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Read the following narrative and answer the questions that follow.

      

Read the following narrative and answer the questions that follow.

The Ndebele tell their children that long ago, there were three friends: the beautiful leopard, the jackal and the hyena. They went everywhere together. Whenever Leopard killed an animal, he would always leave part of it for his friends so that they could have a good feed too.
One day it happened that leopard was ill, and so he could not hunt. "Jackal," he said, "please catch some food for us, for I am not well."
But lazy Jackal said, "No, I am too weary. Ask Hyena."
So Leopard said, "Hyena, please hunt for us today, for I am not well enough to do so.”
But Hyena, too, made an excuse: "No, I have a sore foot."
So leopard roared in anger. "I thought you were my friends, but you are a no-good, lazy pair. Never again will I leave you meat when I make my kill. From this day on, I will make sure of it. I shall take what is left and hang it in a tree, when I have eaten all I want. Then neither of you will be able to get at it."
Leopard was true to his word – for since that day he has never left any meat for his selfish friends. Up into a tree it goes, high out of reach of jackals and hyenas. They have become scavengers now instead, and they eat the scraps that other animals leave behind. It was a sad day for them when they lost Leopard’s friendship.

(when Hippo was Hairy and Other Tales from Africa, Letterworth Press, 1990)

a) Giving a reason for your answer, say what kind of narrative this is.

b) What character can you give the leopard?

c) Identify the features of oral narratives that have been used in this story.

d) What lessons do we learn from this story?

e) What function is played by an opening formula and a closing formula in an oral narrative?

  

Answers


Martin
a) Aetiological narrative – explain why the leopard hides his food up a tree.

b) Hardworking – hunts and ensures there is food unlike the Jackal and Hyena.
Principled – decided to end his relationship with his lazy pair of friends and hold to it up to date.

c)
(i) Has animal characters.
(ii) Has a moral lesson.

d)
(i) It is not good to be lazy like Jackal & Hyena.
(ii) Hard work pays – the leopard always has enough food to eat & spare.
(iii) We should give our hand to friends when they are in need to sustain friendship.
(iv) Be principled like leopard.

e) Opening formula.
- Announces the coming of a narrative.
- Captures the attention of the audience.
- Takes the audience to the world of fantasy from the world of reality.

Closing formula
- Removes the audience from the world of fantasy back to the world of reality.
- Announces the end of a narrative.
- Clears the way for the next narrative/activity
marto answered the question on October 14, 2019 at 10:21


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