Analyze the following extracts in connection to Chapter 3 of We Need New Names
Explore MACROCOSM vs MICROCOSM, Theme, Setting, characters, plot, symbology, irony, literary devices, rhetorical devices, word choice.
1) "It's just madness inside Shangai; machines hoist things in their terrible jaws, machines maul the earth, machines grind rocks, machines belch clouds of smoke, machines iron the ground. Everywhere machines." (44)
2) "The Chinese men are all over the place in orange uniforms and yellow helmets; there's not that many of them but from the way they are running around, you'd think they are a field of corn." (44)
3) "Now there's this skeleton of a building that looks like it wants to belch in God's face." (45)
4) "Yes, didn't I tell you last time that China is a big dog?" (45)
5) "They don't look the way adults always try to look, making like they are in charge, so we pity them a little bit." (46)
6) "We are peeping like that and failing to see anything because it's dark in the tent when out walks this fat Chinese man fastening his belt, catching us." (46/47)
7) "And then, to add to our surprise even more, the fat man starts ching-chonging to us like he thinks he is in his grandmother's backyard." (47)
8) "Yes, somebody told Fat Mangena here that Chinese is our national language now.
Look at that drum of a stomach, it's like he has swallowed a country."
9) "We are still standing there when out walk these two black girls in skinny jeans and weaves and heels." (47)
10) "We build you big big mall. All nice shops inside; Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Versace, and so on and so on." (47)
11) "Well, you are in our country, that counts for something, Stina says." (49)
12) "If it weren't for the noisy machines, the Chinese would hear us telling them to leave our country and go and build wherever they come from."(49)
13) "Okay, it's like this. China is a red devil looking for people to eat so it can grow fat and strong. Now we have to decide if it actually breaks into people's homes or just ambushes them in the forest." (49)
14) But first we have to fight over the names because everybody wants to be certain countries, like everybody wants to be the USA...These are the country countries.
Nobody wants to be rags of countries like Congo, and not even this one we live in- who wants to be a terrible place of hunger and things falling apart?" (51)
15) "Who doesn't know that the USA is the big baboon of the world?" (51)
16) "What we really want to do is take off and run to meet the lorry but we know we cannot. Last time we did, the NGO people were not happy about it, like we had committed a crime against humanity." (53)
17) "This time the NGO people are late; they were supposed to come on the fifteenth of last month and that month came and went and now we are on another month. Finally, the lorry arrives, churning dust like an angry monster."
18) "Except for the driver, all of them wear sunglasses. Eyes look at us that we cannot really see because they are hidden behind a wall of black glass."
19) "After we sit, the man starts taking pictures with his camera. They like taking pictures, these NGO people like maybe we are their real friends and relatives and they will look at the pictures later and point us out by name to other friends and relatives once they get back to their homes. They don't care that we are embarrassed by our dirt and torn clothing, that we would prefer they didn't do it. (54)
20)"This time taking lots of pictures of Chipo. It's like she has become Paris Hilton,it´s all just click-flash-click-flash..Now the cameraman pounces on Godknow's black buttocks. Bastard points and laughs, and Godknows turns around and covers the holes of his shorts with his hands." (55)
21) "At first we try and line up nicely, as if we are ants going to a wedding, but when they open the back of the lorry, we turn into dizzied dung flies...We are careful not to touch the NGO people, though, because we can see that even though they are giving us things, they do not want to touch us or for us to touch them." (55-56)
22) "Each of us gets a toy gun, some sweets, and something to wear,I get a T-shirt with the word Google at the front, plus a red dress that is tight at the armpits." (57)
23) "After we get our things, it's the adults turn. The truth is we hear them all the time complain about how the NGO peoplehave forgotten them, how they should visit more often, how NGO this and NGO that, like maybe the NGO are their parents." (57)
24) "It's MotherLove alone who does not join the line for food." (57)
25) "Hawy, MotherLove! Sis Betty shouts in a silly voice like she is coaxing a stupid child. Please come, bantu, can't you see we've brought you gifts? she says. The NGO people hold out more little packages to MotherLove, and the two white women even bare their teeth like grinning dogs." (58)
26) "When the NGO lorry finally leaves, we take off and run after it. Sbho screams, Take me with you! and we're all screaming the words, screaming and screaming, like somebody said the lorry would turn around and take whoever screamed the loudest." (58)
27) "Now that the lorry is gone-gone, we do not scream anymore. We are as quiet as graves, sad like the adults coming back from burying the dead. Then Bastard says, Let's go and play war, and then we take off and run to kill each other with our brand-new guns from America." (59)
