The Zoo Affair

Grade 11 English, Term 2

POETRY
Douglas Livingstone

• Douglas Livingstone (1932–1996) was a South African poet.

• He was born in Kuala Lumpur (capital of Malaysia), but his family

moved to Natal after his father was taken prisoner during the
Japanese invasion of Malaysia.

• He attended Kearsney College and in 1964, he started work as a

marine biologist in Durban.

• He gained two doctorates from the University of Natal; one for

his scientific work and an honorary one for his poetry.
 Mind mapping…
What ideas and feelings
are conjured at the
mentioning of the word
zoo?
How about affair?
Let’s read the poem!
St
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a
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y
St
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In a nutshell, what is this poem
about?
The things people love… What do the first group of people like?
Clues: how is the water described?
Where is the water?
What does it remind you of?

With some it is water shrugging, bunched and oily

at the quayside – the cold welcome of lewd carpets;
for others, the pineal-sucked lure, dragging dizzy
and out from windy skyscraper parapets.

What do the next group of people like?

Look up these words in the dictionary: pineal; parapets?
Where are they? What is appealing about this place?
Pineal: a pea-sized conical mass of tissue behind the third ventricle of
the brain, secreting a hormone-like substance in some mammals.

Parapet: parapet, a dwarf wall or heavy railing around the edge of a

roof, balcony, terrace, or stairway designed either to prevent those
behind it from falling over or to shelter them from attack from the
outside.

Lewd: Crude and offensive in a sexual way.

 What does this suggest
about the tiger and its
circumstances?
What does this suggest about the tiger?
Note change of focus to the man

With him it was the tiger; beautifully slack,

indifferent; sleep and captivity thinned;
lying on a fat pole like a striped rug, back
legs adangle, forepaws crossed under chin.

Identify the figure of speech.

What effect does it create?
Indifferent: having no particular interest or sympathy; unconcerned.

Thinned: make or become smaller in thickness.

Bengali poet who reshaped Bengali literature and music,
Also called Bangla: the language spoken in
as well as Indian art with Contextual Modernism in South Asia
the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

He even learnt a few words of Bengali (culled

from Tagore) and leapt the ditch to press
long and urgently at the bars, mad to scratch unpulled,
tortoise-shelled and round furry ears.

Why did the poet use the simple word “furry”? Provide a synonym we can use
What does it tell us about the way the man felt instead of MAD in the context of the poem.
about the tiger?
 What picture is this stanza creating in your mind?
Why?

Angry keepers and others ordered him back and he

went, backwards, arms out, aching and bent
about air the size of a tiger, and thought of his granite-
faced and quite unfurry apartment.

1. What does this tell us about the man’s life and circumstances?
2. Why are these important clues?
3. Is this the reason he is behaving like this?
Then one night he does it.
Someone recently said in a talk, “if you can dream it; you can do it”.
I suppose we have to beware of our dreams sometimes.

To shed his love one night he broke in, sat his

city trousers a moment on a foliage-crusted stone wall,
jumped running for the beloved bars, fumbled latches
and reverently entered the shrine through the feed-door.

Define this word.

How is it linked to the mood in this part of the poem?
I LOVE THIS VERSE. Imagine it… It’s the stuff of movies…

Flanks: the side of a

person's or
animal's body
For perhaps one second he felt it, face buried in rank between
the ribs and the
cat’s fur: the sleepy response. Then the rasped purr hip.
meshed with metallic springs. The barrelling flanks
pumped an outrage blast from alien vaults of power.

What does this suggest about the tiger’s

power? Explain.
Actions have consequences.
Smile: What does this
suggest about the way
in which he died?

Def: They found him on the floor early next morning, his head
Sticky a split and viscid watermelon; loosely the wet tufts
Messy of combed brains spilled, his smile quiet through the red;
beside him, for warmth, the cosy sprawl of his love.

Take note of the juxtaposition in this stanza:

The gruesome and violent description of the
remains VERSUS the smile, the love.
 Themes:
•Ennui (boredom) of mere existence
•Lacking perfection
•Obsession/addiction
•Being consumed by the things we
love
Questions
These are exam style questions.
Answer them in your workbook.
1.Identify the poetic device used in line 1 and comment on its effectiveness. (2)

personification (“water shrugging”) (1 mark). It is effective as it

creates the image of water moving in ripples and waves (1 mark)
2. Refer to stanza 2. What does this stanza tell the reader about the
nature and living circumstances of the tiger? QUOTE any two words
or phrases from the stanza to support your answer. (4)

• The tiger is not interested in his surroundings – “slack”; “indifferent”

(2 marks)
• The tiger his not healthy since he lives in a cage – “captivity thinned”
(2 marks)
3. Refer to stanza 3. What is the mental state of the man at this point of
the poem? (2)

He has been taken over by his desire to be with the tiger. He is

desperate and “mad” to touch the tiger. (2 marks)
4. Refer to line 16. Provide a possible synonym for “unfurry” within the
context of this poem. (1)

• OWN ANSWER. Something along the lines of “cold”, “harsh”,

“impersonal”, “stark”. (1 mark)
5. Refer to line 20. Define the word “reverently” and explain how it is linked to the mood of this
part of the poem.
(2)

• Reverently – with deep respect, with great awe, worshiping (1

mark). The man considers the tiger and his cage a sacred place and
he is amazed by it (1 mark).
P.E.E. Practise
6. One of the themes of this poem is being consumed by the things we
love. How does the final two stanzas of the poem illustrate this theme?
Write your answer in the form of a P.E.E. paragraph, using words and
phrases from the poem as your evidence.
(4)

OWN ANSWER. Must write in P.E.E. format. Must use direct

quotations for full 4 marks.