Language

The language of the short story “Kiss and Tell” by John Sam Jones is quite simple and impersonal. The third-person narrator presents the events in a detached manner as if he is simply recording them. The choice of words is connected with issues of sexual orientation and school life. Most of the story is conveyed in the narrative mode and dialogue is used occasionally because the story is focused on characters’ psychology.

Because the story concerns teenagers and teachers, the vocabulary is sometimes informal (colloquial), and formal at other times: “…Jane Jones, who’d got breasts that were the Promised Land of boys’ dirty talk, almost always had love bites on her neck…” (ll. 4-5); “The new Minister for Education even made a thing about homophobic bullying in schools and in 2005 teachers were offered in-service training on how they could support gay and lesbian students in educational settings.” (ll. 37-39)

Additionally, the author uses overstatements (hyperboles) to convey the perspective of teenagers, for whom small things can become very important and dramatic:

Sometimes he imagined himself smaller-than-small so that the others wouldn’t notice him – and sometimes they didn’t. But then, when the boys he hung around with seemed not to want to see him, he wondered if he’d made himself too insignificant. Being lonely was horrible. (ll. 13-16)

Imagery is only used occasionally, in connection...