The writer begins with a list of foods brought to the train, “sliced paw paws, fried cakes,
peanuts and bananas:. The effect if the list is to open the scene with a cocphasny of
newness- showing the many new things in this experience. It has connotations of the
excitement of travel as a whole, with arrays of new things served to the traveller. Openin in
this way, the writer quicly conveys the excitement of travel to new places. This list also
brings us quickly to the main focus of the extract- food. In this way, the writer can appeal to
the common human experience of food, at the very same time as they didcuss the
strangeness of this particular food,
The writer uses direct speech throughout, which helps bring the scene alive for the reader. It
does this in various ways, for example, because the reader can imagine themselves within
the conversation and therefore in the scene, “It’s a short stop”. The direct speech also helps
to describe the scene as what the characters say, contributes to the decription of the scene,
“maybe you call them sparrows”, and our understanding of the food context, “But the local
people are find of them”
The tone of the text changes towards the end. Although it retains the focus on new foods,
the excitement gives way to trepidation, fear, even disgust. This starts to emphasise another
side of experiencing new things. The food his companion brings him, although decorated in
palm leaves, is opened to reveal, “blackened things on it- lumps of burned meat. The choice
of the word “irregular” here plays with the idea of unfamiliarity and familiarity at the same
time. Food is bioth universal and culturally varied. These odd looking lumps turn out to be
sparrows-0 a bird he is adfter all familiar with. The word “irregular” can mean shape or
morality.
This leads to a very detailed description of the eating of the delacay, where the amount of
detail shows the reader what am intense experience this was. “head, feet, wings, the whole
bird, he chewed it, smiling”. A rule of three is employed here which further emphasoses the
intensity of the writers reaction as he eats the bird. The smiling, although perhaps, a
genuinely friendly gesture, preshadows some uneasiness with the event.
The writer uses personification; attributing human consciousness and ethics to the flyong
birds. In this way, he actually reveals his own feelings of guilt, “”feel reproached by flights of
darting birds” The birds judgemenyt of him, is his judgement of himself. It is sxh a strange
experience to eat the tiny sparroews, “”so tiny without their feathers”, that he can’t do it.
And indeed, the other side of the exctement and novelty expressed in hos travels. The
complications showed in that he hides hos disposal of the unfortunate sparroes