For the exam I opted to analyse the prose. I realised I was not looking at specific imagery or concepts and was focusing on the passage as a whole instead. Here are few of the corrections I made to my exam paper.
INTRO: In this piece, Maggie O’ Farell is pulsating life through the extract. The environment is reflecting tension- of the land, of the people, and of the surroundings. Nature reflects the mood of the land, how the land has borne a lot in the ancient times, and is still bearing the weight of disputes. This site of dispute is highlighted through the constant use of personification and pathetic fallacy in their extract, where the trees, the bird, and nature create a foreboding atmosphere. The neglect of the baby, and the site of dispute within the house further creates dramatic tension in the passage. This finally leads up to the kinesthetic and auditory imagery amplifying the uncertainty of what happens next.
ONE BODY: O’Farrell employs layers of personification to create tension in the atmosphere of the extract.The trees in the story seem to be “stirring, trembling, readjusting themselves.” The present continuous verbs when put together stir feelings of nervousness, and uncertainty as the verbs are signalling the forthcoming of something. The‘‘restlessness” observed by the trees further forebodes the arrival of the unknown as it describes their “head-tossing” anticipation. Furthermore, the pathetic fallacy helps create an image of anxiousness, and the painful process of waiting. This feeling is strengthened in the third paragraph as the “The garden waits. The trees wait. The seagull, balancing in the sky above the washing, waits.” The tricolon of the personified elements of the environment depict a shift of focus from something macro like the garden to the tree and to something micro like the seagull. There is an observable change in the foreboding tone as well – how the negative mood describing feelings of an incoming storm slowly changes focus to patience and the process of waiting, reiterated by the repetition of the word “wait.” This change can also be shown by the transformation of language from the first to the last sentence. From the hustling trees anxiously awaiting an unknown arrival to a book lying on the ground with its “pages fluttering closed.” It creates a foreboding atmosphere and at the same time gives an insight into the land of disputes, that something was meant to happen over there, there was buildup, ,and now it’s over. It’s just the book lying alone, and waiting for what comes next.
CONCLUSION: O’Farrell has used language as a medium to transfer nervousness into the reader. From the very first imperative simple sentence, “listen,’ which ropes the reader in, to the personification of nature amplifying the foreboding atmosphere, O’Farrell brews anticipation as to what follows next. Throughout the passage she has given this nervousness a pattern, how the focus shifts from macro elements of nature to the incoming of the lady into the garden. Overall the heavy buildup of anxiety by vivid descriptions of restlessness via the environment for the arrival of the lady creates dramatic tension in this passage.
