Worked Examples Flashcards
How does the writer use language here to create mood?
The writer uses a particular range of vocabulary to create a sombre mood. Adjectives like “dismal”and “bleak”,as well as verbs like “creaked” and “yawned” seem to build up and gradually make the reader feel more melancholy and unnerved.
Although the narrator’s use of particular adjectives and verbs is important, it’s not the only way in which the writer uses language to create a tense mood. Later in the extract, the writer also uses personification as a method of creating mood. He focuses specifically on the weather, bringing in the rain and fog to life in order to create an eerie atmosphere. The personification of the rain as “stealthy” makes it seem menacing, whilst the image of it “knocking furtively at the door” adds to this mysterious atmosphere and makes the reader feel worried about what is going to happen next.
In the same way, the writer uses onomatopoeia, like the rains “unsettling pattering” and the hedge’s “curious rustling” to reinforce the mood of the piece.
Lilian is essentially an unlikeable character
To what extent do you agree?
I agree that Lilian is portrayed as an unlikeable character in this extract. She is depicted as “smug” and she appears to be gloating. However, even though the writer is using the third-person, he is still showing Lilian from Dylan’s perspective. He has clearly been offended by her and so is biased against her. Some readers might side with Dylan against Lilian, finding her arrogant and malicious. Having said that, other readers might suspect that Dylan’s pride has been wounded, and he is being overly harsh on Lilian as a result. Personally, I think the writer is using this description of Lilian to influence the readers opinion of both her and Dylan by demonstrating that they both have flaws.
How does the writer use language to show how she feels about the internet?
The writer makes a lot of quite seemingly positive claims about the internet: she grandly asserts that it has created “an era of awareness” that has brought all the world’s knowledge “to our fingertips”. However, the tone of the text suggests that she has a negative attitude towards the internet. She uses words like “plagued” and “gluttons” to describe the availability of information and seems nostalgic about the “blissful ignorance” that existed before before before its invention. She sounds reluctant to admit that the internet is “one of mans greatest inventions” and her sarcasm is made plain when she says, “but hey, so was the atomic bomb”.
How does the writer use language here to influence the reader?
The writer captures the reader’s attention by using an alliterative rhetorical question as a title. Barowsky then immediately, and assertively, answers the question in the first line. This makes the writer sound both authoritative and knowledgeable, so readers are more likely to trust him and follow his advice to “bother with breakfast”. Barowsky also uses the personal pronouns “you” and “we” to establish a connection with the reader, whilst adjectives like “reckless” and “irresponsible” encourage an emotional response. This connection gives the writer a platform from which he can challenge the readers’ actions without sounding as if he’s attacking them.
“It seems like the character is in a scary place. Reading the text made me feel uneasy”.
To what extent do you agree?
I strongly agree with the student’s statement. The heavily foreboding tone, created by the adjectives such as “abandoned”, “eerie” and “dilapidated”, and reinforced by the personification of the “wooden boards” as silent “sentries”, gives the passage a tense atmosphere. The reader shares fear and anxiety of the character, as you feel that something shocking could happen at any moment. The imagery of something cold and emotionless watching over the character makes you feel her vulnerability and fear for what might happen next.
How has the writer structured the text to interest you as a reader?
The text is structured to control the reader’s focus, directing their attention closely to interesting features of the setting and the narrator’s past. At the start, it is as if the writer is describing how someone might look at a painting as she draws the reader’s attention to the “snow-capped peak” of the mountain and “the dying embers of the setting sun”. She then uses the “narrow path” as a device to lead the reader’s focus “from there” to the town at the bottom. By narrowing the focus in this way, the writer is able to smoothly shift perspective. She does this using the single sentence paragraph, “this was the town of my youth”, which shifts the reader’s focus from the landscape to the narrator’s account of her youth. This structure enables a transition from the impersonal to the personal without making it obvious to the reader that their attention is being carefully controlled.
The structure also includes a time-shift from the present, where the narrator is describing her return to the town, to the past and her memories of childhood. This shift is triggered by a “barrage of sights and smells” and reversed, in the final paragraph, by the “tolling of the church bells” that transports the narrator back to the present. The fact that the narrator’s account of the past is framed by her experiences in the present prevents it from having a jarring effect on the reader, so they are able to immerse themselves fully in the intriguing story of the narrator’s past. This is also helped by the fact that the town is used as a link between the passages that occur in the past and the passages that occur in the present.
The use of a first-person narrative voice also allows the writer to use structure to control the reader’s focus. The reader is taken on the same journey as the narrator, from moving around the town, to moving around her thoughts. This gives the reader a steady trickle of information, as we learn about the setting, then its relation to the character, her youth and finally the complex reason for her return. This gradual supply of information keeps the reader interested and focused on what happens to her.
Question 2: How does the writer use language here to describe Mabel’s life in Alaska?
This extract uses sensory verbs to create images of childhood: verbs such as “wailing” and “hollering” suggest a loud, frenetic atmosphere. This is contrasted sharply with the “silence” of Alaska, which is mentioned twice, at the beginning and end of the first paragraph. This contrast has a jarring effect on the reader, and suggests that Mabel’s life in Alaska is characterised by a sense of emptiness and loss.
The writer also uses onomatopoeic verbs such as “scritched” and “clattered” to suggest that the “silence” in Alaska makes any noise seem unnaturally loud and unpleasant, and to bring the reader into the uncomfortable life that Mabel leads. These verbs are used in combination with the vivid simile of shrew “nibbling” at Mabel’s heart, which emphasises her discomfort and suggests that, instead of the peace she had hoped to find, Mabel’s life is deeply unhappy.
The writer uses direct speech only once in this extract, when there is “a sudden ‘caw, cawww” from a raven. The intrusiveness of this direct speech is emphasised because of the hard ‘C’ sound at the beginning of each word. Because the speech feels so out of place, the reader starts to empathise with the intrusion Mabel feels at the noise. This further emphasises the discomfort of her life.
Question 3: How has the writer structured the text to interest you as a reader?
The passage has a complex non-chronological structure, which seems to follow Mabel’s train of thought. This gives the reader an insight into Mabel’s mind, which creates interest by building empathy for the character.
The overall structure shifts from present, to past, to future and back to present. However, within this structure the present intrudes time and time again, for example “Now she knew”. This constantly brings the focus of the text back to Mabel’s current situation, which serves both as a reminder of the monotony of her life, and as means of highlighting her dread of the winter to come. In this way, the structure simultaneously holds Mabel (and the reader) frozen in time whilst propelling her relentlessly towards the future she fears, creating a narrative tension which interests and engages the reader. This impression is furthered by the recurrent references to nature that punctuate the narrative. The weather outside is currently “flat” and still, but it promises cold “like coming death” and “glacial wind”. The hunt of coming crisis builds the tension in the narrative, which keeps the reader gripped.
Question 4: To what extent do you agree?
To an extent I agree with the student’s statement. The focus of the passage shifts from the dismal external landscape to an oppressive interior of “shadowy corners” and “wet laundry”. This highlight to the reader how trapped Mabel feels by the “stranglehold” of the encroaching winter. Her home, which should be a place of safety, has become a place of fear, surrounded by “darkness” and vulnerable to “glacial winds”. The writer describes common sensations like darkness and cold, which the reader can easily recognise. This makes Mabel’s feelings seem very clear, and helps me to empathise with her plight.
However, it also seems that this bleak depiction of winter is a result of Mabel’s attitude, which lessens the extent to which I empathise with her feelings. The repetition of “would not” to describe her lack of activity hints at their negative mindset, which is reinforced by the short, blunt sentence in line 39. By contrasting Mabel’s lack of hope with Jack’s “struggle”, the writer implies that there are more proactive responses to the hardships of winter, and suggests that Mabel’s dread is at least partly irrational.
Question 5: write an opening part of a story that is set in a cold place in winter.
I surfaced suddenly from a dreamless sleep, the skin on my forearms tingling with an instinctive awareness that something was wrong. There- that noise again! A skittering, scrabbling, scuffling noise in the far corner of the dimly lit room. I sat up in bed, the quilt clutched to my chest with stone-numb hands, my breath forming foggy billows in the chilly air.
The sun was just rising; it’s feeble light trickled through the window, fractured into the myriad rainbows by the intricate whorls and fingers of ice on the frosty pane. As a brighter beam pierced the gloom, I gasped. There, huddled by the door, a young wolf cub gazed at me with sorrowful, strangely human eyes. His tawny fur was matted with blood, as rich and red as the morning light that now illuminated it fully.
I eased myself out of the wooden bunk, crouched down on the splintered floorboards and held out a trembling hand towards the cub. He gazed at me uncertainly, then slowly, slowly, he stretched forward and snuffled at my fingers, his breath as warm and ticklish as a damp feather duster.
Question 2: write a summary of the differences between Lisa Goodwin’s parents and the parents of the Victoria street sellers.
The parents of the nut seller and the parents of Lisa Goodwin have very different attitudes to their own needs and their child’s employment. The nut seller’s parents are a poor, working-class couple living in the 19th century London. The child recounts how they were “very badly off” in recent winters, but that they are “far better off now”. Despite this apparent improvement in their income, the child is still “sent out” to work to contribute to the household income.
Lisa Goodwin’s parents, by contrast, need no extra support. They dutifully sacrificed their own careers in order to support their daughter’s ambitions. Lisa’s parents prioritise her ambitions over their own, whereas the nutseller’s parents prioritise the need to survive over their child’s future prospects. This could be because the concerns of a more affluent family in the 20th century were often different to those of a less wealthy family in the 19th century.
