Comprehension Questions

1. List the instances in the story when language differences result in misunderstandings.

2. What events or outcomes occur as a result of these misunderstandings?

3. Explain the narrator's view of Mixed-Up and Certainly-Mary. Use evidence to support your response.

4. What does the narrator's experience playing chess teach him?

5. Consider all the allusions and references to popular music, which occur in the story. List as many as you can find. What do these help the reader to understand?

Writing Tasks

1. Throughout this story, the narrator makes allusions and references to popular songs of the time. Write a story, which details a modern ‘courtship', which draws on popular song lyrics in a similar fashion. You might wish to organise your ideas for the music first by theme: songs about the desire for love; the joy/pain of love; the pain of love lost/unrequited. Consider key lyrics which could be incorporated to help to reveal something about the character and their thoughts and feelings.
   
   
2. Examine Rushdie's use of imagery and consider his use of metaphor.
   
   
   “Or was it that her heart, roped by two different loves, was being pulled both East and West…(p.201)

   But I, too, have ropes around my neck . . .” (p.211)

   
   Read Sujata Bhatt's poem “Search for My Tongue” which uses an extended metaphor to express the desire to retain a sense of culture and identity through language. (You can watch the poem as a slideshow here).
   
   

   Read Moniza Alvi's poem “Presents from my Aunts in Pakistan” which presents the experience of growing up in two different cultures. Consider the use of imagery to suggest different perspectives and views of a culture. (You can watch the poem as a slideshow here).

   
   

   Write a poem that uses a range of imagery to explore the idea of being caught between two worlds or cultures or positions.
   
   
3. The violent incident in the story creates a dramatic climax. While this story is set in the United Kingdom in the 1960's there are many modern parallels we could draw regarding intolerance and prejudice in our own society. Use the library's media database search function and download a newspaper article which reports on a racially motivated attack in Australia.
   
   Write a news report of the incident in which Mixed-Up is attacked, defending the women at Kensington Gardens. Use your Australian article as a guide to ensure that you make the right decisions about form, content and style and submit both.