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Higher English Scottish Text - Mrs Midas

Terms in this set (44)

"It was late September. I'd just poured a glass of wine, begun to unwind, while the vegetables cooked."
September is the golden time of the year.
Her life is very casual, un-expecting of any disturbance
"The kitchen
filled with the smells of itself, relaxed, its steamy breath
gently blanching the windows"
Personifies kitchen to suggest the mod do and atmosphere, it is "relaxed", like her, at peace.
"So I opened one,
then with my fingers wiped the other's glass like a brow."
Wiping a brow is a gesture of distress/ exhaustion.
"He was standing under the pear tree snapping a twig."
Plosive 'p' suggests disruption
"Now the garden was long and the visibility poor, the way
the dark of the ground seems to drink the light of the sky,
but that twig in his hand was gold."
Tries to blame it on poor visibility.
"Dark of ground" symbolises their damaged relationship in the future and the gold in his hand is the cause of all of this damage.
"And then he plucked
a pear from a branch. - we grew Fondante d'Automne -
and it sat in his palm,"
Caesura adds a pause for effect.
"like a lightbulb. On."
Short one-word sentence emphasises it and brings attention to thus remarkable thing.
"I thought to myself, Is he putting fairy lights in the tree?"
Can't make sense of situation so tried to be logical.
Puzzlement tone.
Rhetorical, humourless question in search of rational explanation.
"He came into the house. The doorknobs gleamed.
He drew the blinds. You know the mind;"
Four short sentences, she is in a hurry to tell the story, following his movement through the house.
"I thought of the Field of the Cloth of Gold and of Miss Macready."
Kings with gold cloths.
Miss Macready is vain, selfish and rich, like Mr Midas.
"He sat in that chair like a king on a burnished throne."
He is like a king, he has gold (imagery).
"The look on his face was strange, wild, vain."
The same way she views him, she sees his selfishness. He is uncanny and out of control.
"I said,
What in the name of God is going on? He started to laugh."
She is sane, she tries to understand but he is careless and maniacal, he doesn't understand.
Taken aback tone.
"I served up the meal. For starters, corn on the cob."
She tries to be normal and have dinner, clinging onto her sanity.
"For starters": this is the beginning of the meal AND the beginning of all of their problems.
Gold vegetable, alliteration of 'c' & casual tone emphasises her need for normality.
"Within seconds he was spitting out the teeth of the rich."
Rich people have gold teeth
Sets found in the same folder