These revision notes will enable you to secure that grade 9 in GCSE English as they are concise and will focus your revision to the key quotes, analysis, structure and form that is needed to achieve a grade 9!
Summary:
Adeline is outlining her experiences of growing up in Hong Kong. She describes a
moment when her father became proud of her and she made a life-changing decision to
move to the UK.
Genre: autobiography
First person – past tense
Themes: family, relationships, abandonment, loneliness, self-esteem and doubt
Points about beginning:
-there is concentrated focus on time phrases at the beginning of this passage indicating
a prolonged sense of dread
-positions herself as worthy of sympathy
Wow quotes for beginning:
‘Time went by relentlessly’ – first sentence (time phrases), the adverb ‘relentlessly’
conveys a lack of control that Adeline has
‘leaving school throbbed at the back of my mind like a persistent toothache’ - use of
simile highlights the notion of dread and suffering which emphasises how much she
doesn’t want to leave school
‘Full of foreboding, I ran downstairs as in a nightmare, wondering who had died this
time.’
- comparing going home to a ‘nightmare’, noun has very negative + fearful connotations
-she only goes home when someone has died, encourages audience to sympathise with
her
- alliteration + fricative sounds add a harsh tone + a sense of terror
- sentence is broken up by commas, illustrating a lack of composure + the panic of her
thoughts in her mind
“Where are we?” I asked foolishly’
- interrogative sentences illustrate uncertainty + distance
- physical + emotional distance
- adverb “foolishly’ suggests a sense of embarrassment as she doesn’t know where her
home is
Points about middle:
- Adeline is presented to be apprehensive and astonished as she is told that her father
wants to see her in his room. We gradually learn the relationship she has with her father
and how that has effective her desire to return home
Wow quotes for middle
‘summoned by Father to enter the Holy of Holies’
- the word "summoned" has connotations of formality + authority
- "Holy of Holies" has religious connotations implying that she may see him as God-like.
- clearly not a close relationship
‘Timidly, I knocked on the door…looking relaxed in his slippers’
-juxtaposition between her fathers relaxed and comfortable demeanour and her tense
and apprehensive one, this shows us how foreign she feels being around her family
creating a sense of abandonment
- use of the adverb placed first in the sentence puts emphasis on her feelings.
“Sit down! Sit down!”…”Don’t look so scared.”
- use of imperatives to show authority, repetition to show her father's impatience
- use of exclamative convey authority and volume in his voice
-the two abrupt sentences contrast each other as he was just raising his voice and yelling
at her and then tells her to not look scared, this allows the audience to empathise with
her confusion, lack of trust and confidence
-Tension and fear shifts to relief and overwhelming joy (focus on contrast here)
‘Is it possible? Am I dreaming? Me, the winner?’
- tricolon of rhetorical questions, shows disbelief and lack of self-confidence
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