"The Moment Before the Gun Went Off" Questions

Global Literature Name:___________________________________

1. Who is the main character? What do we know about the main character? What kind of person is he? He is a politically involved man. What are his beliefs?





How does the narrator’s choice of words and expressions reveal prejudice? Give examples of the narrator’s prejudice.



2. The story has a surprise ending. Until the final paragraph, one type of relationship is implied between Van der Vyver and the young man killed.
(a) What was that relationship?

(b) What relationship is revealed in the last paragraph?

3. One of the story’s themes is a constant worrying about how “others” will construe the shooting death of a young male. Identify two specific allusions to these “others”. What does the narrator imply will be the other’s inaccurate interpretations of the shooting death?


4. The surprise ending strengthens the strong sense of irony present throughout the story. Explain why.


5. Find an earlier passage which foreshadows the relationship revealed in the last paragraph.
6. Based on the clues in the story, why is it impossible for Van der Vyver to clear himself of the murder charge by revealing the true nature of the relationship with the dead man.

7. The gun that went off was Van der Vyver;s father’s. Given that Apartheid began in the 1940’s, what could the symbolic significance of the gun be?



8. Why does Van der Vyver have a high, barbed fence around his house and garden? Why are guns “domestic object- now-adays” in the cities?


9. What does Van der Vyver fear? How are his fears ironic and self-deluding?