ACT 2 WK BK NO 3 PGS 119 TO 121

ACT 2 WK BK NO 3 PGS 119 TO 121

(i)                  Nicola has just remarked that Louka was “young” – he was emphasising her inexperience, but Louka reminds him that he finds her youthfulness attractive.

(ii)                One example of the secrets Luka knows is that Raina had hidden a fugitive Serbian soldier from a Russian officer and the soldiers of the Bulgarian army when they had come to search the house. She also knows that Raina is in love with that man.

(iii)               Louka thinks that the family dare not offend her because she would then threaten them about revealing the unpatriotic behaviour of Raina and her mother in giving refuge to an enemy soldier and hiding him from the Bulgarian army officer and soldiers. She believes that she can blackmail them into keeping her because they would not allow this secret to be let out as they would be seen as traitors to the nation.

(iv)              According to Nicola, far from being afraid of Louka, the family would say that she was a liar and dismiss her from service. Because of the status of the family everyone would believe the family and no one would believe Louka and she would never be employed again and her poor father would lose his land due to their destitution.

(v)                The impact of Louka’s dismissal from the Petkoff household would be that she would not be able to secure another job and thus she would not have any income and she would not be able to support her father who would then have to sell his property in order to care for themselves. In other words Louka dn her family would be reduced to destitution.

(vi)              The extract points out the theme of social discrimination because Nicola ends off his speech to Louka with the line “you don’t know the power such high people have over the like of you and me when we try to rise out of our poverty against them.” In this statement Nicola states that when a poor person tries to flaunt his or her social equality, the higher classes use all their power to suppress them. Thus if Louka tried to expose the unpatriotic behaviour of Raina and Catherine, it would be used against Louka and she would be driven to destitution with her family. The others in the Petkoff social class would close ranks and support their own and ensure that the lower classes do not come up.