Down Second Avenue

Question 1

What is Es’kia Mphalele’s birth name?

Answer 1

Ezekiel Mphalele. Later in life, he Africanized his first name.

Question 2

Where is Mphalele from?

Answer 2

South Africa

Question 3

Where does Mphalele and his family go at the end of Down Second Avenue?

Answer 3

Nigeria/Lagos

Question 4

What was apartheid?

Answer 4

Segregation in South Africa that lasted officially from 1948 - 1991, though the mistreatment of native South Africans by white colonists was taking place long before that.

Question 5

From what poet does Mphalele quote in the epigraph to this book?

Answer 5

Yeats (The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.)

Question 6

Where is the Second Avenue of that title?

Answer 6

Marabastad in Praetoria

Question 7

What is the name of the village Mphalele lived in as a child?

Answer 7

Maupaneng

Question 8

When were beer raids usually conducted? How were beer kegs often hidden?

Answer 8

Saturday nights; Buried in yards.

Question 9

What was a common way for women to make extra money?

Answer 9

Brewing beer

Question 10

Who is Ezekiel’s particular friend in the neighborhood (with whom he almost has a romance)?

Answer 10

Rebone

Question 11

What is the name of Rebone’s father?

Answer 11

Dinku Dikae

Question 12

What is Dinku Dikae particularly afraid of?

Answer 12

Police

Question 13

What is the name of the dominating matriarch of Second Avenue who always frightens away her potential daughters in law?

Answer 13

Ma-Lebona (Son: Joel)

Question 14

What is a common tragedy of winter in Marabastad?

Answer 14

Children would try to warm themselves by huddling near pots of boiling water. The water would spill and children would die from the burns.

Question 15

Who is Big Eye?

Answer 15

A school principal who keeps discipline by frequently caning his students for various offenses.

Question 16

How does Ezekiel perform in school?

Answer 16

He struggles a little at first after moving to the city from the country, but loves to read. By the time he is in 5th form, he and Rebone are constantly competing for first place in their class.

Question 17

Ezekiel must memorize poems by which two poets for school in 6th form?

Answer 17

Tennyson and Byron; he also enjoys reading Don Quixote

He comes to love reading/writing through a Western tradition, but it becomes his life mission to help an African tradition flourish. He comes to be known as the “Dean of African Letters.”

Question 18

What does “Boeta Lem” mean? Who is he? What happens to him?

Answer 18

Brother Blade; a man who lives in the neighborhood who has been to prison for murder.

He commits crimes around the neighborhood, including theft and rape, and is eventually condemned by the community at large and sentenced to ten years of hard labor.

Question 19

What is Ezekiel’s worst subject in school?

Answer 19

Mathematics

Question 20

What is the name of the girl with whom Ezekiel loses his virginity? What happens to their relationship?

Answer 20

Maria; he decides he is too busy for a girlfriend.

Question 21

What is the difference between a “kaffir” and a “couloured” person?

Answer 21

Kaffir was a term used for dark-skinned people of South African heritage. Coloured was used for people who were of mixed blood or were lighter skinned.

Question 22

What is the name of the secondary school Ezekiel attends?

Answer 22

St. Peter’s

Question 23

What does Ezekiel do after graduating from high school?

Answer 23

Attend teacher training college

Question 24

What happens to Dinku Dikae?

Answer 24

After a policeman arbitrarily enters his home and begins questioning him - insinuating that he has been sleeping with his daughter - Dinku Dikae strikes and kills him. He is convicted of murder and sentenced to death.

Question 25

What happens to Marabastad?

Answer 25

While Mphalele is away at teacher’s college, the white people of the town decide they want it moved. Many people lose their homes and livelihoods, and are given no choice but to uproot themselves and leave. The former site of the neighborhood is converted into a rugby field.

Question 26

What is the name of Mphalele’s wife?

Answer 26

Rebecca

Question 27

Why does Mphalele stop going to church?

Answer 27

He comes to see it as a hypocritical institution that takes advantage of oppressed people’s hope for salvation while teaching them to “love their neighbors” - their oppressors. Their oppressors, of course, claim to be Christian while still upholding white supremacy.

Question 28

What’s an early critical response to his writing that particularly bothers Mphalele? Why?

Answer 28

One white reviewer suggests that Mphalele should be writing more from his African identity rather than “imitating” the white experiences/styles he has been taught. Mphalele agrees, but observes that the white reviewer is able to make this suggestion without ever having experienced the pain of inhabiting a South African identity.

Question 29

What was the Bantu Education Act?

Answer 29

A piece of apartheid legislation that legalized segregated schools and other discriminatory practices that were already active under apartheid.

It is for opposition to this Act that Mphalele must stop teaching.

Question 30

What was the subject of Mphalele’s MA thesis?

Answer 30

“The Non-European Character in South African English Fiction”

Question 31

What important achievement does Mphalele make during the years after he can no longer teach?

Answer 31

He successfully earns a M.A. degree