Work Sheet
Information Sheet
POP Quiz
Date:
Campus
Class
Topic
Name
Banasree
School
SS
08
Section
Storyteller, Before the Sun, The Black Ball – Summary & Themes
ID
/
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Subject
WS/IS/PQ No.
Roll No.
Storyteller by Liz Lochhead
Summary and Analysis
Liz Lochhead’s poem “Storyteller” talks about a woman who worked on a shelter or orphanage for kids. Her formal work was
to wash the dishes, cook and clean, but her really work, what mattered about her, was telling stories. In the first stanza Lochhead
describes the situation before the woman started telling the story, when she “sat down at the” table in the already cleaned up
room. Stanza number two the audience listening to the stories; none of them “could say the stories were useless”, this is because
they were not.
Living in conditions were you have to be with kids that are alone, miss their parents or never had them, and having to deal with
them and their possible frequent questions that are not easy to answer, the hunger, the tiredness, is not easy, so when they listen
to the stories, they forget about all that stuff and imagine in their head a whole different world. The people listening to the story
are presented as a whole, not as individuals, so this gives the reader the idea that there is a lot of people there working.
Also because it says: “five or forty fingers stitched”, this may suggest something uncountable. Stanza three says what people
thought about her: they did not care whether “her soup” was “tasty” or not, or how good she “swept” the “kitchen”, that was not
important. What was important were the stories she told, and how she told them. Because it is not only the story itself what
mattered, it seems that she had a special talent to tell them, because even though workers “knew” “the ending” “by heart” they
were still excited when the moment came.
The last stanza describes what happens while she is telling the story and when it finishes. They built “the fire”, “peasant’s feet”
were looking for their “clogs”, and finally they went to rest. The poem is full of literary resources most of them alliterations
spread all over the text. These alliterations are not only words together starting with the same sound, but in the whole of a stanza
the same sound is repeated. For example in the first one, the “s” sound is very present: “she sat”, “scoured”, “swept”.
Also in the third line of the second stanza there is an alliteration beginning with “f”: “five or forty fingers”. All these resources
make the reading easier and faster. It may suggest how the story flows. Other devices are used, not only alliteration, also
enjambments, onomatopoeic sounds like “tongue clacked”, and a metaphor too. This metaphor compares the workers with bats;
bats are wonderful animals that are awake at night and sleep “upside down”.
The metaphor is introduced in the second half of the last stanza that says they “hug themselves upside down” “till they flew”
(like bats). The structure of the poem is completely irregular and has no rhyme. It consists of four stanzas, none of them have the
same amount of lines, but the first two are shorter than the others. This may be the way the story she is telling is being told. It
starts introducing the main ideas and then cannot be controlled.
Themes in the poem
1. The Power of Storytelling
The main theme of the poem is the power and importance of storytelling. In the poem, the storyteller’s role is not just to entertain,
but to preserve memories, share wisdom, and connect people.
Storytelling as Work: The storyteller’s work is described as being just as important as any physical labor. The storyteller does
not simply speak for enjoyment—her stories are an essential part of the community’s life, like the other everyday tasks such as
grating corn, patching clothes, and darning.
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Connection to Tradition: Storytelling is shown as a way of passing down cultural traditions and family history. The storyteller’s
words are more than just stories—they are a way of keeping traditions alive and making sure that the younger generations learn
from the past. Imagery of Creation: The storyteller is compared to someone who “spins” and “gathers thin air to the singlest
strongest thread.” This suggests that storytelling, like spinning, is an intricate and important task that requires skill and care.
2. Memory and Tradition
Another important theme is the connection between memory and tradition. The poem suggests that stories are a way of preserving
memories, and they are passed down from generation to generation, becoming a part of the listeners’ own memory.
Stories as a Living Memory: When the poem says the stories “hang themselves upside down in the sleeping heads of the
children,” it shows how the stories live on in the memories of the next generation. Even though the children may forget the details
when they wake, the stories are always there, ready to be told again.
The Cycle of Tradition: The idea that stories are passed on and told again each night emphasizes the cyclical nature of tradition.
Even though the stories might fade by morning, they are reborn each night, continuing the cycle of remembering and storytelling.
3. The Importance of Everyday Work
The poem also touches on the idea that storytelling is a form of everyday work. The speaker compares the storyteller’s craft to
physical labor, like the repetitive tasks of cleaning, mending clothes, or preparing food. Both are seen as necessary, even if one
is more visible and the other is more subtle.
Storytelling as Daily Labor: The line “To tell the stories was her work” suggests that storytelling is not a luxury or something
done only for entertainment, but a vital part of daily life. It is as important as any other task, and it requires time and attention.
No Judgment: The storyteller is also described as someone who doesn’t judge others, and who does her work regardless of
whether the results are perfect or not (“sloven” or “spotless”). This shows how storytelling, like other work, is part of life and
doesn’t need to be praised or rewarded—it simply needs to be done.
4. The Role of the Storyteller
In the poem, the storyteller is portrayed as a central figure in the community. She is a person who holds the power to connect
people through stories and help preserve the community’s shared history.
Guardian of Tradition: The storyteller’s job is not just to entertain; she holds a responsibility to keep the community’s memories
and culture alive. The storyteller’s role is essential in passing down stories, especially to the younger generation.
Humble and Unnoticed Work: The poem suggests that storytelling can be a quiet, unnoticed form of work. The storyteller is
not seeking fame or recognition, but she continues her task because it is important. She does not “slander” or criticize but simply
tells her stories, showing that her role is one of humble dedication.
5. The Relationship Between Imagination and Reality
The poem also suggests that storytelling has a strong connection to both imagination and reality. The storyteller’s words may
disappear in the morning, but they continue to live in the children’s imaginations, ready to “fly again” as they dream.
Imagination: The idea that the stories “fly again” in the children’s heads highlights the importance of imagination. Even when
the children are no longer listening to the storyteller, the stories continue to exist in their minds, shaping their dreams and
creativity.
Transition Between Day and Night: The poem also captures the transition from night to day, where stories are told during the
night and fade with the dawn. The act of storytelling is linked to a kind of “dream time” when the imagination is allowed to
wander freely.
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Before the sun by Charles Mungoshi
SUMMARY & ANALYSIS
This poem is written by the African poet Charles Mungoshi, in which a boy talks about his every day life activity. The boy like
all others desperately wants to convince others or even himself that hes a grown up, and so seek to copy the activities that old
people do. He wakes up every day before the rising of the sun. The boy explains the nature around him, and how his life is
simple or even sometimes tiring (he wakes up very early to work hard, like grownups do).
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In the first stanza the poet gives us concept of time, which shows us that its dun, a beginning of a new day. Promising early
heat and later in the afternoon heavy rain, this phrase shows how heat changes into rain. This explains how things change,
nothing stays the same, it also explains how one thing leads to another. The early heat leads to evaporation of water, which
condenses to form rain. The warm blue morning, will eventually change to heat and later to heavy rain. The poet uses the word
promises before early heating, it’s like you can’t avoid the heat, it will eventually come.
The second stanza shows the concept of color, bright chips he says. He explains the strength of the sharp axe, which drives the
chips to fly for some distance through the air. The poet draws our attention by writing a one-word line arc. This line on my
opinion is to assure the strength of the axe. We can tell that the child loves his every day activity by the way he nicely explains
the nature around him. Like the chips that disintegrate when he cuts the wood, it settles down in showers on the dewy grass.
The poet amazingly draws our attention to all the little details of the nature around him, which can help us easily imagine the
niche he’s living in.
It is big log, but when you are fourteen big logs are what you want. It’s strange for a fourteen years old child to want a big log.
This can show us again the simple life the child is living. Fourteen year old wants big logs because, its a challenge to them, it
shows how strong they are, it’s like 14 versus big logs.
In the forth stanza, the poet shows the benefits of the wood and how it cures from sneezing unlike sawdust. The wood gives out
a sweet nose-cleansing odour explains the poet. Again, the poet draws our attention on the fifth stanza to the details of the thin
spiral of smoke which he metaphors its raising to the sky with a flute straightened out to the sky, and a single of some sort, or a
sacrificial prayer. In both this two stanzas, the poet explains and metaphors the beauty of the wood that he cut down. This
happens to a lot of us, people specially children look at whatever thing they accomplished and felt that they worked hard on it,
as a beautiful thing, no matter how terrible it is.
The poet metaphors the sound he hears when the wood is burned, with the hiss of the snake, and the scatter of the sparks with
flying. The poet similes the rising or showing up of the sun, with some latecomer to a feast. This can identify to us the hunger
that the boy felt. I have got two cobs of maize ready for it.
Although the boy is trying to act like a grown up, cutting down woods, he can’t resist his childhood side and not play with his
imagination. I tell the sun to come share with me the rousted maize. The boy is visualizing the sun as his friend, whom hes
asking to come to come and shares his roasted maize with. The boy personifies the rising of the sun with the wink of a grownup.
After a hard day full of working, the boy eats his maize visualizing that he’s sharing it with the sun one for the sun, one for me.
The boy describes the empty cobs with little skeletons in the sun. We can notice that the poet is describing in each stanza a
specific part of the nature around him, the rising of the sun, the smell of the wood, the scatter of the its chips, and its hissing
voice. The boy impresses me with the way he looks at his simple life. For most of us, it’s a struggling life where we have to
wake up early and work, but for the boy, its an exciting life with challenges and making up friends with the nature around him.
Themes
1. Innocence and Youth
At the heart of the poem is the perspective of a young boy engaged in an everyday task — chopping wood and roasting maize.
This innocence is reflected in the simplicity of his actions, such as alternating bites of maize “one for the sun, one for me.” His
interaction with the sun — a cosmic, divine force — is also innocent. He addresses the sun like a playful companion, almost as
if it is a peer. The boy’s casual approach to offering food to the sun shows a natural, uncomplicated view of the world. This
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childlike wonder is central to the poem’s overall tone. The boy seems unburdened by the complexities of adult life and yet
shows a deep connection to the universe around him. The act of sharing with the sun is an offering of communion, suggesting a
pure and unspoiled connection with the natural world, in which the boy sees the sun not as a distant celestial body but as
something tangible and interactive.
2. Interconnectedness with Nature
Another prominent theme is the deep connection between humans and nature. From the opening lines, where the morning
promises both heat and rain, the boy seems in tune with the world around him. The description of chopping the wood, feeling
its “sweet nose-cleansing odor,” and the action of roasting maize shows how the boy is immersed in his environment. The
sensations of smell, sight, and sound contribute to a holistic connection with the earth, suggesting that nature is not something
separate or external but an intrinsic part of the boy’s world. The symbolic act of sharing food with the sun reinforces the idea
that all elements of the natural world are interconnected. The boy’s actions — working the land, harvesting, and even engaging
with celestial forces — create a sense of unity between humanity and nature. This connectedness is not just physical (with the
maize, the wood, and the sun) but also spiritual.
3. Transience and Impermanence
The final imagery of the poem — the maize cobs turning into “two little skeletons” under the sun — introduces the theme of
impermanence. The boy’s act of eating the maize represents the passing of time. As he shares with the sun and consumes the
food, the cobs are reduced to mere remnants. This represents the fleeting nature of life — even something as nourishing and
sustaining as food eventually becomes part of the cycle of decay. The skeletons of the maize can be seen as symbols of the
transience of life. Just as the cobs are consumed and fade into nothingness, all things, no matter how vibrant or essential, will
eventually return to the earth. This theme resonates with the broader rhythms of nature — birth, growth, decay, and death. It
also underscores the fragility of existence and the inevitability of change. However, even in this transience, there is a sense of
continuity — the boy and the sun share a moment of communion, and though the cobs are reduced to “skeletons,” the energy
and cycle of life continue. The boy’s ritual and connection with nature are not disrupted by the impermanence of the moment,
but rather, they are part of it.
4. The Sun as a Metaphor for Presence and Absence
The sun plays a dual role in the poem — both as a distant observer and as an active participant. At the beginning, the sun is
“late,” symbolizing a delayed presence, and it arrives “like some latecomer to a feast.” This image may suggest that the sun is,
at times, distant or elusive. However, when it finally appears, the boy shares his meal with it as though inviting it into his
world. The sun’s “wink” suggests a playful acknowledgment of the boy’s offering, reinforcing the personification of the sun as
a being with agency and personality. This play between presence and absence, waiting for the sun to “finally show up,” evokes
the relational quality of the sun in the boy’s life — not just as a natural force, but as a symbol of vitality, hope, and shared
experience.
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The Black Ball
Ralph Ellison
Summary
From six to eight in the morning, a Black man named John cleans the lobby and takes out the trash at the apartment building
where he works as a janitor. Then, he rushes back to his quarters above the garage to have breakfast with his four-year-old son.
His son asks, “Daddy, am I black?” No, John responds: he’s brown. John’s son complains that his friend Jackie made fun of him
for being Black, but he remarks that “Brown’s much nicer than white.” John replies “American is better than both.” After
breakfast, John leaves his son to play and rushes back to the lobby, where he dutifully polishes the brass front door. A red-faced
white stranger stops on the sidewalk and watches him work. John keeps the brass flawless to please Mr. Berry, the building
manager, who cares about nothing more than the brass and his plants. John is worried because the building just replaced two
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Black workers when white people demanded their jobs. And John needs to pay for his son’s education. The white stranger asks
how long John has been working at the building. Two months, John replies. The stranger asks if other Black people work there,
too, and John says no (which is a lie). Furious, John privately wonders why the man doesn’t just go ask for his job. Instead, the
man offers John some tobacco; John declines. The man chuckles and smiles, then he comments that John probably isn’t used to
white men offering him “something besides a rope.” John forces a smile back. The white man explains that he works for a labour
union and wants to help organize apartment building workers in the area so that they can get better pay and working conditions.
But John doesn’t believe a white man would help Black people, and he has heard that unions are “for whites only.” The white
man shows John his hands, which are covered in burn scars. He explains that he defended a Black friend against trumped-up
rape charges back home in Alabama, and a white mob attacked him and lynched his friend. He has been working for the union
ever since. John still isn’t sure whether the man is telling the truth. The man gives John a card with an invitation to an upcoming
union meeting, then he limps away. The dapper Mr. Berry comes to the building, looks at the brass door, and greets John. He
asks if the other white man wants to talk to him, but John says no—the man is just looking to buy clothes. John’s shift is over,
so he heads back to his quarters. John finds his son playing with a toy truck. He makes his son lunch, then he sits in his chair and
tries to study—but he’s too distracted by thoughts about the union organizer. His son calls over and says that he wants to be a
truck driver when he grows up so that he can wear a hat with buttons on it, like the Black man he saw delivering meat to the
grocery store. John looks at his son awhile, and his son asks what’s wrong. John just says that he’s thinking, and then his son
goes back to playing with the truck. From his window, John can see all around the neighborhood. He watches a group of children
playing on a nearby lawn until one boy approaches them with a wagon. The nurse who is watching them sends the boy away; he
runs off, stealing a flower from a bush on his way. He is Jackie, the gardener’s son, and he is white. John’s son asks what he’s
looking at, and John replies that he was “just looking out on the world.” Then, John’s son asks if he can go downstairs and play
with his ball. John says yes—after all, he has to go down and water the grass soon. But John tells his son to stay in the back alley,
away from the other children, and not ask any questions. His son runs out and starts bouncing his ball against the garage. John
tries to read again but falls asleep instead. When he wakes up, it’s time to water the lawn, so he goes downstairs. But his son is
nowhere to be found. He asks a group of white boys if they have seen his son, but they say no; he goes down the alley to the
grocery store, but the workers haven’t seen his son either. Worried, he heads back to start watering the lawn. He realizes that his
son might have gone out to the front lawn. He decides not to punish his son, even though Mr. Berry has warned him against
letting the boy play in the front alone. Surely enough, when John comes to the front, he finds his son, who is crying. His son says
that “a big white boy” took his ball and threw it into a window. Then, Mr. Berry comes over. He furiously announces that John’s
son ruined a plant with his ball and that he isn’t allowed to play on the front lawn. He threatens that John will end up “behind the
black ball” if his son plays on the front lawn again. John leads his son back to their quarters, but on the way, he bumps into an
evergreen tree and scratches his hand. Inside, he bandages himself up in the bathroom. When John comes out of the bathroom,
his son asks him what Mr. Berry meant by the “black ball.” John explains that he’ll end up “behind the old black ball” if his
son’s ball ends up in Mr. Berry’s office. But the boy comments that his ball is white. John again looks at his son for some time
and then agrees John’s son asks if he will eventually get to play with the black ball, and John says yes. Privately, he remarks that
his son is already “learning the rules of the game” he will spend most of his life playing, even though he doesn’t know it yet.
John drags the hose outside with his cut hand to water the lawn, and he remembers the union organizer’s “fried hands.” He makes
sure the union meeting invitation is still in his pocket, and then he thinks, “maybe there was a colour other than white on the old
ball.”
THEMES
The Black Ball engages with the themes of identity, racism, discrimination, hope, and the struggle for equality.
One witnesses the theme of racism early on in the story when the four-year-old kid grapples with the issue of colour and race.
He has been verbally bullied because of his colour. Later on, he is physically bullied when the white boy throws his ball inside
the window of Berry’s office and says this to his father: “Well, if I ever see him around here again, you’re going to find yourself
behind the black ball. Now get him on round to the back and then come up here and clean up this mess he’s made.” This racism
has been so ingrained in society that it has been internalized by the oppressed themselves. This is what John tells his son as he
tries to explain Mr. Berry’s warning: “He meant, son, that if your ball landed in his office again, Daddy would go after it behind
the old black ball.” Though the ball is a whiter colour, as reminded by his son, John unwittingly uses the same language used by
his white employer. The fact that Mr. Berry doesn’t like the “damned educated nigger” reflects not only the prevalent
discrimination but also the hostility towards possible modes (education in this case) by which people of colour may better their
station in life. The superficial aspect of one’s colour by which a person is judged is also seen in Mr. Berry’s interaction not only
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with John but with his work itself: “I gave special attention to that brass because, for Berry, the manager, the luster of these brass
panels and door handles were the measure of all my industry.”
The theme of the struggle for equality is brought out in John’s constant striving to better his position and ensure a brighter
future for his son. This is matched with the Union man’s struggle to ensure fairer and more equitable working conditions for the
labourers. Thus, one witnesses the struggle for equality in both the social fault lines of colour and class, as well as an individual’s
personal and public life. The intensity of prejudice that is spawned by the unequal treatment meted out to people by an unjust
society is seen in both the perpetrators of racism as well as those affected by it. John has been subject to such a great deal of
racism in his life that he cannot but be suspicious of the intention of the Union man. An aspect of this may be seen in the following
exchange: “When they did have something to say to us, they always became familiar. Not used to anything like that, are you?`
Not used to what?` A little more from this guy and I would see red. Fellow like me offering a fellow like you something besides
a rope.”
The theme of relationships has been portrayed in The Black Ball in both the personal and public lives of the characters. The
intimacy of the father-son duo lends a greater depth to the intensity of discriminatory practices that these two individuals face.
John is a responsible father who takes care of his son, loves him and is alarmed when he goes missing, although momentarily.
Similarly, his relationship with Mrs. Johnson (who is good to his boy) and the newly forged relationship with the Union man
which rests on a common cause goes on to show that one needs the support of well-wishers to sustain oneself in a wholesome
manner. Contrary to this, his relationship with his employer is of a transactional nature which only aggravates the racial divide
between the two.
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