Monday, September the 29th, 2008
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Here are some questions designed to test your comprehension of, appreciation of, and response to In The Park (below).
1. Imagine you are the person with pimples. How do you think your sense of self-esteem and integration within your community hub would be affected by being shouted at by a person with a loudhailer when you are sitting on a bench in the park at dusk spitting into a beaker?
2. Try to inhabit the mind of the dog which belongs to the person with pimples. Pretend that dogs can write in coherent English. Re-write the scene from the dog's point of view.
3. The bird which remains on its perch on a branch of a tree in the park at dusk is clearly unconcerned at the din created by a person shouting through a loudhailer. Using your vast store of ornithological learning, identify what type of bird you think it is, and argue your case with vivacity and bloody-mindedness.
4. The narrator seems to be quite ill-tempered, and there is a hint that he or she is an authoritarian figure who takes none too kindly to having their authority baulked. Is there anything in the text to suggest that the narrator is a disgruntled Maoist at sea in the twenty-first century?
5. What kind of town do you think this is?