
insist on women remaining spinsters to serve the master. How much of Loku
Naenda’s reaction stems from sexual jealousy and how much of it is from threat
to her creature comforts and economic loss is not very clear. Most probably her
disproportionate reaction against the idea is a mixture of all these. Puchi
Naenda believes that it is “[m]uch better” for Kusuma “to stay with Loku Naenda
that going off with that Piyadasa and having ten children!” Here, too, her
vehement reaction against Kusuma’s marriage and having children with Piyadasa
may stem from several reasons: to curry favours from her socioeconomically
powerful sibling, sexual jealousy, thwarted motherhood, and genuine belief that
spinsterhood is better for a woman of Kusuma’s socioeconomic bracket than
marriage. She is further incensed by her sister’s assurance that she would find
a suitable partner for Kusuma at the right time. “Arrange a marriage for her!
No wonder she’s so selfish. You’ve spoilt her thoroughly, Akka,” she says. It
must be noted that Punchi Naenda, too, is a dependent spinster for whom her
elder sister and brother has not found “the right partner at the right
time.”
Loku Naenda, not satisfied with
rejecting the proposal, uses her sizable influence with Piyadasa’s employer and
sends him away from the village. Mahinda says he has never heard his aunt
talking about arranging a marriage for Kusuma again – therefore, her promise to
do so is just an empty promise made at the time to make her look less unfair.
Instead she, she hands over the running of her house and other affairs entirely
to Kusuma - a sort of substitute for running her own household albeit without
the most important component, a family of her own.
It is at this point, Kusuma turns to
religion for solace:
It was Kusuma who
organized all the pirith ceremonies
and the Danes. She became almost keen
in the performance of such duties. They seemed to give her an ever increasing
pleasure. She talked a lot about how the accumulation of merit would give a
person a better life in the future. She often said that she must have been very
wicked in the past life and was determined to be better in this her present
life.
Of course, no one seems to pick up the
unhappiness that prompts such musings and the resulting resentment that churns
at her heart’s core. While Kusuma’s conduct pleased Loku Naenda who may have
recognized something of her own motives in Kusuma’s fixation on performing
meritorious deeds, Punchi Naenda resents Kusuma’s increasing importance; “I
think Loku Naenda gives Kusuma too much to do in the house. The woman is more
the mistress of the house than Loku Naenda herself,” complains Punchi Naenda to
Mahinda. She feels that Kusuma is disrespectful to her. Mahind, too, notes that
Kusuma spoke to all the family members as if she were their equal but he does
not see anything wrong in it. however, the same Mahinda is taken aback by
Kusuma’s forthright way of speaking to him during their last meeting.
Next time Mahinda sees his elder aunt
she is much older, and with Salpi’s passing Kusuma’s position in the house has
become undisputed. She continues to collect meritorious deeds and Loku Naenda had
no objections against that. Once again Mahinda reiterates his observation of the
practical nature of his aunt: “Loku Naenda had always been a very practical
woman.” At this point, one might ask what else she could have been given her
lack of physical beauty which made her unmarriageable.
As Mahinda has seen his aunt only after
the passage of several years, he sees the changes his aunt, the house and
Kusuma has undergone more clearly than anyone who would have been in daily contact
with them. Next time he sees her Kusuma has gained such level of economic independence
that she is able to undertake costly project in her own name so that the merit
from the act would be “hers and hers alone”.
Next time Mahinda visits his aunt after
spending several years abroad, he finds her wheelchair-bound due to a stroke.
His own father seemed to have passed away and his mother has moved to
Mahanuwara to live with his sister. There is no reference to Podi Naenda, so
presumably she too is dead. It is after being urged by both his mother and
sister he makes the journey to Payagala where his aunt still lived. This he as
the eldest surviving male of the family should have undertaken in his own
volition without being prompted by his female relatives.
Upon seeing Mahinda, the frail old woman
who had once dominated their entire family breaks down and clings desperately
to his hand prompting him to say, “In the I’ve been away she had shrunk into an
old, old woman.” In contrast, her property, under Kusuma’s care, was a thriving
concern. Kusuma has even undertaken to add a shrine to the temple with the sale
of the coconuts from Loku Naenda’s coconut plot. When queried as to how it was
possible to finance it thus, Loku Naenda replied, “I asked her to use - to use
the money.” However the caesura and the repetition of the word “use” tell
another story.
Not only the coconuts, the ebony
furniture, a family heirloom, which was to be passed down to Mahinda and even
Loku Naenda’s earrings have been appropriated by Kusuma in order to fund her
temple building projects. However, Loku Naenda justifies her behaviour by
saying, “Kusuma has been like a daughter to me. She did everything for me.”
However, when pressed, Loku Naenda weep and divulges that she really did not
want to sell the living room suite. Not only that, she is given just fish, some
pol sambol and a bit of dried fish
instead of the good food she used to have which she has forced to share with
Mahinda much to her chagrin. She tries to save face by saying that had she
known of his visit she would have prepared a suitable repast.
While taking part in this uncomfortably
silent meal Mahinda wonders if he should share his aunt’s problem with his
sister and mother. In the end, he decides not to after weighing the pros and
cons of the situation in his annoyingly detached way. He takes the choice away
from his female relatives. But most strikingly, he himself getting involved in
the situation and offering comfort to his old beleaguered relative does not
even for a moment enter his self-centred mind.
Loku Naenda’s fear of Kusuma comes to
head and is noted by Mahinda when he inquires Kusuma about the shrine she is
building. Kusuma dares to “glare” at him. Still he chooses not to take any
action. The rest of the visit is spent on meaningless tête-à-tête between the aunt and the nephew. Loku Naenda’s
invitation for Mahinda to stay the night goes way beyond mere courtesy. It is a
plea of a desperate old woman for help from her male head of the family for protection
against what threatened her. But Mahinda ignores it and hypocritically offers
her meaningless platitude which fooled no one. “Next time I see you you’ll be
on your feet and running the house yourself,” he said to which Loku Naenda
answered, “No, I’ll die in this wheelchair.”
Her last
reference to karma and Kusuma being like her own daughter is quite evocative.
She seemed to have understood that it was her own actions that had turned
Kusuma into a mirror image of herself physically, temperamentally and
attitudinally. The last thing Mahinda sees as he turns for “one last wave” is a
“sullen woman standing in the doorway” and Loku Naenda “feebly waving a
lose-skinned hand.”
Exercise
· After
you have read a short story think about these:
o
Main character
o
The changes each character undergoes
o
Conflict between characters
o
How the conflict is resolved
o
How the characters’ changes relate to
the theme
o
How the conflict relates to the theme
o
Statement of theme
· Write
an appreciation of the short story
o
The introduction – usually a single paragraph providing the title,
the author, and necessary background. It also includes your thesis statement in
which you explain briefly the theme.
o
The body of the essay is the part where
you explain the information you’ve gathered in your exercise
o
In the conclusion, sum up your major
points and add a new thought or a personal response
· Elaborate
– get down to specifics
o
You should elaborate on every general
statement you make, using details, examples, and quotations from the stories.
.JPG)
[i] The priest seems to be
attempting to steer the gathering towards the right way of giving, but the
message is not decoded by the gathering
.jpg)
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