Significant Cigarettes (from The Road Home) (Edexcel IGCSE English Language A)

• As the extract progresses, it is apparent that Lev feels a profound sense of loss for his home country:

  • In the first paragraph, he is “staring out at the land he was leaving”

  • He puts an unlit cigarette in his mouth for “something to hold on to”

• Lev resolves to keep his heart in his “own country” when he reaches England, by holding himself apart from other people to “demonstrate that he didn’t need to belong”:

  • The writer reveals the death of Lev’s wife is one of the reasons why his “heart” would forever remain in his home country

• The description of the journey is interspersed with Lev’s memories, of his village and where he has slept in the past:

  • He reflects that no matter where in the world a person is, darkness always falls in the same way

  • But to him, the way that darkness fell in his village of Auror is the “right” way

• Lev is torn between feelings of hope and desperation for a better life in England, a place of “infernal luck”, and a sense of longing for home, where he belongs

• Tremain evokes a sense of “them” versus “us”, represented symbolically by the figure of the “frumpy Queen” on the £20 note:

  • Lev reflects on what he has been told about the English and capitalism

  • This sets Lev and his background apart from the life he is going to

• He imagines what an immigrant’s life in London might be like:

  • Vodka is expensive so immigrants make their own; houses are “tall” with coal fires; there’s rain and red buses

  • His expectations of England are superficial, based on media representations

• Language plays a crucial role in the immigrant experience, and the practice conversation between Lev and Lydia highlights the differences in culture:

  • Lydia misinterprets “bee-and-bee” for the famous Shakespearean line “to be or not to be”, rather than “bed and breakfast” lodgings (a more practical and useful phrase to someone arriving in a new country)

  • This also emphasises the differences between Lydia, who is educated and a former teacher, and Lev who worked in a sawmill

• The cigarette in Lev’s mouth represents the promise of a better life, although at this stage the fact that it will eventually be smoked is the only thing he has any certainty over:

  • His cigarettes also represent the home he has left, and his cravings represent his longing for home 

• Lev mistakes the image on the £20 for a banker:

  • This represents for him the luck of the English and the fact that they are blessed to be living in a country viewed as safe and never occupied by hostile forces

  • He also resolves to challenge their arrogance, as “only intermittently do they see that some of their past deeds were not good”

  • Lev thinks “I’m going to their country now” and resolves to “make them” share their “luck” with him

• He recalls Marina’s comments about how “you never see a stork dying”: 

  • Like a stork, Lev is migrating a long distance in the hope of a better future for him and his daughter

• We learn that Lydia is educated and used to be a teacher:

  • She therefore corrects his English and misinterprets some of the phrases he is trying to say for something more sophisticated

  • Lev and Lydia see mastery of English as a means of gaining employment

• Tremain employs nature imagery to represent Lev’s home:

  • She uses alliteration when she describes the “wild garlic growing green” at the edge of the road, presenting the beauty of his homeland which is absent in the descriptions of England

  • Lev sees his country as rural and in touch with nature, representing his hopes for a better future

  • However, the absence of nature imagery in the descriptions of England implies that his hopes for the future might be similarly barren 

• The simile of Lev and Lydia being “like a married couple” reflects Lev’s desire for comfort in companionship during this long and testing journey

• The reader learns more about both characters through their brief dialogue with each other:

  • Despite their differences in background and education, both are in a similarly vulnerable position

  • Lydia’s invests her hope in a new job, while Lev clings to the familiarity of his cigarette

• Lev’s first statement, “I am legal”, reveals his concern and awareness of the hostility and prejudice toward migrants he may face

• Both characters’ hopes and fears are revealed through the use of direct speech:

  • Lydia needs to escape the feeling of entrapment in her hometown, while Lev hopes to recover from the death of his wife and to provide everything his daughter needs

• Lydia is symbolically reading Graham Greene’s novel The Power and the Glory, a story of a pair of broken individuals travelling in search of their own personal redemption:

  • This symbolically mirrors the journey Lydia and Lev are also embarking on

• This is the opening of a novel, so the end of the extract is not the end of the narrative:

  • It is only the first part of Lev’s journey, and the end of the extract emphasises Lev’s determination to succeed in his new life

  • As readers of this extract, we do not know if he succeeds

• Tremain also uses contrast to represent the sense of conflict and division Lev feels about leaving his old life for a new, British one:

  • Nature is contrasted with man-made items, to represent this inner conflict

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