ieb literary essay rubric

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BE FULLY PREPARED FORTHE FINAL EXAMEssential Guide to the IEB English Exam:Exam structures analysis, practice questions and expert tipsand strategies • Detailed analysis of Paper I & II • Comprehensive guide to answering every question • Focused sets of practice questions & answers • Concise reviews of the key concepts tested • Expert tips and strategies • Accompanying CD with complete mock exams & suggested answers Everything needed to master IEB English Home Language Papers I & II

THE BENEFICIARIES | THE ENGLISH EXPERIENCE 3Table of ContentsForeword............................................................................. 5 About The English Experience .................................................................................. 5 Our approach ........................................................................................................... 5 Using this resource................................................................................................... 6Background to the novel.................................................... 8 Author background .................................................................................................. 8 ‘The Beneficiaries, boarding school and me’................................................................................8 Interview with Sarah Penny ...........................................................................................................11 Historical context ................................................................................................... 14 Apartheid timeline ............................................................................................................................14 The Truth and Reconciliation Commission...............................................................................17 Enrichment tasks................................................................................................................................23 Introduction to the novel ....................................................................................... 33 Synopsis ................................................................................................................................................33 Major characters.................................................................................................................................33 Themes ..................................................................................................................................................34 Fact sheet..............................................................................................................................................35 What the critics said (extracted reviews and discussion points) ......................................35 Enrichment task..................................................................................................................................36Critical commentary: part one ........................................37 Preparation............................................................................................................ 37 How to read novels for academic analysis................................................................................37 Glossary of important literary terms...........................................................................................38 Summaries and analysis ........................................................................................ 39 Using this section...............................................................................................................................39 Setting the scene – London and the Eastern Cape (Pages 3 to 17) .................................39 Restlessness, escape and denial (Pages 18 to 44) ..................................................................43 Turning point (Pages 45 to 58)......................................................................................................49 The search for true things (Pages 59 to 70) ..............................................................................54 Fractures and traditions (Pages 71 to 93)..................................................................................59 The language of bodies (Pages 94 to 110)................................................................................66 © The English Experience 2012

4 THE BENEFICIARIES | THE ENGLISH EXPERIENCE Critical commentary: part two ........................................72 Summaries and analysis ........................................................................................ 72 Searches and hiding places (Pages 113 to 138)......................................................................72 Discovery and disappearance (Pages 139 to 166) .................................................................79 Visitations from the past (Pages 167 to 179)............................................................................88 The damages of childhood (Pages 180 to 198).......................................................................93 Resolution and reconciliation (Pages 199 to 211)..................................................................99 Homecoming (Pages 212 to 223).............................................................................................. 107 Enrichment tasks............................................................................................................................. 112 Literary analysis.............................................................126 Plot analysis......................................................................................................... 126 Narration and structure........................................................................................ 127 Character analysis ................................................................................................ 130 Themes ................................................................................................................ 136 Motifs and symbols.............................................................................................. 141 Important quotations .......................................................................................... 143 Enrichment tasks ................................................................................................. 150 The literary essay ...........................................................158 Essay writing techniques..................................................................................... 158 Annotated essay examples.................................................................................. 163 General essay questions ...................................................................................... 168 Examination preparation..................................................................................... 172 Revision reading quiz .......................................................................................... 173 Suggested further reading .................................................................................. 177 Perforated rubrics for enrichment tasks and essays ....179 Review writing task .............................................................................................. 179 Transactional writing task..................................................................................... 181 Literary essay........................................................................................................ 183 Acknowledgments .........................................................191 © The English Experience 2012

THE BENEFICIARIES | THE ENGLISH EXPERIENCE 5Foreword FOREWORDAbout the English Experience BACKGROUND TO THE NOVELAware of the scarcity of genuinely fresh and complete English educational resources,The English Experience remains dedicated to publishing the very best in Matric English CRITICALresources. The team of passionate, talented experts behind The English Experience COMMENTARYwork tirelessly to ensure that every resource encourages insight, growth and debate— enriching and challenging both educators and learners, without losing sight of theimportant goal of exam readiness and success.The English Experience is an independent South African publishing house that specialises in LITERARY ANALYSISdeveloping high-quality IEB Matric English educational resources for educators and learners.Focused on bringing the text to life, every resource The English Experience publishes incorporates a ACKNOWLEDGMENTS PERFORATED RUBRICS THE LITERARY ESSAYrange of features, including content, contextual and essay questions, tear-out rubrics and stimulatingenrichment materials, designed to encourage a critical appreciation of the text and inspire the highorder thinking for which examiners are always looking.The world-class English Experience team includes highly experienced educators, some with over20 years of classroom experience, passionate literary experts in various fields, such as historicalfiction, poetry and Shakespeare, fanatical historians and researchers, creative writers, skilled editors,pernickety proofreaders and obsessive fact checkers — together with spirited university lecturers andenthusiastic young minds who ensure our approach remains unique and fresh.While exam readiness and success is a non-negotiable, our aspiration is to inspire a genuine interestin, and love of, English literature.Our approachPerhaps the toughest challenge with teaching literature to modern learners is convincingthem that the extra effort required in reading a novel — compared with the passiveimmediacy of movies and TV shows — is worth it. Decoding the language and bringingthe text to life in the imagination can be taxing for learners so it’s perhaps not surprisingthat many of them see novels as works through which they have to slog to pass an exam.This resource has been written with this reality in mind. Even though the language and settings ofthe novel are likely to be immediately accessible to Matric learners, particular attention has beenpaid to providing the kind of context and insight necessary to help them fully empathise with thecharacters and their struggles.We passionately believe that studying literature rewards us with a broader, deeper understandingof ourselves and those around us. That is why this resource does more than provide learners with a © The English Experience 2012

6 THE BENEFICIARIES | THE ENGLISH EXPERIENCEFOREWORD comprehensive, detailed analysis of the text. It also encourages them to engage with the novel on a personal level and to uncover their own responses through the extensive chapter-specific questions, BACKGROUND TO enrichment tasks and essay topics.THE NOVEL Throughout this resource, learners are challenged to agree or disagree with both the characters and CRITICAL events in the novel and the analysis provided. By formulating and expressing their own responses toCOMMENTARY the opinions, ideas and themes explored in the novel, learners are encouraged to reflect and grow as individuals as well as students. In the end, we have approached The Beneficiaries the same way we approach every text: with two, interrelated goals in mind. The first, non-negotiable objective is to ensure exam readiness and success. The second ambition is to inspire a genuine interest in, and appreciation of, the work being studied.LITERARY ANALYSIS Using this resourceTHE LITERARY ESSAY PERFORATED RUBRICS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This comprehensive resource includes: an extensive Key to using the boxes introduction to the novel, the author and its historical in this resource background; detailed summaries; rich literary analyses; diverse, chapter-specific short questions, i Info Box challenging essay questions and stimulating enrichment tasks. In short, everything needed to study the novel intensively and to bring it to life. We recommend working through the background to the  Definition/ novel section first so that learners become familiar with Glossary Box the author, the novel’s historical context, including the Quirky Fact Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the transition Box to democracy, and the novel itself. Some learners might have preconceived ideas about apartheid and even a block about studying this period. This resource has been written with such students in mind and particular attention has been paid to breathing new life into this fascinating transitional time. The‘introduction to the novel’segment completes this section, giving learners an initial overview and appreciation of the plot, characters and themes, before they engage with the text itself. By working through this comprehensive introductory section first, learners will be prepared, engaged and able to read the novel with the right mindset. Once learners have been prepared and have read through the novel, the summaries and analyses provided in the critical commentary section ensure that a solid foundation of knowledge is laid. © The English Experience 2012

THE BENEFICIARIES | THE ENGLISH EXPERIENCE 7Each chapter and sub-section is summarised and analysed separately. Extensive glossaries are included FOREWORDand learners are required to engage with the content directly through chapter-specific questions.Learners can then methodically build on this foundation, only dealing with the whole novel once BACKGROUND TOthey have worked through it step-by-step. THE NOVELAt the end of the summaries, there are also a series of enrichment tasks and a wide selection of CRITICALrigorous essay topics, ensuring that learners also tackle the novel in its entirety. COMMENTARYThe literary analysis section includes analyses of the plot, narration and structure, characters, themes, LITERARY ANALYSISmotifs and symbols. It also highlights key quotations from the novel, with suggested explanations. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS PERFORATED RUBRICS THE LITERARY ESSAYTo ensure exam readiness and success, the resource also features an extensive section on the literaryessay. This section provides guidelines on writing literary essays, two annotated examples from whichto learn, and a selection of essay topics. It also includes suggested further reading, a useful revisionreading quiz and suggestions on how to prepare for the final exam.We hope you enjoy using this resource as much as we enjoyed putting it together. If you have anyqueries, please do not hesitate to contact us.© The English Experience 2012

FOREWORD 8 THE BENEFICIARIES | THE ENGLISH EXPERIENCE BACKGROUND TO Background to the novelTHE NOVEL Author background CRITICALCOMMENTARY In The Beneficiaries, author Sarah Penny has created an extremely accessible, insightful and thought-provoking novel that explores the notions of truth, memory and identity inLITERARY ANALYSIS contemporary South Africa. Penny’s astute portrayal is drawn from her personal experience of life as a teenager in South Africa during the 1980s. In this section, Penny recalls life atTHE LITERARY ESSAY PERFORATED RUBRICS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS school and the events and characters that helped shape her world and inspire the novel. ‘The Beneficiaries, boarding school and me’, by Sarah Penny ‘It’s your memory and their forgetting. You can make yourself remember, but you can’t make them not forget. So you go there and you make yourself remember and you put yourself in that place and then … your memory finds their forgetting. And it makes you angrier.’ (p.169) I think I was rather indulged before I went to boarding school. I was the youngest child in a large family in Cape Town and all the older children had left home already, leaving me as the centre of attention. Apart from my very nice parents and my wonderful nanny, there were dogs and cats and budgies and squirrels in the roof and we all lived together in a beautiful early Georgian National Monument surrounded by a huge garden with a river running through it. Nothing lasts forever, though, and, when I was sixteen, my parents and I decided between us that it would be interesting to go off to boarding school and meet some new people and have some new experiences. The school was about a ten hour drive from Cape Town, in a small rural town in the Eastern Cape, not far from the border with the independent Bantustan of the Transkei. It wasn’t an absolute backwater, nonetheless. There were shops and restaurants, two cinemas and even a university. The Rhodesian connection I hated boarding school from the get-go. The food was terrible, there was never enough hot water to go round and the uniform was drab and depressing. More than that, however, the whole ideology of the place was horrific. In Cape Town, my school used to go to chapel to pray for a peaceful transition to democracy. There was none of that liberal malarkey in the Eastern Cape. This was 1987. In the Southern African sub-region, Angola and Mozambique had succumbed to black rule back in 1975 and Rhodesia was renamed Zimbabwe under a black government in 1980. South Africa was only headed one way. The staff and pupils at my boarding school were not very pleased about it. They were not going to accept black rule while there was a man, woman or child among them left standing. Run by a man who gave us to believe he’d been something or other important in the Rhodesian Bush War, the school had an informal policy of employing other people who’d served in that conflict. Some of the staff still used their military titles like Major Carlton does in the book. There were a fair few of them, © The English Experience 2012

THE BENEFICIARIES | THE ENGLISH EXPERIENCE 9as well as all the Rhody kids whose parents didn’t want them educated alongside blacks in the new FOREWORDZimbabwe. I hated Rhodesian kids at the time. They were ruthless, self-sufficient and tough as old boots. BACKGROUND TOBut you don’t spend two years immersed in the ruins of someone else’s war without becoming a THE NOVELlittle obsessed with it yourself. My most recent book, The Lies We Shared, is partially set during theRhodesian Bush War. CRITICAL COMMENTARYAdjusting to civilian life LITERARY ANALYSISBoarding school ended and I was turfed out along with my trunk and my diaries and what civilian clothesI had. I was a bit shell-shocked after boarding school. As much as I hated it, I had got used to institutional ACKNOWLEDGMENTS PERFORATED RUBRICS THE LITERARY ESSAYlife. It was odd having to assemble a whole wardrobe and, at university, I kept calling the lecturers ‘Sir’and ‘Ma’am’ — to much mirth from the other students, most of whom hadn’t been boarders.I was free and out of school, but I kept having very bleak nightmares that I was still there. Even thoughI had really happy times at university in my twenties and made life-long friends, there was always ashadow hanging over me of not coping with my school memories very well.Writing The BeneficiariesWhen I was 28 I won a South African National Arts Council Scholarship to study a Master’s Degree inCreative Writing (MLitt) at St Andrews University in Scotland. I needed to find a dissertation topic. Myanger towards the school hadn’t gone, but it had finally cooled into something that I could draw onto mould a novel. I started writing The Beneficiaries.I changed some details in the book. It was a private school and I made it into a government school, forexample. Also, there were a number of black children in the classes, mostly the offspring of Bantustandespots being educated at the expense of the South African government. I changed that becausemost South African schools attended by whites were government and whites-only and I wantedthe novel to reflect the educational dynamics in the country as a whole. I kept many descriptiveelements exactly as they were in my experience, though, such as the practice of isolating children inthe sanatorium before expulsion.The TRC: lifting the icebergAt the same time as I was writing the novel, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in SouthAfrica was drawing to a close. For the last few years, it had staged public platforms to record thetestimony of both the victims and the perpetrators of apartheid. There is much criticism of the TRCnow, but, if you had grown up during apartheid as a white person, in that culture of silence andconformity, it was the most extraordinary thing to listen to those hearings.The TRC made sense out of the atmosphere that had shrouded us at school. It felt as if, during thoseschool years of constant suppression and pettiness, I’d seen the tip of the iceberg and suspected thelooming shape under the water, but, through the TRC, was finally able to see the iceberg lifted clearand to realise the enormity of what apartheid was and what it did to the people who lived through it.The good things that came out of schoolThere were a couple of good things that came out of boarding school. I had a fantastic English teacher. © The English Experience 2012

10 THE BENEFICIARIES | THE ENGLISH EXPERIENCEFOREWORD She always made me feel, not only that writing was a worthy and noble ambition, but that I had it in me to be a writer as well. BACKGROUND TO One other thing that that school did do for i Sarah Penny was born in Cape Town in 1970. SheTHE NOVEL me, that I now recognise and value, was to was schooled in Cape Town and the Eastern Cape. widen my perspective of who I was. South After school, she went on to study at the University Africa was incredibly parochial at the time of Cape Town, Rhodes University and St Andrews because we were cut off from virtually University, Scotland. CRITICAL all international contact, but there were Penny has lectured in English and Creative Writing atCOMMENTARY children at that school from white enclaves Brunel University since 2003, where she is currently all over Africa, which made me see that I reading for a PhD in Creative Writing. She hasLITERARY ANALYSIS wasn’t just a South African, but part of a published three books with Penguin South Africa: The whole history of whites colonising Africa, Whiteness Of Bones (a travel narrative) and two novels, The Beneficiaries and The Lies We Shared.THE LITERARY ESSAY PERFORATED RUBRICS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS and everything that meant. Her abiding interests are in African history, culture and languages, particularly from southern and East Africa. I have never really thought of myself as a Another lifelong fascination is African wildlife, animal South African novelist. I think of myself as a behaviour and nature conservation. She lives in North writer from Africa. So, despite everything, I London, is married to the Mafia historian John Dickie have a debt to that school for making the and has two young children. whole business of identity such a thorny thing to settle — at such a relatively impressionable age — that I have had to give quite a lot of thought to the matter in the two and a half intervening decades since I left. Novel or autobiography? It is often said that an author’s first novel is his/her most autobiographical, but this remains a very difficult claim to substantiate. Where do we draw the line between author and narrator, for instance? Are events that happen in the novel autobiographical simply because they are similar to known events in an author’s life? Sarah Penny has noted in a number of interviews, including this author background, that there are numerous autobiographical elements to The Beneficiaries and it is interesting to note these elements, both as a way of discovering how the work was created and of getting further insight into the meaning and messages being conveyed. On the other hand, though, it could be a mistake to overstate the autobiographical nature of the novel. It is, first and foremost, a work of fiction and, therefore, of the imagination. It is likely to prove a futile and unrewarding exercise to try to precisely separate the factual elements in the novel from those of the author’s imagination. The Beneficiaries is a fascinating novel, given added authenticity by the author’s experiences of being schooled in South Africa in the 1980s. By blending historical fact and fiction, personal experience and the imagination, the novel successfully explores and illuminates both the personal journey of the protagonist and the political journey of apartheid South Africa towards healing and hope. © The English Experience 2012

THE BENEFICIARIES | THE ENGLISH EXPERIENCE 23Enrichment tasks i ‘Zapiro’ is the penname of FOREWORD Jonathan Shapiro, a SouthExercise 1: Visual Literacy African cartoonist best known for BACKGROUND TO his politically satirical cartoons that THE NOVELConsider the following cartoon by Zapiro, published in regularly appear in various nationalthe Sowetan newspaper during the TRC hearings, and newspapers.answer the questions that follow. CRITICAL COMMENTARY LITERARY ANALYSIS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS PERFORATED RUBRICS THE LITERARY ESSAY? Questions1.1. Identify the Figure of Speech in the caption, ‘As the TRC scales Mount Evidence…’, and explain how it functions to create humour in this cartoon. (2) © The English Experience 2012

FOREWORD 24 THE BENEFICIARIES | THE ENGLISH EXPERIENCE BACKGROUND TO 1.2. Identify the female character in the foreground of the cartoon and explain the symbolic natureTHE NOVEL of her blindfold, sword and scales. (4) CRITICAL 1.3. Discuss the function of the skeletons in the cartoon, referring to the labels to illustrate yourCOMMENTARY answer. (3)LITERARY ANALYSIS © The English Experience 2012THE LITERARY ESSAY PERFORATED RUBRICS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

THE BENEFICIARIES | THE ENGLISH EXPERIENCE 25Consider the following cartoon, also by Zapiro and published in the Sowetan, and answer the FOREWORDquestions that follow. BACKGROUND TO THE NOVEL CRITICAL COMMENTARY LITERARY ANALYSIS1.4. Explain how, and to what purpose, the cartoonist satirises the traditional legal oath made by ACKNOWLEDGMENTS PERFORATED RUBRICS THE LITERARY ESSAY witnesses in court. (3)1.5. The man depicted in the cartoon, Craig Williamson, was an apartheid operative who applied for amnesty for a series of crimes, including kidnapping and assassination. How does the cartoonist represent this ‘character’? Please provide evidence to support your answer. (3) © The English Experience 2012

26 THE BENEFICIARIES | THE ENGLISH EXPERIENCEFOREWORD BACKGROUND TOTHE NOVEL CRITICAL 1.6. What does the cartoonist suggest about Craig Williamson’s motivations in applying for amnesty?COMMENTARY Provide sound reasoning in support of your response by referring closely to the cartoon. (2)LITERARY ANALYSISTHE LITERARY ESSAY PERFORATED RUBRICS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Refer to the following short poem by Antjie Krog and answer the questions that follow. “Clean Slate” 1 ‘I have been given a clean slate and can continue with my life.’ ‘I have given a clean slate and see how they simply continue with their lives.’ ‘I am surprised about my clean slate – 5 it shows they cannot even hate properly.’ ‘I am surprised that I have given a clean slate and they simply continue as before.’ 1.7. Identify the speaker(s) in Antjie Krog’s poem. (2) © The English Experience 2012

THE BENEFICIARIES | THE ENGLISH EXPERIENCE 271.8. Explain to what the ‘clean slate’ of the title refers. (2) FOREWORD BACKGROUND TO THE NOVEL1.9. Discuss what the poet is suggesting about the amnesty application process of the TRC, referring CRITICAL closely to the poem to support your argument. (4) COMMENTARY LITERARY ANALYSIS1.10. Identify the common theme present in both the Zapiro cartoons and the Krog poem, providing ACKNOWLEDGMENTS PERFORATED RUBRICS THE LITERARY ESSAY evidence from all three texts to support your answer. (5) Total: [30]© The English Experience 2012

THE BENEFICIARIES | THE ENGLISH EXPERIENCE 37Critical commentary: part one FOREWORDPreparation BACKGROUND TO THE NOVELHow to read novels for academic analysis CRITICALWhen reading a novel that you are required to analyse for academic purposes, you need to COMMENTARYapproach the text in a slightly different way than you do when reading a novel for pleasure.Here are few tips to keep in mind when reading novels for academic analysis. LITERARY ANALYSIS• It may sound obvious, but make sure you are paying attention when you read. Often when we ACKNOWLEDGMENTS PERFORATED RUBRICS THE LITERARY ESSAY are reading, our attention wanders and we don’t really take in what it is that we’re reading. Be sure that when you’re reading a novel for academic purposes, your attention stays focused at all times and that you are not distracted by your phone, television, friends or family members.• Make notes in the page margins as you read. Marking important passages as you read them will help you save time when you are looking for them again later and will also help to keep you focused as you read.• Underline unfamiliar words so that you can look up their definitions and make a note of their meanings.• Keep the themes of the novel in mind as you are reading and keep asking yourself how these themes are being conveyed and developed in the narrative. Make notes of any recurring motifs and symbols and what these represent in the text.• Remember that you are reading for meaning (what is being said) and for form (how it is being conveyed). Literary analysis is about detecting patterns in the text and determining how these patterns convey particular messages.Patterns of meaningWhat is the text saying? (i.e. Themes)• How is the plot structured? What happens in the narrative and in what order?• Where and when does the story take place?• Who is the subject of the story?• What are the recurring themes in the narrative?• What message is being conveyed?• How do you feel about what is happening in the story?Patterns of formHow is it being said? (i.e. Technique)• Who is the narrator of the text? When or on what occasion(s) is this narration taking place?• How does the point of view from which the story is being told affect our understanding?• How are the characters developed throughout the text? How do they interact with one another, and why?• Is the narration sequential or achronological? Are there flashbacks or flash-forwards? Why is the narration structured in this way? © The English Experience 2012

38 THE BENEFICIARIES | THE ENGLISH EXPERIENCEFOREWORD • What kind of symbols and motifs recur in the text? What do these symbolise and how do they reinforce the themes of the novel? • What do the title and chapter headings tell us about this narrative and how we should interpret it? BACKGROUND TO  Glossary of important literary termsTHE NOVEL archetype, archetypical: a very typical or ideology: a system of beliefs or ideals which often CRITICAL common example of a particular type of person forms the basis for a political or economic policy,COMMENTARY or thing. for example, apartheid.LITERARY ANALYSIS bildungsroman: a genre of literature in which the irony: a perceptible inconsistency (sometimes protagonist, usually an adolescent, undergoes humorous) in an apparently straightforwardTHE LITERARY ESSAY PERFORATED RUBRICS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS spiritual, intellectual, moral, psychological and/ statement or situation which, given its particular or social growth throughout the course of the context, takes on the opposite meaning or narrative and, in doing so, achieves maturity (also significance. In the case of dramatic irony, the known as a ‘coming of age’ story). reader or audience may know more about the character’s situation or circumstances than the catharsis: the often painful process through which character and is able to recognise a sharply a character heals, usually through the release of different or contrasting meaning to the character’s strong or repressed emotions. statements. connotation: an idea, association or feeling that is metaphor, metaphoric: a Figure of Speech in evoked by the use of a particular word, in addition which one thing is taken to represent or symbolise to its literal meaning. something else, in order to transfer particular associations or qualities on to the thing or idea context: the‘things around the text’; the particular being represented. circumstances that form the setting for a narrative event, statement or idea. paradox, paradoxical: a statement that is so obviously untrue or contradictory that it leads the denouement: the climax or finale of a narrative reader to consider alternative contexts in which it in which the various strands of the plot are drawn may be considered accurate; or a situation, person together or resolved. or thing that combines contradictory features or qualities. diction: the choice of words used. point of view: the position or vantage point from discourse: written or spoken communication or, in which the events of a story are presented to the literary terms, the treatment of a particular subject reader. within the narrative. protagonist: the main/central character in the foil: a character who contrasts starkly with another narrative. character, usually the protagonist, in order to emphasise the particular qualities or traits of the syntax: the particular arrangement of words or other character. phrases to create sentences, which may carry particular emphasis or connotations. form: the structure or design of a particular literary work. theme: the central message, idea or insight of a literary work. genre: in literary terms, a genre is a particular and distinguishable category of writing which employs distinct, common conventions that are recognisable across all works of the same genre. © The English Experience 2012

THE BENEFICIARIES | THE ENGLISH EXPERIENCE 39Summaries and analysis FOREWORDUsing this section BACKGROUND TO THE NOVELWorking through the novel chapter by chapter ensures that a solid foundation of knowledgeis laid, and then gradually and effectively expanded. Learners are not required to deal with CRITICALthe entire novel until they have worked through it in a methodical, step-by-step manner. COMMENTARYEach chapter and sub-section is summarised and analysed separately. Extensive glossaries are included LITERARY ANALYSISand learners are required to engage with the content directly through chapter-specific questions. Atthe end of the summaries, there is also a series of enrichment tasks and a wide selection of rigorousessay topics, ensuring that learners also tackle the novel in its entirety.Setting the scene — London and the Eastern Cape ACKNOWLEDGMENTS PERFORATED RUBRICS THE LITERARY ESSAY(Pages 3 to 17)SummaryThe novel opens with‘A Letter’, an unwelcome request from a woman named Nomda Qhashane. Therecipient of the letter, who is not named at this point, claims that she will not do whatever the letteris requesting and throws the letter away in a neighbour’s dustbin.In the following chapter, ‘1998: Contact’, set in London, Lally contacts Pim using a phone numbershe was given months before. It is clear that the two have not been in contact for a number of years:Pim is astonished to hear from Lally and both ask to be called by the more formal versions of theirnames, ‘Laeticia’ and ‘Edgar’.Lally visits Pim at his house on the other side of London, where she meets his family and has dinnerwith them. Pim and his wife, Ruth, have two sons. It is revealed that Lally and Pim knew each otheras children in South Africa and that Lally still owns an ostrich farm there, although she hasn’t visitedit in over five years. Pim has not taken over the running of his family’s farm, despite the fact that it isthe tradition in his family for the eldest son to do so.The next chapter, titled ‘1978: Standard Eight: Hadedas and Earthworms’, recalls a younger Lally,during her boarding school days in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. During her Standard Eight (Grade10) year, Lally is seated at the window of her dormitory in the Girls’Division of the school, looking outover the grounds at sports fields and school buildings. She is enjoying the brief period of quiet andsolitude in the dormitory as the rest of the girls are at tea, eating jam sandwiches — Lally herself is a‘difficult eater’ (p.11) and chooses to avoid tea.She is holding a letter from her mother, composed of the usual news about the farm and her homedistrict, which she will answer later. When the other girls return to the dormitory, it is clear that © The English Experience 2012

FOREWORD 40 THE BENEFICIARIES | THE ENGLISH EXPERIENCE BACKGROUND TO Lally is an outsider, although not exactly unpopular. Lally is called upstairs by Emily, a prefect, andTHE NOVEL although Lally is apprehensive about going into the senior girls’ dormitories, she has little choice but to obey. CRITICALCOMMENTARY Emily is Pim’s girlfriend of two years and because Lally usually spends the holidays at Pim’s house, Emily has come to regard her as a kind of younger sister (p.16). Emily shows Lally a picture of Pim,LITERARY ANALYSIS who matriculated the previous year. Dressed in his soldier’s uniform, Pim is now in the infantry and has been promoted to the rank of lieutenant.THE LITERARY ESSAY PERFORATED RUBRICS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Analysis A Letter Although the recipient of the letter and its contents are not revealed at this point, we later find out that it is a request addressed to Lally from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) for information regarding an incident she witnessed during her school days, involving the son of Nomda Qhashane. It is clear that Lally has no wish to fulfil this request: her forceful actions — speaking loudly to herself and flinging the letter in the dustbin — suggest that the letter has reminded her of something unpleasant or upsetting, something she would rather forget or that has even made her angry. 1998: Contact This chapter establishes the ambiguous and even uncomfortable relationship the characters have with their South African heritage. It is suggested that Lally and Pim were once close, although they have been out of contact for quite some time, and their meeting is initially quite awkward. Their insistence on the use of their full names, ‘Laeticia’and ‘Edgar’, indicates that both have changed substantially over the years and that they feel they are no longer the same people they were when they last knew each other. Interestingly, however, the narrator still refers to them as ‘Lally’ and ‘Pim’, perhaps suggesting that they have not changed as much as they may believe. Pim speaks ‘like an Englishman’ (p.6) and has clearly been living in London for a long time. Both Lally and Pim have left behind family farms in South Africa. Lally expresses her indifference to the running of her ostrich farm, while it seems that Pim’s decision not to run his family’s farm — thus breaking with a long-standing tradition — is a contentious issue within the family. Pim’s wife, Ruth, is British and she becomes uncomfortable when Lally and Pim start talking about South Africa. She ‘feels marginalised in her own home’ (p.7), excluded from Lally and Pim’s shared heritage. There seems to be an underlying tension in Ruth and Pim’s marriage, suggested by her irritation with Pim’s comment about her potatoes and by Pim’s consciously exaggerated efforts to appear as a good husband and father as he shows off for Lally. Ruth’s feeling of exclusion is further emphasised when she ‘savagely’ (p.8) denies her son’s claim that he is ‘a Pim’ (p.8) — the nickname given to all the eldest sons in his father’s family. It is also suggested that Lally’s visit makes Ruth feel insecure, as she looks at herself in the mirror and tells herself that she is ‘still a young woman’ (p.9). © The English Experience 2012

THE BENEFICIARIES | THE ENGLISH EXPERIENCE 411978: Standard Eight: Hadedas and Earthworms FOREWORDThis is the first glimpse we have of Lally at boarding school. The strict, institutional characteristics BACKGROUND TOof the school are emphasised here: the buildings are regularly laid out, the students’ time is strictly THE NOVELregimented and the social hierarchy among the students is rigorously observed. CRITICALThis sense of hierarchy is emphasised by Lally’s hesitation when Emily invites her up to her room (the COMMENTARYdomain of the senior girls, where Lally has no right to be) and by the dilemma experienced by Emily’sfriend, who wants to reprimand Lally for her uneven hemline, but feels she cannot do so because LITERARY ANALYSISLally has been invited up by Emily.It is also suggested in this section that Lally has a rather cold, formal relationship with her parents.Her letters from her mother all follow the same pattern and do not seem to contain any familiarity orwarmth. Lally herself is established as an outsider at school; she is not disliked by the other students,but she is not popular and seems to prefer to distance herself from others. The contrast between herand Emily is clear as Emily is depicted as popular, athletic, attractive and vivacious. Glossary endowments: donated funds ACKNOWLEDGMENTS PERFORATED RUBRICS THE LITERARY ESSAY lucerne: another name for alfalfa, a kind of plant A Letter apprised: informed or told surreptitiously: acting in a stealthy manner to mufti: casual dress deliberately avoid being seen hierarchical: arranged in order of rank or forlorn: appearing hopeless or miserable because importance of abandonment prerogative: a right or privilege sullied: soiled, dirtied or tarnished vagaries: unexpected or inexplicable changes impermeable: impossible to penetrate 1998: Contact anschluss: a political or economic union opaque: not transparent, blocking light impetuous: impulsive azure: sky blue colour raison d’être: reason or justification felicities: happy occasions impasse: an impossibly difficult situation indefatigable: tireless, inexhaustible in loco parentis: in the place of a parent briar: a woody, thorny plant conscription: compulsory enrolment in military blighted: harmed or destroyed service deputising: temporarily acting in the place of suavities: smooth, sophisticated mannerisms something or someone else de facto: in fact or reality philanthropic: seeking to promote or ensure the 1978: Standard Eight: Hadedas and welfare of others Earthworms slovenliness: untidy dress or appearance raffish: suggestively vulgar, or carelessly dudgeon: feeling of resentment unconventional belligerent: hostile or aggressive irrevocable: not able to be reversed or changed pedagogical: related to teaching or education alumni: former students© The English Experience 2012

FOREWORD 42 THE BENEFICIARIES | THE ENGLISH EXPERIENCE BACKGROUND TO ? QuestionsTHE NOVEL 1. Review the opening section of the novel, titled ‘A Letter’. Do you believe this is an effective CRITICAL introduction to the novel? Provide sound reasoning for your response. (3)COMMENTARY 2. Comment on Pim’s relationship with his family as depicted in the chapter ‘1998: Contact’. (3)LITERARY ANALYSIS 3. What evidence is there to suggest that Pim and Lally’s South African heritage is an uncomfortableTHE LITERARY ESSAY PERFORATED RUBRICS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS subject in this scene? Explain your answer fully. (4) 4. What do we learn about Lally’s character and her life at school in the chapter‘1978: Standard Eight: Hadedas and Earthworms’? (5) © The English Experience 2012

© The English Experience 2012 THE BENEFICIARIES | THE ENGLISH EXPERIENCE Total: [15] CRITICAL BACKGROUND TO 43 COMMENTARY THE NOVEL ACKNOWLEDGMENTS PERFORATED RUBRICS THE LITERARY ESSAY LITERARY ANALYSIS FOREWORD

THE BENEFICIARIES | THE ENGLISH EXPERIENCE 163Annotated essay examples FOREWORDEssay topic 1: BACKGROUND TO THE NOVELDiscuss the physical ways in which Lally’s emotions manifest themselves in The Beneficiaries,and explain why she experiences her emotions in this very particular way. Your answer CRITICALshould be approximately 600 words in length and should provide concise, relevant examples COMMENTARYfrom the text wherever possible. LITERARY ANALYSISNotes on the essay topic: ACKNOWLEDGMENTS PERFORATED RUBRICS THE LITERARY ESSAY• This topic directs you to discuss the theme of physicality in the novel and, specifically, as it applies to Lally’s physical ailments as expressions of her emotions.• The word count is specified clearly and should be adhered to.• You are asked to refer to the novel closely, meaning that you should include examples and quotations as supporting evidence for your points. You should not simply retell the plot of the novel in your essay; your supporting evidence should be concise and carefully selected examples that illustrate your argument.• Key words include‘physical’,‘emotions’,‘manifest’and‘experiences’— these are words that should be used in the essay itself.Introduction Essay: Comments: In The Beneficiaries, Lally’s realisation that apartheid Note the structure of the society is based on a morally corrupt system of introductory paragraph: beliefs provokes an incredibly intense emotional the thesis statement is response. Lally’s inability to deal with the indicated in bold (this intensity of her emotions, however, means that is the main argument they are instead turned inward and manifest that will be referred to themselves in a variety of physical disorders. throughout the essay). Rather than working through the trauma caused by The underlined sentence the knowledge that her society is morally baseless, gives a ‘preview’ of the Lally’s method of ‘coping’ by suppressing her pain argument, as these are results in the development of a severe eating the topics that will be disorder, insomnia and panic attacks. discussed further in the body of the essay. © The English Experience 2012

164 THE BENEFICIARIES | THE ENGLISH EXPERIENCEFOREWORD The reader soon comes to realise that Lally’s In the second paragraph, the sentence in bold BACKGROUND TO anorexia is a means for her to retain some indicates the topicTHE NOVEL semblance of control over her own life. Early on sentence: this is the point in the novel, Lally is described as a ‘difficult eater’ that this paragraph will CRITICAL whose mealtime habits are monitored by the matron deal with. The quotationsCOMMENTARY of the school. She is often described as lean and thin and examples from the in appearance, both as a teenager and an adult. When text support the claim Pim’s brother Michael comments on her thinness, she being made by the topic feels ‘a fierce surge of pride at her self-control’, sentence. The underlined indicating that she does not starve herself for sentences form the aesthetic reasons, but because she enjoys the sense of analysis or elaboration control it gives her. Realising that she is irretrievably of this point, and explain caught up in a corrupt political system, which she its relevance to the thesis cannot change or escape from, she finds relief in her statement. ability to maintain control over what happens to herLITERARY ANALYSIS body. As she later observes, the ‘only thing she was always able to control was her own body’.THE LITERARY ESSAY PERFORATED RUBRICS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Body Later on in the novel, as Lally comes to recognise Though this paragraph the inherent corruption of the school institution, is linked in subject to the previous paragraph, it is a the food provided to her by the school comes new point and, therefore, to represent its immorality and depravity. This a new paragraph has realisation, prompted by the selection of prefects been started. Note in her Standard Nine year, coincides with a marked how, throughout the development in the severity of her eating disorder. essay, direct quotations In rejecting the school’s food, which she describes as are seamlessly ‘scabrous, tainted, scrofulous, peccant, gangrenous’, and grammatically Lally is symbolically rejecting the beliefs that both the incorporated into the school and apartheid are based on, and purging herself sentences. of the corrupting influences of both institutions. Lally also experiences severe bouts of insomnia Again, take note of throughout the novel. She is often described as the T-E-A structure of having difficulty sleeping, rising early in the morning or this paragraph (Topic lying awake during the night, plagued by a feeling of sentence — Evidence — restlessness. The occasional relief she experiences from Analysis). The sentence her insomnia coincides with instances of emotional in bold is the topic or psychological well-being, when she first arrives at sentence; the quotations Pim’s farm for the short holiday, for example, or and examples provide when she watches Sipho from her dormitory window. evidence, and the Her difficulty in sleeping indicates unresolved anxiety, underlined sentences are which plagues her on a sub-conscious level and is only the analysis of this point. alleviated when she leaves the school or experiences some form of emotional comfort. © The English Experience 2012

THE BENEFICIARIES | THE ENGLISH EXPERIENCE 165 On several occasions in the novel, Lally also Note the use of FOREWORD connective wordsBody suffers from panic attacks brought on by to link paragraphs, BACKGROUND TO unpleasant or confusing realisations. The first which ensures the THE NOVEL of these occurs after her classmate, Zulu, is unjustly logical organisation blamed for a classroom prank; in this instance, Lally and progression of CRITICAL finds herself sobbing uncontrollably in her dormitory, the argument. Other COMMENTARY where she is comforted by Nomda. As an adult, she potential connectives experiences the physical sensations associated with that can be used include these panic attacks when unexpectedly confronted ‘furthermore’, ‘moreover’, by the traumas of her past, in the form of a racing ‘further to’, ‘in addition to’. heart, a metallic taste in her mouth and nausea. This demonstrates how Lally’s emotions, particularly those she has suppressed, manifest themselves physically. Throughout the novel, Lally is confronted with The concluding LITERARY ANALYSIS difficult truths and realisations about the society in paragraph sums up theConclusion which she lives; truths that provoke intense emotional argument, drawing on ACKNOWLEDGMENTS PERFORATED RUBRICS THE LITERARY ESSAY reactions. Rather than dealing with her emotions, words and phrases used however, Lally suppresses her pain. As a result, she in both the question and experiences various physical ailments, including the introduction, but anorexia, insomnia and panic attacks, as physical restated in an original manifestations of the emotional traumas she is way. The sentence in bold refusing to deal with. indicates a restatement of the thesis statement. © The English Experience 2012

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Hle assessment criteria, criterion a: knowledge, understanding and interpretation.

• To what extent does the essay show knowledge and understanding of the work or body of work?
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• To what extent does the essay show analysis and evaluation of how the author uses stylistic and structural features to construct meaning on the topic?

Criterion C: Coherence, focus and organisation

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Criterion D: Language

• To what extent is the student’s use of vocabulary, tone, syntax, style and terminology accurate, varied and effective?