Describe what you have learnt about different cultures from reading ‘Crackling Day’ by Peter Abrahams and ‘A Hero’ by R.K.Narayan.
‘Crackling Day’ by Peter Abrahams is set in South Africa during the apartheid time. Apartheid is a political system where white people were in power over black people. The main character in the story is a boy called Lee who everyday makes the journey to collect the crackling. On his way back, he and his friend, Andries bump in to some white boys who insult Lee’s dead father. Lee learns the hard way and his Uncle punishes him.
‘A Hero’ by R.K.Narayan is set in India. It is about a boy called Swami whose father teaches him a valuable lesson of growing up and to become a man. Both stories give us an inside into how other cultures live.
After reading both stories we can see that the two families are very different. Lee’s family is quite poor, where as swami’s is well off. We know this because lee’s Aunt and Uncle runs a farm, his Aunt’s hands are described as swollen from manual labour and working extremely hard. Swami’s father is reading the paper at the beginning of the story, ‘Father looked over the newspaper he was reading’. This shows us his father has been educated and is wealthy enough to find the time to sit around and read the newspaper. Swami mentions the cricket club he is a member of, this tells us that he is educated enough to be able to join something like this. However, in ‘Crackling day’ there is no mention of any education for Lee. Lee is wearing shorts, shirt and no shoes despite the fact that it is winter in South Africa and icy cold. ‘An icy cold draught, sharp bites to the morning air’. ‘My feet felt like frozen lumps that did not belong to me, yet jarred and hurt everytime I put them down’.