A Sunrise on the Veld
Table of Contents:
• Authors biography
•Plot summary
•Questions and answers
•Main fiction elements
•Theme
•Personal Evaluation
•Quotable quotes
•Vocabulary
1) Author’s Biography
• Doris Lessing was born in Iran, but grew
up in Africa, which was where the story was
set.
• Her mother was very strict and was
obsessed with raising a proper daughter, the
boy in the story is most likely based on Doris
Lessing's own mother because the boy is very
controlling.
• Most of Doris Lessing's stories were based
on humanity or a struggle to understand the
world, this fits in with the story "A Sunrise on
the Veld" because the boy learned that there
are some things that he can't control, such as
death, he couldn't alter the death of the buck,
and that realization worried him.
This is a picture of Southern Africa
•Through out the whole story the boy
thinks that he is in control of absolutely
every aspect of life.
• "He was clean crazy, yelling mad with
the joy of living and a superfluity of youth.”
Page 80 This line illustrates the height of
the boy’s self- exultation and just how
much control he thinks he's in.
•In the story the boy is standing over a
cliff, and is shouting out at the world
about how much control he is in, and
then he thinks "That was what he was, he
sang if he chose; and the world had to answer
him back," (he means the echoes) page 81. But in
the next paragraph he hears a pain filled
scream and his whole outlook on how much
control he is in totally changes, and for a
few minutes he realizes just how little
control over life he actually has.
•The sub-theme would be the
realization that he can't control death.
•"He (the boy) had a choice, he could either
shoot the buck, or let it die on its own."
•The boy decided not to shoot the buck
to bring it out of his misery because he
realized that the buck would have died
this way, if he hadn’t had been there, that
Allusions in the title
•The title "A Sunrise on the Veld," creates an
allusion of a golden sun rising upon open
grassland.
•The purpose on the story is based on the
boy's realization that he can't control
everything, and most importantly he can't
control death, he couldn't stop the death
of the buck.
•For more information on the biography of
Doris Lessing, check out the World Book 2001
#12 edition (L), page 208, in the library.
2) Theme
By: Grade 9 Students
the death of this animal is unalterable, and
him being there to witness it can't and won't
change anything.
•The author's over-all purpose of these
themes is to provide an idea of just how
arrogant, and controlling the boy actually is,
but when he hears that pain filled scream, in
a split second he is suddenly totally out of
control, and he knows it.
3) Plot Summary
•The boy wakes up every morning at 4:30
to go hunting for guinea fowls
•He wakes up every morning before the
alarm clock rings just to prove that he
can (that shows just how much control he thinks
he’s in).
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A Sunrise on the Veld
•His parents have no idea how early he
wakes up in the morning
•He always brings his dogs along the
hunt
•He began running through the grassland
but ended up waking up the guinea fowls,
and his hunt was over but instead of
going home he continued running
through the field, “He leapt into the air,
shouting and yelling wild unrecognizable
noises” page 80
“There is nothing I can’t do, nothing I can’t
do.” Page 80
•This line defines the beginning of the
height of his exultation, and after minute
of yelling and shouting in joy he hears a
pain filled scream “In the deep morning
hush that held his future and his past, was a
sound of pain, and repeated over and over
again; it was a kind of shortened scream, as
if someone, something, had no breath to
scream.” Page 81
•This line shows just how out of control of
the situation he really is, and he knows it
•The animal that was screaming turned
out to be a buck with a broken leg, with
a swarm of flesh eating ants eating it
alive.
•The boy watched the buck slowly die,
knowing that there was nothing that he
could do, the death of this animal was
unalterable.
•This realization bothered the boy the
death of the buck, and the fact that there
was nothing that he could do bothered
him it proved to him just how little
control he actually has over the world.
challenged by the incredulously difficult
vocabulary.
This story helped to show me that we
can’t control everything and that some
problems are just a fact of life, which can be a
very hard lesson to learn.
But besides that it had a well set up
storyline because it:
•Made me ask questions
•Kept me thinking
•And helped me learn a little
about life/culture in Africa,
although I didn’t really care for
the way she kept using veld
and vlei.
I also though that the illustration of the
duiker on the title page was a bit of an odd
picture to show, because it made you think that
the story was very happy, and cheerful, when if
fact, it wasn’t.
This story reminded me of another story
called “Thank you, Ma’am” by Langston
Hughe,” because in a sense the boy in that
story thought that he was in total control
when he tried to steal the lady’s purse, when if
fact the opposite was true. I can relate this story
to, “A Sunrise on the Veld” because the boy in
this story also finds out that he can’t control
everything
All in all this is a good story, which
really gets the meat motor revving.
5) Questions and Answers
"Suddenly it rose in him." Page 80
• Q) What does the author mean when
she says it?
•The boy decided to go home, but he
promised himself that tomorrow morning
• A) When the author says it she's
describing the multitude of emotions,
which the boy is feeling all rising in
him at once.
he would go to the bush, and think about
what he saw today.
• Q) Where do guinea fowl sleep?
4) Personal Evaluation
• A) Guinea fowls sleep in trees. (Guinea
The story “A Sunrise on the Veld”, by
Doris Lessing is terrific. I found that it kept me
interested the whole time, but it also kept me
By: Grade 9 Students
fowls were the animals that the boy set out to
hunt for in the first place)
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A Sunrise on the Veld
• "He was
clean crazy, yelling mad with
the joy of superfluity of youth." Page 80
• Q) What is the joy of superfluity of
youth?
• A) Superfluity means abundant, so in
this sentence the author is describing
just how abundant the joy of youth is.
• Q) When the buck died, why does the
boy feel rage, misery, and protest?
Page 82
• A) When the buck died it made the
boy realize that if he had not come the
buck still would have died like that,
and then he said “so why should I
interfere? Page 82
•Q) The ants basically ate the buck alive,
and killed it, but how did they get on the
buck in the first place?
• A) The buck had broken its leg earlier
in the day, and then wandered into the
anthill.
• Q) Why would the death of a small
animal be a thing that would concern
him? He's gone hunting plenty of times,
so why would this bother him so much?
• A) It wasn't the death of the animal that
bothered the boy. It was the realization
that he can't control every aspect of
life that bothered him so much.
6) Quotable Quotes
• "Triumphantly pressing down the alarm knob
of the clock." Page 78 This is a significant
quote because it defines just how in control
the boy thinks he is. He wakes up at 4:30 every
morning just before the alarm clock to prove it to
himself that he can.
• "He was clean crazy, yelling mad with the joy
of living and a superfluity of youth." page 80
By: Grade 9 Students
• "And the air smelt like a challenge whether it
was warm and sultry at noon, or as brisk and
cool as night." page 80
•"He felt suffering, sick and angry, but also
grimly satisfied with his new stoicism." page 83
• "He felt in his own limbs the myriad swarming
pain of the twitching animal." page 82
This is an important quote because it proves
that the boy isn’t a stoic.
• "The luxury of a warm rested body, with the
arms and legs and fingers waiting like soldiers
for a word of command! Page 78
7) Main Fiction Elements
•The boy thinks that there is nothing that he
can’t do, and while he’s not wrong in
thinking that there’s nothing he can’t do, he
is wrong in the sense that he physically can’t
do everything.
“There was nothing he couldn’t do, nothing !
Page 80
•The boy thinks that an hour before the buck
died it had been running through the forest,
unharmed, and an hour later it had been
eaten clean picked down to the bone, when
in reality it probably took a lot longer then
that.
“That morning perhaps and hour ago, this small
animal had been stepping proud and free
through the bush, feeling the chill on its hide
even as him himself had done, exhilarated by it.”
Page 83
• The boy thinks that he’s a stoic, when
he actually isn’t.
“He was clean crazy, yelling mad with the joy of
living and a superfluity of youth.” Page 80
This quote from the story depicts the boys
emotions, if he was a stoic he wouldn’t have felt
any of those emotions.
I think that this is the main fiction element
of the story, because throughout the whole
story the boy thinks that he is in control of
everything, including his emotions, but by the
end of the story he realizes he’s not.
8) Unfamiliar Words
•To study the unfamiliar words look over
your spreadsheet, and the previous tests that
you have written.
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