Dingwalo tsa Setswana: Literature - Poetry, Prose and Drama
The three genres
Poetry (pokisi/mafoko): study imagery, metaphor, personification, repetition, rhythm and tone. Ask what feeling the poem creates and which words create it. Prose (neelo/kanelo): study plot, character, setting, conflict, theme and narrator. Distinguish first-person from third-person narration. Drama (terama): study dialogue, stage directions, character motivation, dramatic irony and climax. Remember that a character's speech reveals character but is not automatically the playwright's view.
Reading for theme
Theme is the underlying message, stated as a full sentence: not 'poverty' but 'poverty forces people to make hard choices'. Support every theme with two or three specific incidents or quotations.
Character analysis
Describe a character by what they say, what they do, what others say about them, and how they change. Use evidence, not adjectives alone.
Traps
- Retelling the plot instead of analysing it.
- Confusing the narrator with the author.
- Quoting without explaining the quotation's effect.
- Ignoring stage directions in drama questions.
- Naming a figure of speech without saying what it achieves.
Worked rule of thumb
Use the Point–Evidence–Explanation pattern: state your idea, quote or cite a specific moment, then explain how it proves the idea. For example: 'The narrator fears failure; when he says he could not sleep before the exam, the sleeplessness shows his anxiety.'
Practice habit
For each set text, prepare a one-page sheet of themes, main characters and five key quotations.