Diet and Health
Senior 3 · English
Diet and Health
Lesson 5 of 5
25 min
Let's begin
Characters show who they really are when something pushes against them. That push is conflict, and without it there is no story. This story is about a disease, a sugar tin and a father and son who both have to change. Read it for the conflicts, then read part of it aloud: long English sentences have a rhythm that you can learn.
A short story written for this lesson.
Every morning for as long as Ganza could remember, his father had put three spoons of sugar in his tea. He stirred it slowly, the spoon ringing against the cup, and he always said the same thing: "A man who works hard deserves something sweet."
So when the nurse at the health centre said the words type 2 diabetes, his father laughed. "Me? I carry sacks all day. I'm as strong as a bull."
"Strong men get diabetes too," the nurse said. "Take these tablets. Less sugar, less fried food, more walking. And come back in a month." She gave him a leaflet. On the way home, his father folded it into a small square and put it in his pocket, as if it were a bill he did not intend to pay.
Ganza took it out that night and read it twice.
The next morning he hid the sugar tin.
"Where is the sugar?" his father asked.
"Finished," said Ganza. It was the first lie he had told his father in years, and it sat in his stomach like a stone.
His father went to the kiosk and bought more.
For a week the house was a quiet battlefield. Ganza removed the sugar; his father replaced it. Ganza cooked the isombe with no oil; his father added a spoonful of palm oil when he thought no one was looking. At school, Ganza's friends laughed when he refused a soda. "Look, the doctor is here!" they said. And at night, alone, Ganza fought the hardest enemy of all: he wanted the soda too. He wanted the mandazi. He was fifteen, and he did not want to be the doctor.
On Saturday, his father sat down heavily on the step. His feet ached, he said, and he was thirsty all the time. Ganza sat beside him. For a long moment neither of them spoke.
"I hid the sugar," Ganza said at last. "It wasn't finished."
His father looked at him. "I know," he said. "I'm not a fool. I'm afraid, that's all. When a doctor says a long word, it sounds like the end of something."
"The leaflet says it doesn't have to be," said Ganza. "But I can't do it for you. And you can't do it alone."
His father was silent. Then he took the leaflet out of his pocket, where Ganza had put it back, and smoothed it flat on his knee.
"One spoon," he said. "Starting tomorrow. And every evening you walk with me to the end of the road and back. If I have to suffer, you suffer too."
Ganza laughed for the first time that week. "Deal," he said.
A month later, the nurse looked at the results and smiled. On the way home, father and son took the long way, past the kiosk, without stopping.
Definition
conflict: a struggle between opposing forces that drives a plot. External conflict is with something outside the character; internal conflict is inside the character's own mind.
protagonist: the main character, whose conflict the story follows (Ganza). antagonist: the character or force that opposes the protagonist. Here it is not a villain: it is the father's fear and the illness.
dynamic character: one who changes in an important way during the story. static character: one who stays the same (the nurse).
| Type | Internal or external | In "Three Spoons" |
|---|---|---|
| person vs person | external | Ganza hides the sugar; his father buys more. |
| person vs society | external | His friends mock him: "Look, the doctor is here!" |
| person vs nature (here, illness) | external | The father's body: aching feet, constant thirst. |
| person vs self | internal | Ganza wants the soda too; the father is afraid and hides from the truth. |
| Under pressure, the character … | … which shows that he is |
|---|---|
| Ganza reads the leaflet twice, then hides the sugar | caring and determined, but at first he tries to control his father instead of talking |
| Ganza confesses the lie on the step | honest, and brave enough to admit a mistake |
| The father laughs at the nurse and folds the leaflet | proud and in denial |
| The father admits "I'm afraid" and proposes "one spoon" | able to change; humorous, and wise enough to make change a shared task |
Worked example
Answering "What does the conflict reveal about the father?"
English has a beat. The content words (nouns, main verbs, adjectives, adverbs and negatives) are stressed and fall roughly on the beat; the function words between them (a, the, of, to, and, was, he, can) are squeezed in quickly and weakly, often with the vowel /ə/. A complex sentence is also cut into thought groups, usually at the clause boundary, with a small pause ( | ) and the strongest stress on the last content word of each group.
| Sentence from the story, divided and stressed | Beats |
|---|---|
| When a DOCtor says a long WORD, | it SOUNDS like the END of something. | 2 | 2 |
| His FAther went to the KIosk | and BOUGHT MORE. | 2 | 2 |
| If I HAVE to SUFfer, | YOU suffer TOO. | 2 | 2 (YOU is stressed for contrast) |
| On the way HOME, | his father FOLDed it | into a small SQUARE. | 1 | 2 | 1 (plus a lighter stress on small) |
Try it. Tap the desk on each capital syllable and keep the taps evenly spaced. However many small words come between two taps, they must fit into the same time: the KIosk and to the KIosk and take about the same time.
Tip
Pause at the comma, not in the middle of a phrase. "When a doctor says a long word | it sounds …" is clear; "When a | doctor says a long | word …" breaks the meaning. Thought groups follow grammar: clauses and phrases.
Warning
Stress and Rhythm in English Pronunciation, from ElementalEnglish (about 7 minutes). Practise the presenter's examples by tapping the beat, then read the last paragraph of "Three Spoons" aloud with the same rhythm.
Practice
Further reading
Sources and credits
Written by Ganzaa.
