Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha: Form, style and language test questions - CCEA - GCSE English Literature Revision

1

The novel Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha can be described with the German word bildungsroman, but why?

It is set in Germany.

It is a story of a young boy learning about life and its difficulties, and growing up throughout the novel.

The characters talk a lot about the history of the Roman Empire.

2

How does Roddy Doyle use the structure of the novel to express the character of the narrator to us?

The novel is very long so we learn that the main character, Paddy, tells long and drawn out stories.

The book is written in English so we know that the main characters are all English.

The novel is written in disjointed episodes - jumping from one subject to another - just like the inner thoughts of the child narrator.

3

How does Roddy Doyle give the novel verisimilitude?

He uses colourful language and vivid descriptions - including slang and swearing - to make the characters feel like real people from Dublin.

He uses a variety of characters so that the story changes a lot.

He uses similes and metaphors to describe complicated situations.

4

Paddy sometimes repeats things he doesn’t understand. For example, when his mother tells him his father has a better job than his friend Ian McEvoy’s father, or when he repeats the phrase “slum scum” and his mother hits him for it. He says “I didn’t even know what it really meant.”

What impact does this have on his narrative voice?

It makes him seem stupid because he doesn’t understand things.

Even though he doesn’t understand it, he reports things anyway and without bias, so we can make our own judgement.

It means we can’t trust what he says because it might not be true.

5

Doyle uses contrasts throughout the novel to show the difference between Paddy’s family and other families in his area. How do we know that Paddy is well looked after?

He is jealous that his friends get the day off school as a treat and they get crisp sandwiches, but Paddy gets proper meals and his parents encourage him to do his homework.

Paddy is described as being fat and with soft hands, so we know that he has an easy life and gets to eat plenty.

Paddy gets new clothes whenever he wants and doesn’t get in trouble when they get lost, so his parents have plenty of money to buy him things.

6

Paddy’s stories are in no particular order, and jump around in time from one school year to another. But Doyle uses flashback in one particular scene that seems to go further back to when Paddy was a lot younger:

Under the table was a fort. With six chairs tucked under it there was still plenty of room; it was better that way, more secret. I’d sit in there for hours… I fell asleep in there; I used to. It was always cool in there, never cold, and warm when I wanted it to be. The lino was nice on my face. The air wasn’t alive like outside, beyond the table; it was safe.

… I couldn’t do it anymore. I could get under the table but my head pressed the top when I sat straight and I couldn’t sit still; it hurt, my legs ached. I was afraid I’d be caught. I tried it a few times but it was stupid.

In what way is the story in this flashback symbolic?

The six chairs are symbolic of the little brothers and sisters Paddy will have that aren’t born at the time of this flashback.

Paddy wasn’t allowed to sit under the table, so this story is symbolic of all the mischievous things he will get up to later and get punished for.

Paddy recalls feeling safe under the table when he was smaller. The story is therefore symbolic of a time before things started to get difficult in his life.

7

Read this extract.

- I only sat on the wall, I said.

He could have hit me then. He spoke.

- Well, don’t sit on her wall. Again. Okay?

- Yeah.

- Yes, said my ma.

- Yes.

Nothing else; that was it. He looked around for something else to do, to get away. He plugged in the record player. His back was turned; I could go. An innocent man. Wrongly convicted. Trained birds while I was in jail and became an expert on them.

Liam’s howling stuck us to the grass; we couldn’t move. I couldn’t touch him or run away. The howl went into me; I was part of it. I was helpless. I couldn’t even fall.

In this extract Paddy goes from telling a story about his father punishing him for sitting on neighbour’s wall, to imagining himself training birds in jail, and then back to finish a story from a few pages before where “Liam broke his teeth playing Grand National”. What narrative device is Roddy Doyle using in this extract?

Split personality

Stream of consciousness

Metaphor

8

Read this extract.

I ran out into the garden. The house wasn’t big enough. I couldn’t stay still. I did two laps; I must have gone real fast because I was back in the living room in time to see the action replay. I had to stay standing up.

George Best –

George Best had just scored in the European Cup Final. I watched him running away, back to the centre circle; he was grinning but he didn’t look that surprised.

My da put his arm around my shoulders. He’d stood up to do it.Yes, said my ma.

-Wonderful, he said.

He supported United as well, not as much as me though.

-Bloody wonderful.

Why did Doyle use this reference?

George Best didn’t play for Man United in real life, so it was ok to use him as a fictional example.

He uses this example to help us get an idea of the size of the Clarke family’s house and gardens.

This reference to George Best makes the context recognisable and the story more real.

9

Read this extract.

I waited for one of them to say something different, wanting it – they’d go forward again and it would end for a while. Their fights were like a train that kept getting stuck at the corner tracks and you had to lean over and push it or straighten it.

Why is this a good simile for Paddy to use to describe his parents arguing?

The imagery is very vivid and accurately expresses what their arguments are like. Also, a train is something that would be very familiar to a child of Paddy’s age.

We know that Paddy really likes trains so it makes sense for him to use this image.

Paddy is talking about his parents fighting - which is very serious - so it is appropriate for him to use trains in the image as we know he takes trains very seriously.

10

Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha is a tragicomedy. In what way does the title show this?

The title is very serious so it shows the tragedy element.

The title shows just the comedy element because the “Ha Ha Ha” part is funny.

The title shows the comedy part in the “Ha Ha Ha”. It also references tragedy by echoing the cruel rhyme the children sing to Paddy when his father leaves.