Train from Rhodesia Comprehension
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Train from Rhodesia Comprehension
A train journey and a carved lion
Nadine Gordimer’s short story “A Train from Rhodesia” is set in colonial-era southern Africa. In this original study retelling, a young white woman travels by train with her husband. At a small station, the train pauses and local people approach the carriages to sell goods. Among them is an old man holding a carefully carved wooden lion. The woman is drawn to it and wants to buy it. Her husband takes charge of the bargaining. Although the old man asks for a modest price, the husband presses him to accept less. The sale is made on the husband’s terms. The woman has wanted the lion, but the bargain makes the purchase feel different: its beauty is mixed with the knowledge that the seller has been treated unfairly. The train begins to move. The woman looks at the lion and then at her husband. She becomes uncomfortable with what the purchase represents: the passengers’ power to take something valuable from people who have little choice in the exchange. In a sudden act, she throws the wooden lion out of the window. The brief stop is over, but the unease remains. The story asks readers to consider the gap between admiring another culture’s art and treating its makers with respect.
Check your understanding
Use evidence from the passage in your answers. For questions asking you to explain, make a clear point and support it with a detail.
- On a train as it pauses at a small station
- At a busy market in London
- Inside a city museum
- At the woman’s home
- He presses the old man to accept less than he asked.
- He tells the woman not to buy anything.
- He pays more than the old man requested.
- He gives the lion back before the train moves.
- Economic inequality can shape an apparently ordinary purchase.
- Admiring an object always guarantees fair treatment of its maker.
- A brief encounter can reveal an imbalance of power.
- The woman throws the lion away because she dislikes all carved art.
3 printable pages
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