Eng1501 - Assignment 3 Essay Small Things

ENG1501 - ASSIGNMENT 3 ESSAY SMALL THINGS QUESTION 1 Small things by Ntikeng Mohlele explores a number of different themes throughout the novel which creates certain types of internal conflict within the narrator. Firstly, I will be discussing the narrator’s internal conflict due to the meaning of his life and how his eighteen years imprisonment contributed to this. Secondly, I will be looking at the theme of love which leads to the inner conflict of trying to be accepted. Lastly, I will be discussing how the narrator’s internal conflict within society and inequality sparked due to his imprisonment. In the given paragraph the narrator’s internal conflict with being locked up for eighteen years creates a theme where the narrator questions and explores the meaning of his life. The narrator is faced with this internal uncertainty and confusion he has due to the eighteen-year imprisonment and he knows that he can’t change the way things are at the moment which makes him feel unvalued and misplaced within society. The narrator acknowledges that “he is not a Desmond Tutu. Or Nelson,” (Mohlele, 2013: 103) who contributed to change and new were to fit in and new what to fight for. The narrator has this “irresolvable anger” for what has happened to him and what has happened to others after the transitioning. The inner conflict the narrator’s experiences also stem from the fact that many people are left without jobs and homes all due to the transitioning and once again he can’t do anything about it. The narrator refers to “many walking dead, bruised by the revolution”, (Mohlele, 2013: 104) and through his diction we can also identify a bit of sadness. Through this statement the narrator doesn’t refer to people being actually dead but rather so badly affected by the change that they have nothing left and nothing to live for. The narrator expresses that he is not sure why he should live why is his life valuable, what does he have to live for? while he has nothing, “how is one expected to plead justification