Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha: Themes test questions - CCEA - GCSE English Literature Revision

1

Read this extract.

Snails and slugs were gastropods; they had stomach feet. I poured salt on a slug. I could see the torture and agony. I picked him up with the trowel and gave him a decent burial. The real name for soccer was association football. Association football was played with a round ball on a rectangular pitch by two sides of eleven people. The object is to score goals, i.e. force the ball into the opponents’ goal, which is formed by two upright posts upon which is mounted a crossbar. I learned this off by heart. I liked it. It didn’t sound like rules; it sounded cheeky. The biggest score ever was Arbroath 36, Bon Accord 0. Joe Payne scored the most goals, ten of them, for Luton in 1936. Geronimo was the last of the renegade Apaches.

How do we know from reading this extract that Paddy is a child?

Only children are interested in slugs and Apaches.

The vocabulary is quite limited.

It is a stream of consciousness, jumping from slugs to football to Apaches with no coherent structure, just as a child might think and speak.

2

Read this extract.

Vienna roll was the best for making hosts, when it was fresh. You didn’t have to wet it. Batch wasn’t bad either but ordinary sliced bread was useless. It kept springing back up. It was hard to tear the hosts into perfect round shapes. I used a penny from my ma’s purse. I told my ma I was taking it in case she saw me. I pressed the penny real hard into the flat bread and sometimes the shape came up with the penny. My hosts tasted nicer than the real ones. I left them on the windowsill for two days and they got hard like the real ones but they didn’t taste nice anymore. I wondered was it a sin for me to be making them. I didn’t think so. One of the hosts on the windowsill went mouldy; that was a sin, letting that happen. I said one Hail Mary and four Our Fathers, because I preferred the Our Fathers to the Hail Mary and it was longer and better. I said them to myself in the shed in the dark.

What theme does this passage highlight?

Food is really important in the book as someone is always eating.

Religion, in particular the Catholic faith that Paddy has been taught.

Dishonesty is highlighted as Paddy steals the penny from his mother and the flour for the bread.

3

Paddy and his friends can be violent and cruel, particularly to Paddy’s little brother, Sinbad. In one incident they force lighter fuel into his mouth and light it.

During this incident what annoys Paddy?

He is annoyed that his friends are picking on his little brother.

He is angry that he doesn’t get to light the fuel himself.

He is irritated that his friends see that he can’t control his little brother.

4

Read this extract.

Our dinner wasn’t ready and Sinbad had left one of his shoes back in the building site. We’d been told never to play there so he told our ma that he didn’t know where it was. She smacked the back of his legs. She held onto his arm but he still kept ahead of her so she wasn’t really getting him properly. He still cried though, and she stopped.

Sinbad was a great crier.

- You’re costing me a blessed fortune, she told Sinbad.

She was nearly crying as well.

She said we’d have to go out and find the shoe after dinner, the both of us, because I was supposed to have been looking after him.

How can we tell that the Clarke family didn’t have a lot of money?

If they had more money the dinner would have been ready on time, but the only food they could afford takes longer to cook.

Paddy was looking after Sinbad because Mrs Clarke couldn’t afford proper childcare.

Mrs Clarke was upset about the lost shoe because they would be expensive to replace.

5

Early in the book we learn that Liam and Aidan O’Connell have lost their mother, and that their father gives them crisp sandwiches for lunch. Paddy thinks this sounds great, but when he gets crisp sandwiches he isn’t so happy. Why not?

He doesn’t get the flavour of crisps that he wants.

He is worried about his mother, and why she hasn’t come down in the morning.

He is annoyed that he has to make sandwiches for Sinbad as well as his own.

6

Read this extract.

If your pony was healthy his skin was loose and flexible and if he was sick his skin was tight and hard. The television was invented by John Logie Baird in 1926. He was from Scotland. The clouds that had rain in them were usually called nimbostratus. The capital of San Marino was San Marino. Jesse Owens won four gold medals in the 1936 Olympics and Hitler hated black men and the Olympics were in Berlin that year and Jesse Owens was a black man and Berlin was the capital of Germany. I knew all these things. I read them all.

Paddy Clarke sits in the middle of the class, not at the best desk, so he is not considered to be one of the smarter students in his class. How do we know from this passage that the Irish education system has let him down, and in particular his teacher has not encouraged him?

Paddy doesn’t know very much and so we can see he hasn’t learnt anything in school.

Paddy knows a lot of facts and reads a lot of books, so he could be top of the class if he had a better teacher.

All the facts that Paddy has memorised are wrong so he has been taught a lot of nonsense.

7

One theme of the book is growing up, and we see Paddy become more mature by the end of the book as he learns hard lessons about life.

“A year after that I knew that it wasn’t George Best’s real autograph at all; it was only printing and my da was a liar.”

What sad lesson does this quote show us that Paddy is starting to learn?

Paddy is learning that his father is not perfect, and sometimes tells lies or does bad things.

Paddy is learning that footballers don’t sign their own autographs.

Paddy has found out that his book is a fake.

8

Read this extract.

I looked at Sinbad. He was just my little brother. I hated him. He never wiped his nose. He cried. He wet the bed. He got away with not eating his dinner. He had to wear specs with one black lens. He ran to get the ball. No one else did that. They all waited for it to come to them. He went through them all, no bother. He was brilliant. He wasn’t selfish like most fellas who could dribble. It was weird, looking at him. It was great, and I wanted to kill him. You couldn’t be proud of your little brother.

How is this example different from Paddy’s usual stories about Sinbad?

Usually Paddy is very proud of his little brother and says nice things to him.

Paddy never really talks about his little brother, Sinbad, so it’s unusual to hear stories about him.

When we hear about Sinbad, it is mostly because he is crying because of something cruel Paddy has done to him. Therefore this recognition of Sinbad’s footballing talent is a new development in their relationship.

9

Read this extract.

We’d laughed then, when we’d watched Smiffy running away like he was ducking bullets because he couldn’t straighten his back. No one laughed now though. Liam walked away towards the gap in the new wire fence. It was getting dark now. Liam walked carefully. We could hear him snuffling. I wanted to go with him.

- Ciúnas the Mighty killed your mother!

Kevin had both arms stretched up. I looked over at Aidan; she was his mother as well. He stayed where he was. He was looking at the fire. I watched. He stayed that way. I’d take my punishment now, for the same reason that Aidan was staying. It was good being in the circle, better than where Liam was going.

Why do the boys stay there and let Kevin hit them with a poker?

The poker doesn’t hurt so they don’t mind being hit with it.

They are cold so they want to stay near the fire.

They want the protection of being in the group rather than being alone.

10

The Clarke family are working class and don’t have a lot of money, but they aren’t as poor as some other families. How does Paddy’s mother react when he calls the people in the Corporation houses “slum scum”?

She laughs because the Corporation families are poor.

She hits Paddy and tells him not to say that again.

She ignores him because she doesn’t know what it means.