THE CURSE -CHARACTERS

AZREEN

Main character of the novel. Studies in England. Happy to be away from her village. Did not have good relationship with her parents especially her father due to her defiant behaviour and tomboyish outlook. An outspoken and independent girl. Envious of her adopted sister, Madhuri. A helpful friend especially when she claimed responsibility for letting the bull run loose in order to save Mohd. Asraf's skin. Caring for her sick mother and Old Lady. Intelligent as she managed to further her studies in the United Kingdom.

 

MADHURI

A beautiful and polite lady. A submissive wife and daughter. Religious and good at reciting Quranic verses. Conservative compared to her sister, Azreen. Protective of her sister when they were young. A polite and caring daughter. Concerned about her sick mother.

 

MOHD. ASRAF

A dedicated and popular teacher in a local school on the island. Independent since young. Good friends with Azreen while they were in school together. A caring grandson who is concerned about his grandmother's well-being. Loves Madhuri and wanted to take her with him to Kuala Lumpur.

 

SALEH ABDULLAH

Madhuri and Azreen's father. Active and strong for his age. A stern father to Azreen since when she was young. Not on good terms with Azreen since the motorcycle accident which paralysed Azreen's mother. A manipulative father who let Madhuri become Haji Ghani's second wife in order to protect his interests. An egoistic person who could not accept Madhuri's love affair with Mohd. Asraf and in the end killed Madhuri in a fit of anger at the rubber plantation.

 

HAJI GHANI

The village headman who fell for Madhuri and took her as his second wife. Neglects his first wife, Fathihah in the process. An influential man on the island. Hides the cause of his wife's death in order to protect his reputation. Knows of Madhuri's affair with Mohd. Asraf. A religious man.

 

SITI

An obedient daughter of Pn. Kamsiah. She helps Mohd. Asraf to look after his grandmother while he looks for the medicinal plants. She is also a responsible girl as she warns Azreen about the mob that is lead by Mohd. Asraf to the Old Lady's house. She is gullible as she likes to ponder over the gossips and rumours told by Normala, the village gossip.

 

PUAN NORMALA

The rumour monger of the village and her topic of interest is on Madhuri and how she died. She is sneaky and malicious when she coaxed Mohd. Asraf to confront the Old Lady, accusing her as the reason why his grandmother's health deteriorates and she finally dies. She is also superstitious when she blamed the Old Lady's visit to Mohd. Asraf's house as the reason for the continuous rain.

 

THE OLD LADY

An educated woman as she has knowledge of herbal medicine to treat illnesses. Her house is always neat and situated by the hillside. She is a caring and concerned woman as she takes Azreen in and gives her food and shelter whenever she has fights and problems. She is also a resourceful person and she is a good cook and her recipes and secret ingredients are very much sought after.

 

DATIN SHARIFAH AND DATUK ZULKIFLI

Azreen's rich foster parents whom she stayed with for two months foster programme. Datuk and Datin helped her financially in her studies in the UK. Even though she only stayed with them for a short period of time, she still maintains a good relationship with them. Even though they are foster parents, they treat Azreen as their own child. Azreen calls her Mak Cik which signifies their close relationship.

 

BOMOH

The Bomoh is the person whom the villagers seek for traditional cure. It is through the Bomoh that the mysterious happenings that took place in the village are uncovered. The truth behind the death of Madhuri and the status of Azreen are also finally revealed by him.

FATIHAH

She is Haji Ghani's first wife and appears to adore Madhuri. However, she secretly hold grudges against her husband's young wife. She feels that her husband favours the young wife more than herself. She tries her best to win her husband's heart after the death of Madhuri

 

 

THE CURSE -CHAPTER 4

Azreen reaches home but is unable to see her sister,Madhuri's body as it has already been taken away for burial. Meanwhile, there is an air of mystery over Madhuri's death. Village gossip, Normala keeps insisting that she saw Madhuri's blood being white in colour. Azreen takes her mother to the burial ground.There she sees her father, Saleh Abdullah and Madhuri's husband, Haji Ghani. Her father gets angry at her for bringing her mother there. Walking back from the cemetery, she meets her old friend and classmate, Mohd. Asraf. They exchange greetings and Azreen is upset whenever she sees him as she knows he likes Madhuri more than her.Back in her living room, Fatihah, haji Ghani's first wife tears up the curtains Madhuri had put up in their house with keris. She is angry with Madhuri for dominating her home and ruining her peaceful married life with her husband.

The Curse -Chapter 2

When Azreen is on the plane, she recalls her childhood days with her sister, Madhuri. Madhuri was well-liked, prettier than Azreen. She was four years older than her and had been a filial daughter to her parents. On the contrary, Azreen is short, bespectacled, fiery-minded and always speaks her mind. She does not like to be compared to her sister, and rather envious of her sister's popularity. As blood is thicker than water, she also remembers the happier moments spent with Madhuri when they cycled past the paddy field and picked rambutans and fallen durians from the fruit plantations.

SPM REVISION: Monsoon History

Monsoon History

The air is wet, soaks
Into mattresses, and curls
In apparitions of smoke.
Like fat white slugs furled
Among the timber,
Or sliver fish tunneling
The damp linen covers
Of schoolbooks, or walking
Quietly like centipedes,
The air walking everywhere
On its hundred feet
Is filled with the glare
Of tropical water

Again we are taken over
By clouds and rolling darkness.
Small snails appear
Clashing their timid horns
Among the morning glory
Vines.

Drinking milo,
Nyonya and baba sit at home.
This was forty years ago.
Sarong-wrapped they counted
Silver paper for the dead,
Portraits of grandfathers
Hung always in the parlour.
Reading Tennyson, at six
p.m. in pajamas,
Listening to down-pouring
rain; the air ticks
With gnats, black spiders fly,
Moths sweep out of our rooms
Where termites built
Their hills of eggs and queens zoom
In heat.
We wash our feet
For bed, watch mother uncoil
Her snake hair, unbuckle
The silver mesh around her waist,
Waiting for father pacing
The sands as fishers pull
From the Straits after monsoon.

The air is still, silent
Like sleepers rocked in the pantun,
Sheltered by Malacca
This was forty years ago,
When nyonya married baba.

gnats
black spider
silverfish

QUESTIONS
1. Describe the air and what it does in lines 1-3.
2. Why does the poet use the word “apparitions” to describe the air (line 3)?
3. What other creatures start to appear in the garden?
4. Why do “Nyonya and Baba” count “silver paper for the dead” (lines 21-24)?
5. Why do they hang the “portraits of grandfathers” in “the parlour”?
6. Why does the poet mention the ancestors and their portraits?
7. What creatures does the poet see around her?
8. Why are these creatures associated with the “down-pouring rain”?
9. Why do you think this poem is called “Monsoon History”?
10. State 3 themes found in the poem.
11. State 3 moral values found in the poem.

SPM REVISION: If

If
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream -- and not make dreams your master;
If you can think -- and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings -- nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run --
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And -- which is more -- you'll be a Man, my son!

QUESTIONS
1. List the advice given in stanza 1:
2. List the advice given in lines 5-8:
3. List the advice given in lines 9-12:
4. List the advice given in lines 13-16:
5. List the advice given in lines 17-20:
6. List the advice given in lines 21-24:
7. List the advice given in lines 25-28:
8. What is the reward that comes to the man who can follow all the advice given in this poem?

SPM REVISION:There's been a death in the opposite house

There's been a death in the opposite house
As lately as today.
I know it by the numb look
Such houses have always

The neighbours rustle in and out,
The doctor drives away.
A window opens like a pod,
Abrupt, mechanically;

Somebody flings a mattress out, -
The children hurry by;
They wonder if It died on that, -
I used to when a boy.

The minister goes stiffly in
As if the house were his,
And he owned all the mourners now,
And little boys besides;

And then the milliner, and the man
Of the appalling trade,
To take the measure of the house.
There'll be that dark parade

Of tassels and of coaches soon;
It's easy as a sign, -
The intuition of the news
In just a country town.

QUESTIONS
1. How does the poet know that someone in the opposite house has died?
2. What does the poet really mean by the phrase “numb look”?
3. What does “such houses” (line 4) refer to?
4. From your knowledge of the poem, say who the speaker in this poem (the persona) is.
5. Why does the doctor “drives away”?
6. What does the word “rustle” suggest?
7. Why is the dead person referred to as “It” rather than “he” or “she”?
8. Why does the minister “own” all the mourners?
9. What does the milliner do?
10. Why does the speaker call the undertaker the “man of the appalling trade”?
11. What could the “house” (line 19) be in this poem?
12. Why is the funeral a “dark parade”?
13. What is the effect of using the word “dark”?
14. Why is it “easy as a sign” to tell when someone has died?
15. What is the theme of this poem?

IMPORTANT PHRASES :

1. Numb look suggests …………………….…………………
2. houses (line 4) suggests……………………………………….
3. house (line 19) suggests ………………………………………
4. dark parade suggests……………………………………….
5. I used to when a boy suggests………………………………
6. The intuition of the news suggests…………………………..
7. In just a country town suggests……………………………….

IMPORTANT PEOPLE- WHAT ARE THEIR ROLES/WHY ARE THEY AT THE DECEASED’S HOUSE?
1. Neighbours …………………………………………………
2. Minister …………………………………………………
3. doctor …………………………………………………
4. Milliner …………………………………………………
5. The man of the apppalling trade……………………………
6. mourners …………………………………………………
WORDS RELATED TO DEATH
Dark parade IS ……………………………………………..
Tassles and coaches ARE ………………………………………..
A window opens like a pod & somebody flings the mattress out MEANS ………………………………………………

SPM REVISION: si tenggang's homecoming

si tenggang’s homecoming
i
the physical journey that i traverse
is a journey of the soul,
transport of the self from a fatherland
to a country collected by sight and mind,
the knowledge that sweats from it
is a stranger’s knowledge,
from one who has learnt to see, think
and choose between
the changing realities.
ii
it’s true i have growled at my mother and grandmother
but only after having told of my predicament
that they have never brought to reason.
the wife that i begun to love in my loneliness,
in the country that alienated me
they took to their predecisions
i have not entirely returned, i know,
having been changed by time and place,
coarsened by problems
estranged by absence.
Iii
but look,
i have brought myself home,
seasoned by confidence,
broadened by land and languages,
i am no longer afraid of the oceans
or the differences between people,
not easily fooled
by words or ideas.
the journey was a loyal teacher
who was never tardy
in explaining cultures or variousness
look, i am just like you,
still malay,
sensitive to what i believe is good,
and more ready to understand
than my brothers.
the contents of these boats are yours too
because i have returned.
iv
travels made me
a seeker who does not take
what is given without sincerity
or that which demands payments from beliefs.
the years at sea and coastal states
have taught me to choose,
to accept only those tested by comparison,
or that which matches the words of my ancestors,
which returns me to my village
and its perfection.
v
i’ve learnt
the ways of the rude
to hold reality in a new logic,
debate with hard and loud facts.
but i too am humble, respecting,
man and life.
Vi
i am not a new man,
not very different
from you;
the people and cities
of coastal ports
taught me not to brood
over a foreign world,
suffer difficulties
or fear possibilities.

i am you,
freed from the village,
its soils and ways,
independent, because
i have found myself.

http://www.iias.nl/iiasn/interview_MHS.htm

QUESTIONS

1. What does “physical journey” refer to?
2. What does “A journey of the soul” refer to?
3. What do lines 5 & 6 mean?
4. What has this knowledge helped si tenggang to do?
5. How do his family members feel about the new si tenggang?
6. Who understood and accepted him?
7. si tenggang feels he has “not entirely returned”(line 16). Why is this?
8. How has he been changed?
9. What does “the contents of thee boats are yours too” mean (line 37)?
10. 25. Why does si tenggang say that he is “still malay”(line 32)?
11. 26.What is si tenggang’s journey compared to (line 28-30)?
12. 27.Why does he say he is “not a new man?”
13. In the last stanza (line 55-68), what does he say he has learned?
14. What do lines 64 to 66 mean?
15. What does he say he has become in lines 67 to 68? What does he mean?

j.a.m/smkbp/f4/lit

THE PEARL. Which character shows determination in the novel? Use evidence from the text to support your answer.

The character that shows determination in the novel, The Pearl is Kino. He is a poor pearl diver.
One day, he finds a great pearl. After finding the precious pearl, he places all hopes on it. He is determined to sell the Pearl of The World off instead of throwing it away. When he meets with the pearl buyer, they only offer him a very low price to buy the pearl. However, Kino refuses to bow down to the pearl buyers who try to cheat him, Therefore, he decides to sell the pearl to the cities in order to get a higher price.
Besides that, Kino also shows his determination in protecting the pearl.
The pearl has brought many problems to Kino and his family. Juana, his wife suggests that they destroy the pearl but Kino refuses and says that he will fight anyone who wants to take the pearl away from him. So, Juana decides to steal away the pearl but Kino had found it. He beats Juana due to the incident.
In the other hands, Kino also shows determination to protect his family.
When he finds the pearl, many men shows interests to the pearl including the trackers. They try to attack him by burning down his brush house and destroying his boats. So, Kino and his family escape from the trackers and hide themselves in the jungle but the trackers continue to follow them into the jungle. In order to protect his family, Kino killed one of the trackers in self-defence.
In conclusion, Kino shows his determination to sell the Pearl of The World besides determined to protect the pearl and protect his family from being attacked by the trackers.