We Need New Names Lesson Plan

In, "For Real," the children play-act Bornfree's murder. What do you make of the contradiction between the chapter's title and the use of make believe?

Sometimes the horrors of life in Paradise are almost too much to comprehend, both for the characters in the world of the novel, and for the reader (who also stands in for the generic Western observer). Bulawayo therefore attempts to mediate these stories--she does not show us the scene in which Bornfree is murdered. This might be too much to take. In stead, she has the children re-enact the scene. The replacement of real violence with mimed violence only heightens our emotional understanding. This is in part because we see...