ACT 1 WK BK NO 26 PGS 93 TO 95

ACT 1 WK BK NO 26 PGS 93 TO 95

(i)                  : ‘The Man’ says that he must do something because Raina “at her wits end” has asked what she is to do with him. ‘The Man’ has been in her room and she faces the possibility that his presence will be discovered and that she will be taken for a traitor. Thus she wants him to get on his way.

What ‘The Man’ intends to do is not certain – apparently he needs to get out through the window in Raina’s room and get down the pipe outside the house and be off to wherever he was trying to escape to. But we also know that he realises that he has found a sympathetic person in Raina and may be pretending to leave – he might expect that like the previous time she will save him again.

(ii)                : In order to rouse himself from the sleep and exhausted state he shakes himself and pulls himself together – meaning straightens his clothes and stands more upright and tries and get more energy into his voice. This is to give the impression or to try and get into the physical and mental state to do something rather than give into his sleep and fear.

(iii)               Just earlier before this passage when Raina had demanded that he leave the safety of her room because she had spoken badly about her fiancé, ‘The Man’ had said that heights made him “giddy”; he had said that he was “beaten” and he had asked Raina to give the alarm – that is, tell those searching for him about his presence, saying that he gave up trying to save himself.

(iv)              ‘The Man’ called himself a “chocolate cream soldier” because Raina had just given him that name saying that he was “a very poor soldier : a chocolate cream soldier”. He repeats her words both to prove that he is not such a disappointment as a soldier. He also says that to elicit her compassion for him with the view of her changing her mind and continuing to give him refuge.

(v)                Raina had expressed her fear that because of his sleepiness and giddiness because of his fear of heights, ‘The Man’ might fall off the pipe onto the stones below the house and hurt himself. ‘The Man’ tries to prove a brave face to the possible danger of that happening by saying that if he should fall he would sleep using the stones as his pillow as he was so sleepy.

(vi)              Raina seizes and pulls ‘The Man’ inside because as ‘The Man’ was attempting to open the shutters of the window to leave, there was a terrible burst of gun fire in the street below – which signalled that the pursuing Bulgarian soldiers and the blood thirsty mob was very close and that there was a far greater possibility of ‘The Man’ being captured if her were to leave at that moment of time. The imminent danger in which ’The Man’ was in makes Raina pull him back inside.

This action reveals that Raina is a very compassionate person. It also reveals that most probably Raina never had any intention of sending ‘The Man’ away as she had already taken more than a fancy to him. Thus she could also be seen as very courageous and grasping the opportunities of life when they presented themselves, especially the significant opportunity of not losing a person whom she loves.