English Language Paper 1 Question 2

Look in detail at this extract:

Doubled, I walk the street. Though we are no longer in the Commanders' compound, there are large houses here also. In front of one of them a Guardian is mowing the lawn. The lawns are tidy, the facades are gracious, in good repair; they're like the beautiful pictures they used to print in the magazines about homes and gardens and interior decoration. There is the same absence of people, the same air of being asleep. The street is almost like a museum, or a street in a model town constructed to show the way people used to live. As in those pictures, those museums, those model towns, there are no children.  

How does the writer use language here to describe the atmosphere of the town? 

You could include the writer’s choice of: 

• words and phrases

 • language features and techniques

• sentence forms

Level 1 Exemplar Answer: The town is sad. We know this because it says there is an “absence of people”. The word choice highlights the emptiness which makes it sad.

Level 2 Exemplar Answer: The writer uses the words “absence” and “asleep” to describe the town. These word choices emphasise the description of the town as being empty and quiet. This describes the town’s atmosphere as lonely and depressed.

Level 3 Exemplar Answer: The writer uses personification to create an eerie atmosphere. This is shown by the quote: “the same air of being asleep”. This could give the reader the impression that the town is lifeless and almost ghost like. To add to this eerie atmosphere, the writer concludes the description with the statement: “there are no children”. This powerful concluding statement creates a sense of drama as the lack of children in the town creates a dark, lifeless atmosphere. The dark, lifeless atmosphere is further highlighted use to the writer’s use of contrast as the earlier description of the town contains adjectives such as “beautiful” and “gracious”, which contrast with the barren eerie concluding statement.

Level 4 Exemplar Answer: Immediately the reader’s curiosity is piqued by the word “doubled” as the reader is initially uncertain as to whether the speaker is referring to walking with a partner or being hunched over. The speaker appears to be a stranger in this environment and presents this place as something strange, an anomaly in the present times they are experiencing due to the repetition of the past tense: “used to”. In this town there may be a war going on because the “Commander’s compound” implies those in power live apart from the people. This creates an atmosphere of sterility and oppression.  In addition a “Compound” is enclosed and those on the outside are closed off from it, furthermore the word choice of compound has suggestions of a pressurised situation which hints at the atmosphere being pressurised and the need for perfection to exist and be adhered to. This is further implied by the reference to the lawns and houses being “like the beautiful pictures …in magazines”. Finally the rule of three and repetition of the demonstrative pronoun “those” used in the last sentences: “those pictures, those museums, those model towns” reinforces the sterile, empty atmosphere and the separation between the speaker and the town in which she lives but clearly feels apart from.