Language

Style of writing in lines 98-109

Your exam question asks you to analyze the style of writing in lines 98-109 of the short story “The Jam Maker” by Huma Qureshi. The lines contain two significant passages: the moment when the child narrator picks the poisonous berries and the adult narrator confessing that the smell of jam brings up only unpleasant memories for her, despite her being a jam maker.

The language in lines 98-109 is descriptive and almost poetic at times, with long sentences. The choice of words is particularly noteworthy, as the author uses vocabulary related to plants and fruits, such as: “blackberry bushes” (l. 98) and “gooseberries” (l. 98), “strange stems” (l. 101), or “sugar spun berries” (l. 109).

The author also uses words and phrases with negative meanings. For example, we have phrases such as “red for danger” (l. 101), “staining” (l. 103), or “sickens” (l. 109). These words and phrases reflect the ...