By Elimu Assistant Team 
Read the poem below and answer the questions that follow. (20 marks)
Western civilization
Sheets of tin nailed to posts
driven in the ground
make up the house
Some rags complete
The intimate landscape
The sun slanting through the cracks
welcomes the owner.
After twelve hours of slave
labour
Breaking rock
shifting rock
breaking rock
shifting rock
fair weather
wet weather
breaking rock
shifting rock
Old age comes early
a mat on dark nights
is enough when he dies
gratefully
of hunger
Questions.
a) What is the poem about? (4 marks)
b) Identify and illustrate two features of style used in the poem. (4 marks)
c) What does the fifth stanza suggest about the work done by “he”? (2 marks)
d) What basic requirements does the “he” in the poem lack? (3 marks)
e) Why do you think the “he” dies “gratefully”? (1 mark)
f) Describe two themes brought out in the poem. (4 marks)
g) Explain the meaning of “Old age comes early” (1 marks)
h) Supply a word that means the same as hunger as used in the poem. (1 mark
Western civilization ANSWERS
a) The persona describes the house in which a worker lives. The nuclei is a shanty, which have cracks. The worker does a
monotonous job of breaking rock the whole day.
b) i) Irony: – Western civilization is ironical since the lining conditions of the “he” in the poem do not suggest civilization
but misery and suffering.
– The “he” in the poem is grateful to die
though normally death is feared / no onelikes dying.
ii) Repetition: “breaking rock” // shifting rock
(accept any other that or appropriate. I mk for
identification, 1 mk for illustration. No mark for
identification without illustration)
c) The repetition P 1 used in the stanza suggests that the work is monotonous / boring / uninteresting
d) Food : “he” dies of hunger.
Clothes: “a mat … is enough …” suggests that he lacks clothes / bedding to keep himself warm.
Shelter” “he” lives in a shanty – “sheets of tin … rags complete … landscape.”
e) The “he” is happy to die for death brings to an end all his problems.
f) Poverty the “he” sleeps in a shanty, sleeps on a mat and dies of hunger.
Exploitation: The “he” engages in hard labour throughout the day but the fact that he lacks basic requirements suggests that
he is underpaid.
g) The “he” in the poem looks older than he really is because of the strenuous and miserable life that he leads.
h) Starvation.
