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The author not only appeals to the readers sense of color, but also to that of hearing. Upon
entering the forest, the speaker hears an uninterrupted, uniform, headlong, rushing noise again, the
author has used a series of adjectives to provide a well-rounded description, and here he also uses
onomatopoeia with rushing. This builds the atmosphere, drawing the reader into the scene.
When repeating that the workers in the forest are black, the speaker is also distancing himself
from them. This point is further emphasized by you know with them its hard to tell. This statement also
distances the reader from them, and shows that most likely this story was intended for a white audience,
which implies that perhaps it was written during colonial times. The breach between black and white
people, as well as the awful state the workers are in, is emphasized when the narrator describes one of them
crawling to get water on all fours this conveys an almost animal-like image.
The author also uses similes to enrich his description, like free as air and nearly as thin. This
adds variation to the writing, and thus serves to draw the readers attention. The author also uses a series of
questions to involve the reader Why? Where did he get it? Was it a badge an ornament charm a
propitiatory act? Was there any idea at all connected with it? Despite being about a rather meaningless
issue, these questions do get the reader to stop and consider all of these issues, while, once more,
establishing a certain distance these black people are unfamiliar, their actions are strange, their culture
different and inexplicable.
The author takes care to keep his descriptions varied and filled with interest by using various
literary techniques. In the first paragraph, for example, he talks about the devil of violence, and the devil
of greed, and the devil of hot desire, thereby employing personification and giving substance to all of
these sins. The devil being known as the supreme tempter adds further dimensions to this, and could almost
be seen as a biblical allusion.
The language used in this passage is very formal and educated for the most part, this writing is
clearly intended for en educated audience. However, at times there are certain deviations, such as the
exclamation by all the stars!, which is somewhat more colloquial.
The sentence length varies throughout the passage from very long to very short. In descriptions,
series of statements or words are used to emphasize a point, and the author often leaves out and, lending
a stream-of-consciousness feel to the passage. Instead, many commas are used. Hair parted, brushed,
oiled, under a green-lined parasol is one example of this. This style almost makes the text appear
fragmented into parts, lending a particular rhythm. The shortest sentences are also used to place emphasis
on certain points, as they break up the more flowing rhythm of the descriptions and thus draw the readers
attention. Thats backbone is and example of this method.
Another noticeable feature used by the author in a description is when he describes the forest as
inferno the subdued, gloomy atmosphere in the green forest hardly seems to fit most peoples image of
how hell would look. This emphasizes to the reader how much the people must be suffering if inferno is
an appropriate term: the forest appears to be hell on earth, filled with silent sufferers and the sound of the
water everyone in the forest apart from the narrator is moribund and will almost surely die. The theme
of slavery here makes another appearance the workers are now free as air and yet the only place they
can go is death. The reader is strongly drawn into the atmosphere of this greenish gloom in the forest.
In this passage, the author has drawn the reader into the scene and involved them into the
happenings by telling it from the first-person viewpoint of a character in the story. The author uses this
narrator to establish a contrast between the dying black workers and the white man in the scene. This could
almost be applied as a symbol to all of colonialism the black people were used and then cast away, and it
was a perfectly natural phenomenon. This passage successfully conveys to the reader of today the attitudes
of the white people during the time. The author has used vivid descriptions to draw the reader further into
the scene and take a part in the happenings. The author is attempting to tell a story directly to the reader, in
which he has succeeded especially by using a first-person narrator addressing the reader directly.