WAEC Literature in English 2014 Objective — Question 26
Question 26 of 50 from the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) Literature in English 2014 Objective paper, with the correct answer and a full explanation.
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Unseen poem excerpt: 'At dawn must I rise to till the rock / That our land has turned into / The land where on we'd gleefully harvested paddy / Planted and nurtured and tended on plots marshy / Our woes are bloody woes of accursed revenges / Of the land splits aggrieved by paltry human respect / For the life of fellow man by his fellow / Kindred blood has counted for less than no value / Brother's wife has been wife to other brother / Communal loot has emptied our country silos / The earth has stooped breathing and sighed / Soldered tears has the moon shed / The earth was scorched at noon-day night / And our land has turned to hoeing rock.' The theme of the poem is
- A. famine and disease
- B. drought and heat
- C. abomination and retributionCorrect
- D. sickness and death
Explanation
The persona laments the retributive effects of abominable acts committed in the land (betrayal, incest, communal theft), and the resulting infertility of the land — the theme is abomination and retribution.
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