Year 10 Semester 1 Exam Critical Reading Answers “David's Haircut” by Ken Elkes

Use the following answers as a guide for your marking. Reward the efforts of students who interpret the story with a ‘critical reading’ of its style, when supported by appropriate evidence of course. The key criterion of assessment after all is the student’s “awareness of the techniques used by the author in constructing the text”. The weakest responses are usually those that struggle to say anything meaningful in response to the last question. Although there are often those who run out of time, losing vital marks by not even attempting this last question, having the critical reading in the first section may have prevented this from happening.1. Answer all of the following questions using the suggested lengths as a guide. You may respond to other aspects of the story and

write about them as well.

(a. What is the routine that always leads to David’s trip to the barbershop with his father? (one or two sentences in length) 2

Essentially a brief summary of paragraphs 3 & 4: David's dad comments on his “mop” of hair needing a cut suggesting that he could do it himself. “Sometimes his dad chases him round the living room, pretending to cut off his ears.” David used to cry, believing his father really would remove his ears, “but he has long since grown out of that.”

(b. When David daydreams, imagining “sitting in the chair just like the men and older boys”, he goes on to think of something else. What is it and why does it worry him? (one or two sentences) 2

Essentially a brief summary of paragraph 21: “He thinks about the picture book of bible stories his aunt gave him for Christmas, the one of Samson having his hair cut by Delilah. David wonders if his strength will go like Samson's.”

(c. What special thing does Mr Samuels the barber use when cutting David’s hair, and why does he say that he won't need it soon? A motif is a usually recurring feature that is made to stand out in narratives, often with symbolic qualities. Explain how this thing works as one. (a paragraph) 4

A bench or wooden board covered with a piece of oxblood red leather placed across the arms of the chair for David to sit on, so that the barber doesn't have to stoop to cut his hair. He won't need it soon because David is getting tall enough to sit high in the chair without it. It works as a motif because it is referred to again in the story (paragraph 20: “he imagines sitting in the chair just like the men and older boys, the special bench left leaning against the wall in the corner”) to emphasise David’s growth. It comes to symbolise his disappearing youth – like the current loss of his hair that his father clings to in the last line and echoed again in the Samson reference.

(d. The language of the story is very simple with everyday diction and present tense syntax, but the author does use two examples of similes. What are they and how do they work?

(one or two paragraphs) 4

P9: “a wisp of grey-blue smoke like the tail of a kite twisting into the air” describes Mr Samuels’ cigarette smoke. It works by comparing the motion of the fumes with that of a kite’s tail because they both rise and twist through the air. Better, ‘A’ grade responses will point out that it introduces a wistfully gentle childhood image into this masculine adult scene.

P20: “his hair falls with the same softness as snow” compares the loss of David’s blonde hair with the colour and gentle softness of snow. Again, better ‘A’ grade responses will point out that it adds a wistful tone of romantic loss (“où sont les neiges d’antan”– where are the snows of yesteryear, to quote the famous Villon ballad!), which is picked up in the following paragraphs by referring to Samson’s loss of strength and David’s sudden desire “to reach down and gather up the broken blonde locks, to separate them from the others”.

A further note about similes: any clause, phrase or sentence that uses the word “like” is not automatically a simile, especially when “like” is not used to make a direct and explicit comparison between one thing and another. Some students mistakenly thought that this is the case. There are two debatable examples of this in the story worth noting, however. The clause “if his strength will

go like Samson’s” actually works as an analogy rather than a simile because it is developed from a more involved idea of David thinking about bible stories, rather than making a direct and immediate comparison, such as “David lost his hair like Samson”. Where a student chose this as a simile and gave a good explanation of its effect (e.g. evoking his naïve childlike anxiety about growing up), I gave them credit for that. The second example is the clause “David feels like he is in another world”, which is less justifiable because “like” works here much more as an adverb than part of a simile, clarifying his emotion rather than comparing the barbershop to something specific (like David’s hair loss to Samson’s; wisp of smoke to the tail of a kite; or hair falling with the same softness as snow).

(e. The setting of the story in time (of the year as well as of the day) and the way it uses particular motifs, both serve to highlight the story’s theme. How? Explain what the final line “David is surprised to find, warming in his father’s palm, a lock of his own hair” adds to that theme.

(two or three paragraphs) 8

Taking place on “the cusp between spring and summer”, the story ends as “the sun is … beginning to drop from its zenith”. Both moments in time symbolise change and reflect the story’s theme of growing up or coming of age in the simple tale of a young boy’s sudden awareness, not only of his getting bigger, but of losing innocence or losing at least a sense of what he once was as a child. The motif of “the special bench” that will be discarded when David is older leads him on to contemplate his future when he becomes “just like the men and older boys”, highlighting this ambiguous moment “on the cusp” of becoming an adult, of losing his childhood, just like he loses his “blonde locks”.

All this is introduced not only by the seasonal setting, but by such subtle hints as the narrator’s casual observation in the fourth paragraph that David “has long since grown out of” being scared by his father’s comically gothic antics (reminiscent of figures from childhood cautionary tales like Hoffmann’s Struwwelpeter – “Shock-headed Peter” who was too lazy to cut his hair and nails so lost his ears and fingers: beyond year 10’s – though perhaps accessible via Edward Scissorhands – but a sense of fairy tale is definitely in the tone). The naturalised conversation between David, his father and the barber Mr Samuels underline it further with clichéd comments about “the rate [he’s] shooting up”, charging more for hair and homilies like “they don't stay young for long do they, kids”.

The change from David’s excitement in Para.12 to anxiety in Para’s 21&22, prompting him to retrieve his childish locks as if clinging on to childhood, is transformed into a loving and gentle nostalgia by the father’s gesture at the end. By taking away a memento of his son’s hair, the father’s unrefined masculinity – figured behaviourally at the start with his Grimm humour and physically at the end with his “thick-skinned fingers” – is softened by sentimentality. This adds to the theme of ‘growing up’ or ‘loss of innocence’ a natural tenderness that was hidden beneath the surface of the barbershop setting’s blunt and coarse male practicalities.

Other aspects students may respond to (as the question suggests) could be the description and details of the barbershop itself and how they create the atmosphere of an adult

male world into which David enters;

the use of present tense which maintains a childish simplicity and wonder while emphasising the keenness of “the moment” of David’s awakening from past to future;

references already mentioned to Samson (archetype of idealised masculine strength), “Shock-headed Peter” or at least cautionary tales of childhood;

the ‘otherworldliness’ of the barbershop which goes beyond portraying a masculine domain into a mythical suggestion of a halfway house or place outside of time (the very realistic description of sleepiness that having a haircut readily provokes leading to the iconic biblical reference)