Exam-useful questions from this chapter, grouped by marks, each with a full model answer. Try writing the answer yourself first, then check it against this one.
1 1-Mark Questions
Q. Who is the author of “The Cutting of My Long Hair”, and what is her real name?
Answer: The account is by Zitkala-Sa, the pen name of Gertrude Simmons Bonnin, born in 1876.
Q. What is the title of Bama’s autobiography from which this chapter’s excerpt is taken?
Answer: The excerpt is taken from “Karukku” (1992), Bama’s autobiography.
Q. What warning does Judewin give Zitkala-Sa?
Answer: Judewin, who knew a few words of English, warns her that she has overheard a paleface woman talking about cutting their long hair.
Q. In which class was Bama studying when, she says, she had not yet heard people speak openly of untouchability?
Answer: She was studying in the third class, though she had “already seen, felt, experienced and been humiliated by” untouchability.
Q. What are “marginalised communities”?
Answer: Groups pushed to the edges of a society’s power and respect, treated as less important than the dominant, mainstream culture.
Q. What is untouchability?
Answer: The caste-based practice of treating certain people as untouchable, avoiding their touch in the belief that touching them would leave one “polluted”.
2 2-Mark Questions
Q. Why does shingled hair matter so much to Zitkala-Sa’s people?
Answer: Among her people, “only unskilled warriors who were captured had their hair shingled by the enemy”, short hair was worn by mourners, and shingled hair by cowards. So cutting her hair by force does not simply change her appearance; it leaves her hair “shingled like a coward’s”, in her own culture’s terms.
Q. How does Zitkala-Sa react when she first hears that her hair will be cut?
Answer: Unlike Judewin, who says they must submit because “they are strong”, Zitkala-Sa declares “No, I will not submit! I will struggle first!” and slips away to hide under a bed rather than accept the cutting quietly.
Q. Describe the dining hall’s system of bells on Zitkala-Sa’s first day.
Answer: A small bell has each pupil draw out a chair; when Zitkala-Sa, not understanding, sits down at once, she finds everyone else still standing. A second bell finally seats everyone properly, and a third bell starts the meal, when every pupil picks up a knife and fork together.
Q. Why does Bama’s ten-minute walk home usually take much longer?
Answer: The street and bazaar are full of things to watch: a performing monkey, a snake-charmer, a cyclist’s stunt, temple bells and offerings, stalls, street plays and puppet shows, and seasonal fruits and snacks, so she dawdles for thirty minutes to an hour taking it all in.
Q. Describe how the elder carries the packet to the landlord.
Answer: He holds it out by its string, without touching the packet itself, then bows low before the landlord and extends it, cupping the hand holding the string with his other hand, so that no part of him ever touches the food directly.
Q. What does Annan tell Bama is the real reason behind the elder’s odd way of carrying the packet?
Answer: Annan explains that everybody believed they were upper caste and therefore must not touch people of the elder’s community, because if they did they would be polluted; so the elder had to carry the package by its string instead of in his hands.
Q. What do both accounts in this chapter have in common?
Answer: Both are autobiographical episodes narrated in the first person by a writer from a marginalised community, remembering a childhood encounter with the power of a mainstream culture, and both show some form of resistance to the humiliation they describe.
Q. Name two terms the book itself uses for the social forces in these accounts, and explain each briefly.
Answer: “Mainstream culture”: the dominant culture both writers reflect on their relationship with. “Untouchability”: the practice of avoiding contact with people of certain castes, in the belief that touching them would leave one “polluted”, as shown in Bama’s account.
Q. What does the second episode involving Annan and the landlord’s man reveal about caste?
Answer: When the landlord’s man stops Annan and asks his name and then which street he lives on, it shows that in this society, knowing someone’s street is enough to know their caste, and that caste identity is something a stranger tries to establish by asking a person’s name and street.
3 4-Mark Questions
Q. Narrate, in your own words, what happens after Zitkala-Sa hides under the bed.
Answer: From her hiding place, she hears her name being called and knows even Judewin is searching for her, but she stays silent. Women and girls enter the room and search the closets and behind the trunks, and then someone throws open the curtains, flooding the room with sudden light. She is discovered, and although she resists by kicking and scratching wildly, she is dragged out, carried downstairs, and tied fast in a chair, where her hair is finally cut by force.
Q. Explain, with reference to the text, why the hair-cutting means so much more to Zitkala-Sa than a change of appearance.
Answer: The text explains that among Zitkala-Sa’s people, short hair was worn by mourners and shingled hair by cowards, and that only unskilled warriors who were captured had their hair shingled by the enemy. Cutting her hair by force therefore leaves her, in the terms of her own culture, “shingled like a coward’s”. She says “Then I lost my spirit” at that moment, and the text lists the earlier blows as well: “Since the day I was taken from my mother I had suffered extreme indignities.” The act attacks her dignity, not merely her appearance.
Q. Describe the range of sights and sounds Bama passes on her way home from school.
Answer: She passes a performing monkey, a snake-charmer with his snake, and a cyclist who has not got off his bike for three days, rupee notes pinned to his shirt. She sees spinning wheels, the Maariyaata temple with its huge bell and pongal offerings, a dried-fish stall by a statue of Gandhi, sweet and snack stalls, a colour-changing street light, and a narikkuravan hunter-gypsy selling needles and clay beads with a caged lemur. There are also political speeches, street plays and puppet shows, coffee clubs pouring coffee theatrically, and, by season, fruits and snacks such as mango, sugar-cane, guavas, payasam and iced lollies.
Q. Explain how Bama’s feelings change over the course of the vadai episode, from watching to hearing Annan’s explanation.
Answer: At first she is amused, almost wanting to laugh at how comically the elder walks while carrying the packet by its string. She tells her brother Annan the story as a joke. But when Annan explains that upper-caste people believed they must not touch the elder’s community, because they would be “polluted” by such contact, her amusement turns to sadness, and then to anger: she wants to touch the vadais herself, and declares “we too are human beings”, rejecting the idea that her community should have to run such errands at all.
Q. Compare the nature of the discrimination faced by Zitkala-Sa and by Bama.
Answer: Zitkala-Sa faces discrimination against her culture inside the school: direct physical force is used on her, she is dragged out and tied to a chair, and her hair, which carries meaning in her own culture, is cut against her will. Bama faces caste-based untouchability in the open, everyday life of her street: no physical force is used on her at all, and the entire cruelty lies in an elder being made to avoid touching food meant for an upper-caste man, out of a belief that touch would leave upper-caste people “polluted”.
Q. Compare how Zitkala-Sa and Bama each respond to the discrimination they face.
Answer: Zitkala-Sa responds immediately and physically: she declares “I will struggle first!”, hides, and fights back when found, kicking and scratching, even though she ultimately loses and says “I lost my spirit” once the cutting is done. Bama shows no resistance in the moment; at first she even finds the elder’s walk funny, and her anger surfaces only afterwards, once Annan explains what she has witnessed, and her response is delayed and constructive rather than confrontational: she channels her anger into studying hard, as Annan advises, and succeeds because of it.
Q. Explain what Annan means when he says education will let Bama “throw away these indignities.”
Answer: Annan tells Bama that being born into their community means they are denied honour, dignity and respect by others, but that studying hard and excelling academically can change how people treat her: if she is always ahead in her lessons, people will come to her and attach themselves to her of their own accord. He means that visible personal achievement can overturn the disrespect caste alone would otherwise guarantee, giving her a way to earn the dignity that birth denies her.
4 6-Mark Questions
Q. Give a detailed account of Zitkala-Sa’s first day at the school, from her arrival to the cutting of her hair.
Answer: Zitkala-Sa arrives at “the land of apples” on a bitter-cold day, unsettled by the loud breakfast bell, the clatter of shoes, and voices speaking an unknown tongue. At the dining hall, an unfamiliar system of three bells confuses her into standing and sitting at the wrong moments, and she ends up crying, too afraid to try anything further. Later, her friend Judewin warns her, having overheard a paleface woman, that their long hair is going to be cut; the text explains that among their people, short hair marks mourning and shingled hair marks cowardice. While Judewin decides they must submit because “they are strong”, Zitkala-Sa refuses, declaring “I will struggle first!” and hiding under a bed in a dim room. She is eventually found when the curtains are thrown open, and despite kicking and scratching, is dragged out, carried downstairs, and tied to a chair. There, the scissors cut off one of her braids, and she says, “Then I lost my spirit,” summing up her ordeal as being “tossed about in the air like a wooden puppet” and now “shingled like a coward’s.” The account ends with no comfort coming to her, only her own description of herself as “one of many little animals driven by a herder.”
Q. Give a detailed account of the vadai episode and its aftermath, including both of Annan’s pieces of advice/explanation to Bama.
Answer: Watching a threshing floor on her own street, Bama sees an elder approach the landlord carrying a small, oil-stained packet by its string, without touching it, in a manner so odd it almost makes her laugh. He bows low, extends the packet with his other hand cupped under the string-holding hand, and the landlord opens the parcel and begins to eat the vadais. At home, Bama tells her brother Annan the story as a joke, but he is not amused: he explains that everybody believed they were upper caste and therefore must not touch people of the elder’s community, because they would be “polluted”, which is why he had to carry the food that way. Hearing this, Bama’s amusement turns to sadness and then anger; she insists “we too are human beings” and objects to her community running such errands at all. In a second episode, Annan himself is stopped near an irrigation tank and asked his name and street, purely so the questioner can work out his caste. From this, Annan draws a lesson for his sister: their community is denied honour and dignity by birth, but studying hard and excelling can “throw away these indignities”, since if she is always ahead in her lessons, people will come to her of their own accord and attach themselves to her. Bama takes this advice to heart, studies “in a frenzy almost”, stands first in her class, and gains many friends as a result.
Q. “The two accounts that you read above are based in two distant cultures.” Discuss the commonality of theme found in both, with reference to specific details from each account.
Answer: Although Zitkala-Sa’s world is a school where Native American children are made to give up their blankets, moccasins and long hair, and Bama’s is a Tamil Dalit girl’s own street, the book’s own introduction describes what they share: both are autobiographical episodes by women from marginalised communities, looking back on childhood and reflecting on their relationship with a mainstream culture. In Zitkala-Sa’s case, the mainstream culture is the school’s authority (the “paleface” women), which cuts her hair by force although among her people shingled hair was worn by cowards and short hair by mourners. In Bama’s case, it is the upper-caste order of her village, which makes an elder carry food by its string, because upper-caste people believed that touching “us” would leave them “polluted”. Both narrators experience this power personally as children: Zitkala-Sa at once, Bama having “already seen, felt, experienced and been humiliated” by untouchability, though in the vadai episode it is Annan’s explanation that makes its meaning clear to her. Both accounts, being autobiography, mix personal memory with the adult writer’s reflection. Both also show some form of resistance rather than silent acceptance, whether Zitkala-Sa’s immediate physical struggle or Bama’s later determination to study hard; this is one reading of the two accounts.
Q. Discuss how the two accounts differ in the nature of the discrimination faced and in the responses of the two writers, using specific details from the text.
Answer: The two accounts differ sharply in kind. Zitkala-Sa faces discrimination against her culture inside the school: direct physical force is used on her body, dragging her out of hiding and tying her to a chair to cut off her braid against her will, violating a specific custom of her own people in the process. Bama faces caste-based untouchability: no one touches her or the elder with force; the entire cruelty is that an upper-caste belief, held by everybody in that society as Annan puts it, that touch would leave them “polluted” makes an elder of her community carry food by a string rather than in his hands. The responses differ just as sharply. Zitkala-Sa resists immediately and physically, declaring “I will struggle first!” and fighting even though she loses, ending the account inside her own unresolved anguish. Bama shows no resistance in the moment at all; at first she finds the elder’s walk funny, and her anger only surfaces afterwards, once Annan’s explanation makes the incident’s meaning clear to her. Her response is deliberate and constructive rather than confrontational: she turns her anger into the will to study hard, exactly as Annan advises, and stands first in her class. So while both accounts share a theme of discrimination met with some resistance, the type of discrimination, the moment of response, and the shape that response takes are genuinely different in each account.
5 Case Studies
(A) 1 mark What does Zitkala-Sa say happens to her at the exact moment her braid is cut?
Answer: She says, “Then I lost my spirit.”
(B) 2 marks What does Zitkala-Sa mean when she says she had been “tossed about in the air like a wooden puppet”?
Answer: She means she had been handled roughly and without any say of her own, like a lifeless object being moved about by others, rather than being treated as a person with feelings and choices of her own.
(C) 3 marks How does this extract show that the hair-cutting is a cultural violation, not merely a physical one?
Answer: The extract closes with Zitkala-Sa saying her hair was “shingled like a coward’s”, a direct reference to the earlier explanation that among her people shingled hair marked either a captured, unskilled warrior or a coward. The physical act of cutting is therefore experienced by her as being branded, in the terms of her own culture, with a meaning she never chose and does not deserve, which is why she says “I lost my spirit” rather than simply describing pain.
(A) 1 mark According to this extract, what does Bama do after hearing Annan’s advice?
Answer: She studies hard, “with all my breath and being, in a frenzy almost”.
(B) 2 marks According to this extract, what does Annan say Bama’s community is denied by birth?
Answer: Annan says that being born into their community means they are “never given any honour or dignity or respect”, and are “stripped of all that”.
(C) 3 marks How does this extract show a different kind of response to discrimination compared with Zitkala-Sa’s response in her account?
Answer: Unlike Zitkala-Sa’s immediate, physical resistance at the moment of her hair being cut, this extract shows a delayed, constructive response: Bama does not confront anyone directly, but instead channels her anger into hard work at studies, on Annan’s advice, and stands first in her class, so that “many people became my friends”, exactly the opposite strategy from open, immediate defiance.