The Toilet: Overview
The Toilet
Use the plot synopsis to get an overview of the text
Use the ‘graphic’ as a visual image to the text
Use ‘Who’s Who’ to understand the characters and the author
Use ‘Art form’ to analyse the genre and analyse the similarities or differences in other art from the period
Use ‘Themes’ to analyse the important plots and themes
Plot Synopsis
The story focuses on a young girl, coming of age as she discovers what life is like in an Apartheid South Africa.
The narrator is living with her sister in the maid’s quarters of a white African household, without permission or knowledge of her sister’s employers. There is not much action in the story, with most conflict being in the narrator herself. However, the narrator does interact with her work colleagues (being thought stupid for reading) and with her sister. Her main interaction is with her stories, with any form of literature and with her own writings.
Just like the novelist and poet Emily Dickinson, the narrator believes ‘You are never alone with a good book’. It is through her reading that she finds her own character and individuality, but she also finds escapism from the monotonous life she leads in a divided Apartheid society. In her books, she finds a place where she belongs and where she can find solitude and peace.
The short story starts with the narrator being depressed ‘Sometimes I wanted to give up...’ having no true identity in a world where she does not belong which contrasts to the ending ‘I accepted that the toilet was not mine after all... and wrote my story anyway.’ This is reminiscent of Nelson Mandela’s ‘Long Walk to Freedom’: a man whose words were banned and outlawed in his home, but he told his story anyway.
The story reinforces the fact that our voices are the most powerful tool we will ever have and that reading can help find our voices and our character.
Who’s Who?
Narrator: She is the teenager who is struggling to find her place in a world that doesn’t want her. For much of the
Use the plot synopsis to get an overview of the text
Use the ‘graphic’ as a visual image to the text
Use ‘Who’s Who’ to understand the characters and the author
Use ‘Art form’ to analyse the genre and analyse the similarities or differences in other art from the period
Use ‘Themes’ to analyse the important plots and themes
Plot Synopsis
The story focuses on a young girl, coming of age as she discovers what life is like in an Apartheid South Africa.
The narrator is living with her sister in the maid’s quarters of a white African household, without permission or knowledge of her sister’s employers. There is not much action in the story, with most conflict being in the narrator herself. However, the narrator does interact with her work colleagues (being thought stupid for reading) and with her sister. Her main interaction is with her stories, with any form of literature and with her own writings.
Just like the novelist and poet Emily Dickinson, the narrator believes ‘You are never alone with a good book’. It is through her reading that she finds her own character and individuality, but she also finds escapism from the monotonous life she leads in a divided Apartheid society. In her books, she finds a place where she belongs and where she can find solitude and peace.
The short story starts with the narrator being depressed ‘Sometimes I wanted to give up...’ having no true identity in a world where she does not belong which contrasts to the ending ‘I accepted that the toilet was not mine after all... and wrote my story anyway.’ This is reminiscent of Nelson Mandela’s ‘Long Walk to Freedom’: a man whose words were banned and outlawed in his home, but he told his story anyway.
The story reinforces the fact that our voices are the most powerful tool we will ever have and that reading can help find our voices and our character.
Who’s Who?
Narrator: She is the teenager who is struggling to find her place in a world that doesn’t want her. For much of the