Read the following passage:

"The old clock on the wall had stopped ticking years ago, yet every evening the village elders gathered around it, listening to its silent hands as if they still marked the passage of time. The children, who once chased its shadow across the dusty square, now whispered that the clock kept the memory of their ancestors alive."

Identify the central theme of the passage and explain how the author's use of symbolism develops this theme.

Question

Read the following passage:

"The old clock on the wall had stopped ticking years ago, yet every evening the village elders gathered around it, listening to its silent hands as if they still marked the passage of time. The children, who once chased its shadow across the dusty square, now whispered that the clock kept the memory of their ancestors alive."

Identify the central theme of the passage and explain how the author's use of symbolism develops this theme.

Accepted Answer

The central theme is the endurance of cultural memory/tradition despite physical decay, developed through the symbolism of the stopped clock, which, though no longer ticking, is treated by the elders and children as a keeper of ancestral time and memory.

Neco 2018 Literature In English Question 17

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