Originally

Question 1

Red room

Answer 1

Carriage on train

Symbolism of exile/ imprisonment

Connotations of anger and rage

Question 2

Which fell though the fields

Answer 2

Metaphor

Falling suggests scared, helpless, out of control

Question 3

Mother singing

Answer 3

Shows she is trying to calm children

Question 4

Fathers name

Answer 4

He isn’t there with them

Question 5

Fields… turn of the wheels

Answer 5

Internal rhyme

Sense of nursery rhyme and rhythm

Question 6

Home,

Home

Answer 6

Word choice

Missed by everyone

Repetition with enjambement, capital letters and italics reinforces the sound and confusion and add to the tense atmosphere

Question 7

As the miles rushed back to the city

Answer 7

Personification

Shows her thoughts - she is trying to recall home, where she wants to be

Question 8

The street, the house, the vacant rooms

Answer 8

List decreases until she is, in her mind, back in her room

Word choice of house shows realisation

Question 9

Where we didn’t live anymore

Answer 9

Sense of anguish and pain

Question 10

I stared

Answer 10

Contrasts with brothers noise

She is reflective and quiet suggesting she feels shocked

Question 11

Blind toy, holding its paw

Answer 11

Word choice blind is symbolic of her feeling that she cannot see where she is going

Holds for comfort as her link to home

Question 12

All childhood is an emigration

Answer 12

Metaphor

Short philosophical statement, universal truth

Carries some authority because it is based on experience

Question 13

Some are slow … you know stays

Answer 13

Sentence elongated over three lines to emphasise the slow nature of growing up

Question 14

Resigned

Answer 14

Defeated, content to endure- negative connotations

Question 15

Where no one you know stays

Answer 15

Feeling isolated and sense of strange unknown

Question 16

Others are sudden.

Answer 16

Short sentence

Abrupt change emotional impact reflects meaning

Question 17

Your accent wrong

Answer 17

Language is the same but dialect and accent are important as it makes her stand out

Question 18

Unimagined

Answer 18

Word choice

Places that are alien to her in her new environment and in growing up

Question 19

Big boys

Answer 19

Childish language showing link to childhood as she reflects

Question 20

My parents anxiety stirred like a loose tooth

Answer 20

Link to growing up - loosing teeth

Suggests a change - the move

Shows parents concern

Question 21

I want our own country

Answer 21

Plaintive appeal to her parents

Question 22

But

Answer 22

Conjunctive - unusual start to stanza

Changes perspective overall

Question 23

You forget

Answer 23

Involving reader

Universal truth

Question 24

Or … or

Answer 24

Repetition to emphasise different changes

Question 25

Seeing…swallow.. slug

Answer 25

Letter s repeated = sibilance

Demonstrates the brother has adapted and is fitting in

Question 26

Skelf

Answer 26

Scots dialect contrasts acknowledgment that she is also fitting in but still links to home

Question 27

Shedding its skin like a snake

Answer 27

Simile

She accepts that she has changed her accent but she is feeling that this is shameful/deceitful

Question 28

River, culture, speech, sense of first space

Answer 28

List emphasises different things she has lost

Question 29

Where do you come from?

Answer 29

Philosophical reflection on the bigger question

What makes us who we are and where do we get a sense of beginning

Question 30

I hesitate

Answer 30

Shows she feels uneasy about claiming either place but also shows she isn’t as attached to home as she was