Language

Style of writing

The novel Running Wild by J.G. Ballard is written in a formal style. There are no contractions, or slang terms. The tone is professional and serious. The vocabulary often contains advanced words, such as “arduous”, “incongruously”, “duress”. Since the text is an extract from Greville’s forensic diary, this suggests that the writer is an educated man, a specialist in his field, and the subject he writes about is serious. The language is also in line with the type of text that he writes.

The forensic diary presents Greville’s theories and his reconstruction of the event in a professional writing style. The diary will likely serve as a record of the events for future generations, in the hope that one day his theories regarding the Pangbourne massacre would be believed. The notes are accurate and precise, as well as detailed.

The language of the diary is occasionally poetic, such as in one of the passages describing Marion after her escape: “Meanwhile her single brogue contained soil traces from Kensington Gardens, which were ruthlessly scoured as if Peter Pan, now grown into an Ian Brady-like psychopath, had returned from never-never land and beguiled the children into his evil dream.” This passage contains vivid imagery and poetic words such as “beguile”. The role of such passages is to give the story a more aesthetic ...