Page 30 - Point 5 Literature Program Option 1 Teachers Guide (2) (1)

Part I:

chatty (line 44) ןטפטפ

exuberant (line 31) ססות
Part II:

hearty, jovial, loquacious and argumentative (line 77) ןחכוו ןרבד ,חמש ,יבבל
acrimonious and interminable (line 84) רמגנ יתלבו רמ
Part III:

vehement and voluble (line 103) םר לוקבו ףיקת

At the time of King George (after Queen Victoria), Britain was an empire, ruling many
countries, such as India. The citizens of these colonies were given British passports, but were
considered second-class citizens.
The British upper classes also believed that they knew how to behave in every situation,
particularly in regard to the honor of women.

General Interpretation
Part I
although mr. kelada is the main character and hero of the story, the first paragraph not only
gives us the setting – a ship traveling from San Francisco to Yokohama after world war I – it
also gives us a great deal of information about the narrator, the antagonist from whose point
of view the whole story is told. we are told that the name max kelada is enough reason for the
narrator to dislike him. When I was told the name … my heart sank. In the time of the British
Empire, and indeed for a long time afterwards, the British did not really like foreigners and
felt superior to them. That is why he would have preferred a fellow passenger with a name like
Smith or Brown. This is, of course, a classic example of prejudice towards a stereotype: ‘with
a name like that the person must be …’ The narrator tries to justify his dislike with weak
arguments – too much luggage and fancy toiletries.

During the first meeting between the narrator and Mr. Kelada, we are naturally surprised
at the ironic fact that, although the narrator was upset at the idea of sharing a cabin with a
foreigner, it is the ‘foreigner’ who presents himself as English and very proud of it, not wanting
to be mistaken for an ‘American’! He calls himself British to the backbone (line 26). We can
assume that Mr. Kelada did indeed hold a British passport but this did not necessarily mean
he was born English. The narrator provides us with a very stereotypical description of someone
probably of Middle Eastern origin. He stresses everything ‘un-English’ about Mr. Kelada: his
fluency of speech (a polite way of saying he talked too much), his exuberant gestures, his
flashing smile, his familiarity, his interference in the card game and his insistence on doing card
tricks. It was the era of Prohibition (1920–1933) and that the fact that Mr. Kelada had alcohol
on him shows that he was someone who knew how to bend the rules.
once again the narrator states that he did not like mr. kelada.

Part II
The picture broadens to show us how mr. kelada was perceived by the others on the ship –
how talkative he is, (loquacious and argumentative), how he likes to be involved in organizing

30 mr. know all