How to analyse your set texts

1. Identify the writers methods

2. Embed short quotations to illustrate those methods
3. Analyse the ways in which those methods help to
communicate the theme of darkess.
Butcher explores the themes of darkness in a number of ways in the
opening paragraph, in order to communicate to the reader the
mysteriousness, lack of visibility and moral threat of the Congo.
The first sentence immediately alerts us to a foreboding
atmosphere. The use of pre-modification to describe the predawn chill sets the scene at night and the imagery of the
narrators legs pedalling for bedclothes helps the reader to
picture a vulnerable character exposed to the cold night air
seeking desperately for warmth. The fact that he can hear singing
and a drum beat, in the night, adds to the foreboding atmosphere,
creating a ghostly effect, particularly when we read that all the
narrator could see were formless shadows. Again, the use of premodification here helps to develop our understanding of the
narrators awareness of the empty but also threatening darkness
around him. The fact that he cant make out lies behind that
darkness, makes it more terrifying. He personifies the shadows
when he moves slowly and carefully, so as not to anger them.
The personification here gives the shadows a dangerous power
over him. This impact is intensified by the end of the paragraph with
the narrators use of two simple sentences in succession when he
states that I was not just looking for warmth. I wanted
protection. The effect of these sentences is very abrupt and the
fact that he hasnt found warmth of protection reinforces just
how dangerous his surroundings are. The emotive language
used at the end of the paragraph, when he states that outside was
the Congo and he was terrified, turns the Congo into a tangible
threat and increases his vulnerability in the face of such
darkness.