I refused to take your brotherly hand: KCSE English Poetry Questions and Answers

Read the poem below and answer the questions that follow.

​​Your nails are black with dirt, brother
And your palms are clammy with sweat
I refuse to take the hand you extend in help
I shall not join hands with you brother
For unclean hands make me uneasy
For filthy fingernails rob me of my pride.

You argue, gesticulating with your once
Impeccably clean and beautiful hands
That before long it shall not matter
For ‘everybody’ is delving and digging
And all shall have hands dripping with dirt.

​Your nails are black with dirt, brother
And your palms are clammy with sweat
I refuse to take the hand you extend in help
I shall not join hands with you brother
For unclean hands make me uneasy
For filthy fingernails rob me of my pride.

You argue, gesticulating with your once
Impeccably clean and beautiful hands
That before long it shall not matter
For ‘everybody’ is delving and digging
And all shall have hands dripping with dirt.

That nobody shall know clean hands look like
And there shall be comfort in the dirty crowd
And enough to eat, for there are good yields
When the stinking manure is well dug in
With strong and bold hands in time

Are you going blind brother?
I ask how many have the sludge
Or the strong and bold hands like yours
With which to dig and delve?
Brother the hands of many are too weak with hunger
And for many the sludge is out of reach
And yet for others the stink is too nauseating!
But all have eyes and hunger fills them with anger
As they watch your fingernails fill with dirt!

​​I have seen hungry envious eyes
Watching silently through your chain-link fence
I have seen eyes in deep sunken sockets
Burning with anger intently watching you
I have seen parched mouths water with saliva
And heard the rumbling of hollow empty stomachs
As they watched you feed the dog with meat
From the heavy yields of city sludge

​Have you entirely forgotten Brother
The fragrance and comfort of clean hands?
The confidence, the peace you have when you know
You’ll leave no ugly smudge upon sheet?
Don’t you remember the repulsion you had
When you shook hands with fat dirty men
With their dirty clammy plams?

Let me trudge brother and from the top from the top of the cliff
Don’t offer me your dirty hand in help.
Let me trudge the long way up
Let me trudge the long way up
For the short cuts are clammy with the sweat of fear
And your fingernails are clogged with dirt.

Henry Barlow
Adapted from Poems from East Africa by Cook &Rubadiri,
H.E.B, 1971, 18-19

​​Questions 

• a) Briefly explain the message in the above poem. (3mks)
• b) Identify the two types of hands referred to in the poem and explain what theyrepresent. (2mks)
• c) What reasons does the poet give in stanza one for referring to take the“Brotherly hand?” Give your answer in note form. (3mks)
• d) Why does the persona wonder whether the brother has gone ‘blind’?  (2mks)
• e) The ‘brother’ seems to have changed from a previous lifestyle. Write out two lines to prove this.  (2mks)
• f) Identify and explain any two poetic devices used in the poem.  (4mks)
• g) What is the persona’s attitude towards the brother? (2mks)
• h) Explain the following as used in the poem. (2mks)
  • (i) Fingernails are clogged with dirt
  • (ii) Parched mouths

Answers

(i) The poem is about a man (brother) who was once moral and principled (your once impeccably clean hands) but  has changed, and is now immoral/corrupt (your nails are black with dirt, palms cleaning with sweat etc)
     the persona has thereafter ended the wrong doings / corruption
The message is corruption and its effects
(ii) Unclean/dirty/soiled hands-represents corrupt people and all forms of corruption Impeccable/clean/beautiful 
        hands – upright /  straight forwardness
(iii) The palms are carrying with sweat
       Unclean hands make him uneasy
       Filthy fingernails rob him of his pride
       Must be in note form IF NOT deduct ½ from the total
(iv) The brother does not seem to see reality
       That few people are rich through corruption
       That few have courage to enter the world of corruption
       That many who are interested and would willingly become corrupt do not have the connections
       That others are too morally upright to join in corruption etc
(v) …Your once impeccably clean and beautiful hands.
           Have you entirely forgotten brother?
       ……remember the repulsion……….
(vi) Rhetorical questions .are you blind brother?
                                          Emphasizes /stress persona’s point.
        Metaphors .shortcuts are soiled and slippery getting wealth the corrupt way is evil and unreliable
        Leave no ugly smudge upon the sheets
        There will be no guilty feelings in his life 
       The top of the cliff
       The precautious height of riches
                Identify and illustrate = 2mks
(vii) The persona is critical / contemptuous
        He/she despises the brother and unlashes his brothers corrupt nature 
(viii) A. a life full of corruption
        B. mouths that have become hot and dry from hunger and thirst

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