The Girl Who Can Questions and Answers Marks 2 & 5
MARKS 2
1. Who is the narrator of ‘The Girl Who Can?
The narrator of the story is Adjoa. She is seven years old and characterized with thin long legs.
2. What is the theme of The Girl Who Can?
In The Girl Who Can by Ama Ata Aidoo we have the theme of conflict, innocence, freedom, insecurity, connection and pride where the ultimate outcome leads towards a positive progression.
3. What is the setting?
Adjoa was born in Hasodzi, a very big village in the central region of the country, Ghana. Hasodzi lies in a very fertile lowland in a district of Ghana, known for its good soil.
4. What are Adjoa’s problems?
Adjoa has two problems. She feels, “I do not have the proper language to speak them out with. And that, I think, is a very serious problem because it is always difficult to decide whether to keep quiet and not say any of the things that come into my head, or say them and get laughed at.” Also she realizes from Nana’s statements, “I am not sure about her legs……they are too thin….” that she has too spindly legs which could make her life difficult in future.
5. What is the role of women in this story?
According to Nana, the role of women is to create a family and take care of the children. At the end of the story, it has been established that women can contribute to society in many ways.
6. Why are legs important in this story?
In this story, Adjoa’s legs are too thin. Legs are important because her grandma thinks that those legs are meant to raise a family. When Adjoa is selected to run for the junior athletes and she becomes the best Junior athlete, she realizes that legs can be useful in so many other ways.
7. Why, according to the story, the school was a waste of time for women?
As per the social stigma existing in the society, women are meant only to create a family and take care of them. Education is not important. African countries were under colonial rule for a long time and the colonizers did not take any effective step for their education. So after colonization, the women especially were stuck to their earlier condition.
8. What does the winning of Adjoa signify?
Adjoa’s running and winning here symbolizes every woman’s struggle to break free from society’s barriers and emerging from there triumphantly. She symbolizes liberation from the way she was looked at, and liberation from the set definition of a “perfect” woman. She has created her own definition of ‘perfect’.
9. Why does Nana criticize the narrator’s legs?
Nana worries that the narrator’s legs are too thin, and that she doesn’t have good legs and hips to have children later. Clearly this is an example of the society values created for women to behave only like child-bearers.
10. In “The e Girl Who Can,” how does Nana change at the end of the story?
As Adjoa wins the best junior athlete award, Nana feels proud of her. She is no more worried to accompany Adjoa, rather carries her Trophy on her back to show it to Adjoa’s mother and others in order to prove her ability. She is happy and accepts that a pair of legs of a girl have other utilities too.
MARKS -5 [The Girl Who Can Questions and Answers]
1. How can call the author irresponsible in terms of the story?
In “The Girl Who Can,” the irrepressible Ama Ata Aidoo looks at the roles and rules, and the games people find themselves playing, often unwillingly. She analyses African women’s struggle to find their rightful place in society. Her stories raise issues of choice and conflict, teasing about the issues with disarming frankness. How do people behave in cross-cultural relationships? In the modern world, where a plastic label identifies us, what is our identity? Will African women be in the driving seat in the twenty-first century? With the zest and humour, Aidoo raises these questions and provides some challenging answers.
2. What is the collection of the stories ?
In this collection of short stories, Aidoo elevates the mundane in women’s lives to an intellectual level in an attempt at challenging patriarchal structures and dominance in African society. Written from a child’s perspective, Aidoo subverts the traditional beliefs and assumptions about the child’s voice. Her inimitable sense of style and eloquence, explores love, marriage and relationships with all the issues they throw up for the contemporary African woman. In doing so, she manages to ca capture the very essence of womanhood.
3. Describe the narrator of the story.
The narrator of the story is named Adjua. She is seven years old and characterized with thin long legs. her grandmother Nana and her mother Miami seems to be concerned about her long legs because she may not able to carry children in the future. The narrator, first, depicts her environment focusing on her grandmother then she informs us about the conversations between her mom and Nana. Indeed these conversations are mostly about her legs or about her father. The narrator Adjua exposes both of the external conflict and the internal ones. In her internal conflict, she usually discusses the external issues and wonders about them. The events of the story reach the climax when Adjua wins one of the school’s races. At this turning Point, Nana’s attitude Alters positively toward Adjua. She begins to realize that her long thin legs are of use after all.
4. Consider the author as a Feminist.
The author is a feminist and the notion of feminism in the story is very obvious. the author asserts the importance of self-expression through the narrator. Moreover, Aidoo manifests the practices of society through the character of Nana. Nana criticizes the protagonist a lot and does not let her eak her mind. Whenever Adjua tries to speak to her, nana laughs at her or asks her to never say that again. In effects, her grandmother also embodies society’s typical expectation of the Female. She always complains that her thin legs won’t help her to carry a child. Her grandmother also does not support her education, which is something very common in third world societies. Actually, the major feminist theme in this narration is the fact that the protagonist destroyed all of this criticism and changed Nana’s point of view and proved that she can!
5 . Give a short understanding of the story.
Adjoa is seven years age, and she lives in Hasodzi which is a big village in Ghana. She thinks that she has only one problem that she has thing legs. Her grandmother, Nana, does not like that. She think that women should have legs that have meat on them, have good calves and are strong to be able to have children. Furthermore, Adjoa does not also have the proper language to speak. When she says something, her grandmother laughs until tears run down her cheeks. If someone comes, she tells him/her about Adjoa and laughs agn. Adjoa never knows why they laugh. Back to her main problem, legs, her mother and grandmother always discuss about them. Nana complains about Adjoa’s legs because they are very thin. However, Adjoa’s mother, Kaya, does not like that. Adjoa wishes to see legs of any women, but it is not easy in her village. She sees her friends’ legs, and she thinks that they look like her legs. Another thing that Nana does not like is school because she thinks that it is waste time. However, Kaya disagrees with her, and she wants Adjoa to learn. In addition, teachers choose Adjoa to join the district games. Adjoa tells her mother and grandmother about the game and they are very happy. Moreover, during the week before the race, Nana has washing Adjoa’s school uniform herself. Adjoa joins the race and wins. She also wins the cup for the best all-round junior athlete. Nana is very pleased, and she carries the gleaming cup on her back. She shows Kaya the cup and returns it to the headmaster. Then she carries Adjoa on her knee and says: “saa, thin legs can also be useful… thin legs can also be useful”.
6. What is the external conflict in the story?
The external conflict happen between herself and the expectation that come from her grandmother and how she find herself a place in the society. Adjoa was born with long and thin legs, which uncommon and bad for women in that society. Her grandmother always complains about it every day to Adjoa’s mother, they often have arguing over it. Her grandmother, Nana, expected Adjoa’s mother to have a son but the reality Adjoa’s mother is giving birth a daughter, who will end up to stay at home and take care of the children. Nana always states that a woman should have big legs with good calves to support solid hips. And a woman should have a solid hips to be able to have children. From here, it can be concluded that Nana is worrying about Adjoa future tat she will not able to give birth and have children. Adjoa should struggle to prove that she can do something good with her legs. She has won every race she ran for her school and Nana says that she does not care of such things, but actually Nana is very proud of Adjoa, it can showed from how she treats Adjoa after the race, she is ironing Adjoa’s uniform.
7. What is the internal conflict in the story?
The internal conflict happen between Adjoa with herself, she has a difficulty in communication so it is hard for her to speak up her mind to her grandmother. She does not know whether she should keep quiet and not to say any of things that come into her mind, or say them and get laughed at. She is just a seven years old girl with many questions in her head but she cannot speak them up to find the answer. She wants to be heard to encourage her to express her thought too often.
8. Write a short summary of the story .
The Girl Who Can is a story about seven years old, Adjoa, who does not well at communication. She was born with long and thin legs. She should see her mother and her grandmother, Nana, arguing over her imperfect legs every day. Nana always complains to Adjoa mother for her having a daughter with long and thin legs. In Ghana the women suffer due to the patriarchy, having a son is much better than having a daughter. But, in the end Adjoa can prove to her grandmother that even she has imperfect legs, she can achieve something great.
9. Write a short biography of Ama Ata Aidoo.
Ama Ata Aido or Christina Ama Aidoo was born on March, 23 1942 in Abeadzi Kyiakor, near Saltpond, Gold coast, now Ghana. Aidoo is a Ghananian author. Aidoo grew up in a royal household with a clear sense of African traditions. Sh studied at the University of Ghana and became a writer at Stanford and Harvard University in the US. As a writer her works are mostly focuses on the deception of the role of African woman in modern society and African disaporic identity.
15. What is interesting to note in the story?
It is also interesting that the narrator herself does not feel insecure about how her legs look rather she is more inc inquisitive as to whether or not she will be able to have children. Even though she has yet to fully grow and is only seven years even years of age.oboom.com
16. How is the narrator’s curiosity important?
The narrato curiosity may be important as it suggests that the narrator is still somewhat innocent. As one would expect a seven year old child to be. It is also noticeable that at times the narrator says things which are deemed inappropriate by Nana.
18. Why doesn’t the narrator counteract anything with Nana?
if she doesn doesn’t counteract anythi Nana says about her legs by telling Nana that she has legs that are suitable for running and that she is proud of herself. If anything the narrator again acts modestly. It is both Nana and Maami who consider what the narrator has done to be an achievement and something in which they are proud of the narrator.
23. What are the imitations of the narrator’s abilities?
If anything the narrator’s abilities when it comes to running free the narrator from the traditional outlook that Nana has when it comes to the abilities of a woman to give birth. This might be important as Aidoo may be suggesting that the narrator may not necessarily carry on the traditions that Nana has lived her life by.
24. What comes along with freedom according to the story?
With freedom comes choices and the narrator may choose later on in life to take a different path to Nana and Maami. She is after all physically different in Nana’s eyes so it would not be too much to suggest that mentally the narrator might also be different to Nana and Maami.
25. What is interesting in the story?
What is also interesting about the story is the fact that the only real freedom that the narrator has comes with her running and as mentioned the narrator is modest about her abilities. She does not consider herself to be more important than others.ro pela a fi non bab aligo a gumon of er now Pinotto vantos
26. By whom are the abilities of the narrator nurtured?
If hopinging the narrator has an ability which the reader is left hoping is nurtured by Nana and Maami. i. That both women continue to be proud of the narrator’s achievements and that they might accept that will be que the narrator’s life may turn out differently to how their life has turned out. It is as though the narrator has not only freedom and choices but she may be independent too.
27. What is the direction in spite of all criticisins to the narrator?
Despite all the criticism that is thrown in the narrator’s direction none of it sticks to the narrator. She may very well continue her life focusing on her running and the fact that she has the long, skinny legs runner. Something that is beneficial to the narrator and as such leaves the reader left with a sense of optimism for the narrator’s future. Tilby Just The narrator has choices that Nana and Maami may never have had.
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The Girl Who Can Questions and Answers Marks 2 & 5 The Girl Who Can Questions and Answers Marks 2 & 5 The Girl Who Can Questions and Answers Marks 2 & 5 The Girl Who Can Questions and Answers Marks 2 & 5 The Girl Who Can Questions and Answers Marks 2 & 5 The Girl Who Can Questions and Answers Marks 2 & 5 The Girl Who Can Questions and Answers Marks 2 & 5 The Girl Who Can Questions and Answers Marks 2 & 5 The Girl Who Can Questions and Answers Marks 2 & 5 The Girl Who Can Questions and Answers Marks 2 & 5
The Girl Who Can Questions and Answers Marks 2 & 5 The Girl Who Can Questions and Answers Marks 2 & 5 The Girl Who Can Questions and Answers Marks 2 & 5 The Girl Who Can Questions and Answers Marks 2 & 5 The Girl Who Can Questions and Answers Marks 2 & 5 The Girl Who Can Questions and Answers Marks 2 & 5 The Girl Who Can Questions and Answers Marks 2 & 5 The Girl Who Can Questions and Answers Marks 2 & 5 The Girl Who Can Questions and Answers Marks 2 & 5 The Girl Who Can Questions and Answers Marks 2 & 5
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