Margaret Ogola The River and the Source: Answering Excerpt & Essay Questions: A Guide Book to Margaret A Ogola's The River and the Source, #3

By Jorges P. Lopez

The study of the modern African novel has been quite a challenge both at the high school and at the university level. This is especially so for novels that address traditional tenets of the African society. These novels, however, form a good corpus as a basis for comparative literature, especially looking at the African novel as compared to its European or the American counterpart. Still, the odinary critic is used to earlier African writers including Ngugi, Achebe, Soyinka and the rest. Margaret Ogola presents a challenging novel in The River and the Source because it examines the modern African society. This critical book of this novel affords the reader all the necessary angles from which this novel can be seen including Plot, Character, Themes and Elements of Style. It goes further to examine common ways of examining the novel by giving excerpt and essay questions and explaining in detail how such questions should be approached. The book focuses on the national exam in Kenya - the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Examination through which candidates matriculate and qualify for entry to the university. This, however, should give a good insight to any candidate worldwide regardless of the examination they are supposed to sit for. The book looks at the division of time as well as thinking how to earn marks and ensuring the candidate ganers as much as possible of what is given. These explanations will allow the candidate of a different examination to adjust depending on the time allowed and the marks given for questions in that particular examination. This makes this book applicable to the student of the novel - and the African novel in particular - anywhere in the world. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jorges P. Lopez
• Release date: Dec 13, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223491705

Jorges P. Lopez

Jorges P. Lopez has been teaching Literature in high schools in Kenya and Communication at The Cooperative University in Nairobi. He has been writing Literary Criticism for more than fifteen years and fiction for just over ten years. He has contributed significantly to the perspective of teaching English as a Second Language in high school and to Communication Skills at the college level. He has developed humorous novellas in the Jimmy Karda Diaries Series for ages 9 to 13 which make it easier for learners of English to learn the language and the St. Maryan Seven Series for ages 13 to 16 which challenge them to improve spoken and written language. His interests in writing also spill into Poetry, Drama and Literary Fiction. He has written literary criticism books on Henrik Ibsen, Margaret Ogola, Bertolt Brecht, John Steinbeck, John Lara, Adipo Sidang' and many others.

Book preview

WRITING YOUR ANSWERS IN LITERATURE

This section is meant to teach you how to go about presenting your answers in literature. This is because any good student must realize that good work comes out of proper interpretation of questions, good planning of how to answer them and constant practice. The more you write, the more your essays will improve; the better you plan, the more impressive your work will be. It is therefore important to not only take a student through a step-by-step planning of essays in literature but also to explain what key words in questions might require you to do and show you how to go about them. The same goes for the context questions. You must learn how to interpret them, find out how to tell what the examiner expects of you at different stages as you answer the question, then do constant practice. This section is divided into five sections; interpreting questions, how to approach the context question, planning and writing your essay, revising your essay and timing your essay.

i) Interpreting Questions.

The following are the most common question words used in essay questions. This section attempts to explain what the question words require you to do using sample questions and showing you how you might go about the question in order to fully address it.

Analyze. To analyze is to examine something methodically by separating it into parts and studying how these parts are interrelated. When somebody asks you to analyze a literary text or part of it, you are required to disassemble it and examine how its different parts such as plot, characters, themes and style are interrelated. If you are asked to analyze a character or a theme, you are meant to take the character or theme apart into its different parts, show how they are related so as to present, say, a complete character or a writer’s complete worldview as expressed through a certain theme.

Sample Question: Analyze the character of Becky in Margaret Ogola’s The River and the Source.

Possible Approach: Go through the novel and pick the various aspects of Becky’s character. Note carefully how the various aspects of her character are instrumental in shaping and affecting people around her. Note too or discuss with a friend what the different aspects of Becky’s character might be meant to teach; in other words, her role. Finally, write a well planned essay that presents Becky as a complete character showing how she relates with other characters and what the writer might intend by presenting this type of character.

Compare. Any question that requires you to compare will present two things whose similarities you are supposed to draw. An examiner might require you to compare two characters, compare how two themes are treated or how two aspects of style are use. For characters, show which is given more space, impact etc and what role each is meant to play. For themes, show which of the two is discussed more widely than the other, which of the two the author feels is graver than the other. For style, show which aspect is used more widely and which has a bigger impact in the literary text than the other. Note that some questions which require you to draw comparisons may really demand that you show both similarities and differences.

Sample Question: Compare the treatment of men and women in Margaret Ogola’s The River and the Source.

Possible Approach: You should realize that this question requires you to discuss gender. Draw two columns one headed ‘men’ and the other ‘women’. Go through the novel noting major characters and their contribution to various aspects of the novel, for example, how they build other characters, how they shed light on themes etc. Pattern the characters with the leading men alongside leading women, those in the middle and those at the bottom in the same way. Write an essay that discusses the impact of the comparative men and women characters in the lists you’ve made giving as much illustration as possible to show which characters take precedence.

Contrast. Any question which requires you to contrast needs you to draw as many differences between two things as you can find. If you are told to contrast two characters, show how they are dissimilar. If you are told to compare two themes, show the differences in their treatment.

Sample Question: Contrast the characters of Vera and Becky in Margaret Ogola’s The River and the Source.

Possible Approach: Go through the novel noting instances where the two characters appear. Form a list of adjectives that can describe each in every case of appearance, noting carefully how they affect other characters and how they give direction to the narrative. Consider too