MEMORANDUM: Introducing autobiography
The Dark Child: The Autobiography of an African Boy
Aim: To introduce and engage with some of the characteristics of autobiography
Type: Group discussion and individual written workGrade level: 8–10
Time:20–30minutesFile section:Non-fiction
Instruction: Read the extract from The Dark Child: The Autobiography of anAfrican Boy by Camara Laye. In this extract, he recalls an incident from early childhood.
extract from The Dark Child: The Autobiography of an African Boy by Camara Laye
I was a little boy playing around my father’s hut. How old would I have been at that time? I can not remember exactly. I must still have been very young: five, maybe six years old. My mother was in the workshop with my father, and I could just hear their familiar voices above the noise of the anvil and the conversation of the customers.
Suddenly I stopped playing, my whole attention fixed on a snake that was creeping around the hut. After a moment I went over to him. I had taken in my hand a reed that was lying around … and I thrust it into his mouth. The snake did not try to get away: he was beginning to enjoy our little game; he was swallowing the reed; he was devouring it, I thought, as if it were some delicious prey, his eyes glittering with voluptuous bliss; and inch by inch his head was drawing nearer to my hand. At last the reed was almost entirely swallowed and the snake’s jaws were terribly close to my fingers.
I was laughing. I had not the slightest fear, and I feel sure that the snake would not have hesitated much longer before burying his fangs in my fingers …
Questions:
Work in groups and discuss these questions:
1Who is the speaker/narrator? Provide a "thumbnail sketch" (a very brief portrait) based on the passage.
The narrator is an adult male/the adult Camara Laye who is recalling an incident from his childhood. He is retelling the incident that happened to him when he was five or six years old.
As a child he was playing on his own outside when he saw a snake. He was unafraid and played with the snake and a stick.
2What does the use of the personal pronoun “I” tell you?
The pronoun “I” tells us that this is a first person narration. In this instance, the narrator is the central character of the action. Because of this, the recollection of the event will be biased as it only gives the reader the perspective of the central character.
3Memories of the past are often vague and unreliable. How do you know this, based on the passage?
In the first paragraph, the narrator tells us that he cannot remember exactly how old he was, so that is the first indication that memory is sometimes vague. But more than that, this recounting borders on fantasy. The child Camara Laye might remember that he stuck a stick down the throat of a snake, but the adult Camara Laye will know that to say you did such a thing seems exaggerated and beyond belief.
A five or six-year-old would also be unlikely to have thought that the snake imagined the reed to be “delicious prey” or would have looked at the reed with “voluptuous bliss” in its eyes. These are the thoughts of the adult narrator and not the child from his childhood experience.
4Describe the encounter between the boy and the snake in your own words. What is unusual about it? How does the writer create tension and suspense?
In the boy’s mind, he was playing a game with the snake that he spots while playing on his own. He thrusts a reed down the snake’s throat and the snake, enjoying this game, swallows the reed bit by bit until its fangs are close to the child’s fingers. Most children would be afraid of snakes, but he is not. The writer creates tension by describing how the snake swallows the reed “inch by inch”, his jaws getting closer and closer to the child’s fingers. The child is unaware of the potential danger and laughs.
5Why does thechild show “not the slightest fear”, though we know he is in danger?
The child is innocent and unaware of the potential threat posed by the snake. The child has probably not been exposed to the dark side of life/evil (represented by the snake), and so he is fearless.
Creative writing task:
Write a brief autobiographical sketch, based on a single childhood memory about an unusual or suspenseful encounter.
© Oxford University Press Southern Africa (Pty) Ltd 2013. From Oxford Practical Teaching English Literature: How to teach Grades 8–12. You may modify, print and photocopy this document solely for use in your classes.
Extract from The Dark Child The Autobiography of an African Boy by Camara Laye; Introduction by Philippe Thoby-Marcellin; Translated by James Kirkup and Ernest Jones. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1954. Reproduced by permission of the Roslyn Targ Literary Agency.