Essay Questions

What is the opportunity cost of remaining with Mphahlele? - “The Garden”

The commitment of accommodating the cat costs the couple a garden. The Speaker, reminds the partner, “that courtyard, tangle/of wild vines/that you would never let me weed/to begin a garden,/insisting in that quiet way of yours/that every creature/had as much right to live as we had,/& that it was a garden.” The couple cannot possess a garden because it would deny the cat an idyllic territory. The couple must forgo the garden for the cat to have a relaxing habitation. Had the cat been bequeathed, then they would have cleared out the wild vines to frame a garden.

How does “Fragment of Ancient Skull” lay bare the unreliability of Museum records?

The fragment’s jar in the museum reads: “fragment of ancient skull/culture unknown.” The label is a plain hasty generalization that overlooks Logos reading the pitiless killing of the skull’s owner and the Pathos regarding the agony that the owner’s father withstood after the assassination.

In what way does “Joy to the Fishes” expound the correlation between nature and poetry?

The speaker confirms that when he liberated the “minnow” (Which represents nature) he had “a small collection of zen in my fist.” Obviously, the poems were in one hand whereas the other hand hand-picked the minnow. The act of salvaging the minnow roused the poetical reflections in “Joy to the Fishes.”