Excerpt One- Question One
The literary technique being used in the excerpt is imagery, which is evident in the author’s description of the former husband of Miss Amelia as “a terrible character.” Like in other parts of the passage, the author uses imagery to give readers an image of characters, and in this excerpt, the character in focus is Marvin Macy. The primary purpose of using imagery in the excerpt is to create quite a picture of the personality of Marvin Macy, who is the point of focus.
Excerpt two-Question two
One of the details suggesting the grotesque from this passage is that the man was a stranger and that it is rare for a stranger to enter the town on foot at that particular hour.
The second detail suggesting the grotesque from the passage is the description of the man as a hunchback who was scarcely more than four feet tall and wore a ragged, dusty coat that reached only to his knees.
The third detail suggesting the grotesque from the passage is the author’s description of the character as a man with crooked little legs that seemed too thin to carry the weight of his great warped chest and the hump that sat on his shoulders.
Excerpt three-Question three
There is a noticeable change in verb tenses in this excerpt. A key reason for the verb tenses change is the transition from the storyline highlighted by the description of the actions of characters to the description of the whiskey drank by the characters, which probably is still consumed up to present. The storyline is written in past tense as evident in the phrase “perhaps without it there would never have been a café.” This changes to present tense as evident in the description of Miss Amelia’s in the phrase “it is clean and sharp on the tongue, but once down a man, it glows inside him for a long time afterward.”
Excerpt four- Question four
The first narrative transition in this excerpt takes place in the sentence “There is a type of person who has a quality about him that sets him apart from other and more ordinary human beings.” First, the transition is from the narrator’s impersonal observation of what is happening to direct engagement with the readers by telling them what they ought to think. Second, the sentence is chosen as the point of first narrative transition as it exhibits a change in verb tense, which is from past to present tense.
The first narrative transition can be considered a transition from what is happening in the story to what readers or audiences ought to think.
The second transition in the excerpt takes place in the sentence “He had only been in the store half an hour before an immediate contact…” The transition is evident in the fact that the narration shifts back to the explanation of what is happening in the narrative.
The subject of the excerpt is the hunchback. Some of the hunchback’s characteristics are that he is curious and inquisitive as he asks several questions. He is friendly as evident in the fact that children are drawn to him. Also, the hunchback is observant as evident in the phrase “he had sorted people out before speaking to any of them.”
Excerpt five-question five
The narrative voice speaking in the excerpt is the third person. With the third person narrative voice, the characters are identified as he, she, or names. In the excerpt, Miss Amelia is named as one of the characters in the narrative. The purpose of using the third person narrative voice is to indicate that the narrator is not a character in the story. Of course, in the excerpt, the narrator is not part of the story but gives a narration of what is happening.