WAEC Literature in English 2019 Theory — Question 25

Model answer

Points to develop: Statement of the theme; The traumatic experience of a family (soldiers) at table (battlefield); Hunger and cruelty in war society; All round insecurity and danger; The cumulative effect. 'The Dining Table' by Gbanabom Hallowell is a poem that chronicles the Sierra Leonean eleven-year civil war (1991–2002). The poem is a lamentation of cruelty and destruction that accompanies war whenever it happens. The poem records the ravages of war on the people and on society in general. It laments the devastating effects of war. The traumatic experience of a family at war is captured in the equivocal expressions: 'Dinner tonight comes with gun wounds'. It should be noted that the dinner refers to war and the devastating effects of war manifests in 'our desert tongue lick the vegetable blood.' This is disastrous. The fatal effects of war are accentuated in the expression: 'Guests look into the oceans of bowl as vegetables die on their tongue.' Hunger and cruelty accompany the war in this order: 'Children from Alphabeta with empty palm dine with us; switchblades in their eyes/ silence in their voices.' The cruelty of war is evident in the conscription of the unlettered children into the war. These children are hungry and this hunger shows in their facial expression 'switchblades in their eyes.' They are emotionless. The danger and insecurity of the war is heightened by the excesses and spoils of 'guerrillas' that 'walk the land' and 'crocodiles' that 'surf'. 'Playground' is also 'emptied of children's toys'. 'Cholera breaks its spell on cracked lips'. These are the mixtures of predatory and disease-laden images to heighten the effects of war. The persona becomes a revolutionary. He resolves to fight the injustice and oppression. Unfortunately, his energy is sapped and he has no or few followers. He is doomed to fail as evident in his words: 'My boots have suddenly become too reluctant to walk me. When remedies are past, griefs are ended By seeing the worst, which late on hopes depended, To mourn a mischief that is past and gone Is the next way to draw new mischief on. What cannot be preserved when fortune takes, The robbed that smiles, steals something from the thief, He robs himself that spends a bootless grief.'