The Train From Rhodesia

This story begins and ends with the images of a train entering and then leaving the station. What is the effect of this repetition? How is the train seen differently at the story’s end than at its beginning?

The train is twice described as “calling with no answer” (43). The call refers to the train’s arriving and departing whistle, but what are metaphorical meanings that it might also have? How do these meanings relate to the themes in the story?

How do you think the passengers and villagers in this story see one another? What separates them, and what binds them together? Are there similarities, as well as differences, in the way that they are depicted?

This story concerns a train stopped in a station. Yet it is not a stagnant story but is full of movement and life. What in the story’s language, setting, and point of view help to give it this sense of movement?

The main point of view in this story is that of the young woman on the train. Why do you think her consciousness is privileged over that of the other characters? What does she understand and not understand about her environment?

A character briefly appears in the story who is described only as “a man” (44). What purpose does he serve as a character? What does his presence say about the story’s setting?

How does the story’s remote desert setting affect its meaning? How does it affect the story’s characters, both literally and symbolically (as when the woman on the train feels shame that is compared to the sound of “sand pouring”) (46)?

This story is full of metaphorical language, with many things being compared (explicitly or implicitly) to other things. The sand is compared to the ocean, the lion’s tongue to a wave. What are other instances of metaphorical language, and what effect do they have?