Topic 1
Marco Castellan
14272467
E. da Conceicao
Group 7

Relatives by Chris van Wyk is a short story told in the first person view, about a man travelling from Cape Town back to Johannesburg after visiting relatives in Carnarvon, there is a variety of different encounters that he experiences such as; a comic, tragic, friendly, and stressful. Majority of the encounters take place on the train in his compartment coming back to Johannesburg.

The first encounter that he faces is his family which can be said to be a friendly encounter although it isn’t the main focus of the story it does put an ironic twist on how the story can be interpreted, the fact that the speakers main goal of this trip was to visit family members and write a book with stories of his relatives conquests, he would never have thought he would be introduced to a whole other side of family that is a polar opposite of what he expected, it is an be careful what you wish for moment.

The second noteworthy encounter that he makes is on the train when he meets the three friendly men talking about their job, this encounter can be classified as a comic or friendly encounter “their conversation was ... punctuated with laughter and inane arguments”. The speaker tells the men the story of Georgie who had tried to mislead the speaker into believing that he was a murderer and he shouldn’t touch his bags, this serious and frightening encounter then changes to a comic on as Georgies