Snowdrops - Exploring

Descriptive writing is one of the strongest things in this piece; it is used to draw the reader into the same state of mind of the writer. ‘Today Miss Webster is going to show them the snowdrops growing in the little three cornered garden outside the school-keeper’s house’, this is a great sentence because the writer could have just said ‘little garden’ but to add affect she said three cornered, this creates a magical place in out heads and helps us to imagine the garden. ‘ Gerard was eating a bowl of porridge, and what he did was this. He would make a crater in the porridge with his spoon, and then he would watch the milk run in and fill the hole up. Then he would dip his spoon in it and drink it.’ Does this create a marvellous picture in your head? Because it does in mine as I have done this myself when I have been eating my breakfast. This is a prime example of child like wonder as he is so amused and excited with his new discovery, when you are younger you are fascinated with the smallest things like the porridge and the “snowdrops”.  

Contrasts are occurring all the time in “Snowdrops” for example reds and oranges are used to create that affect of heat and well being and give the sense of home and every thing will be all right.  One contrast early on in the story is the cold morning and the glow of the fire because this gives you the feeling of security, everyone knows what is like on a ice cold winters day and you just want to get in from of the fire and go the sleep, I think this is the feeling that the writer is trying to create in the paragraph. Another contrast is the nice looking boy and the terrible mess after the accident and you can imagine the boy as a ‘hansom young man’ and after the accident a ‘terrible mess’.

Comparison is used very affectively in this story like the whole paragraph on the picture of the robin the boy had drawn in class, this suggests it plays a big part in the story I think that the boy is comparing the robbing to the teacher to the robin, when he says about the irregular song of the bird lately this is suggesting that the teacher is acting strange lately since she has heard about the death of the boy friend, the teacher was “was throwing out her chest before she sang” like she had to pluck up the courage before she spoke and try to hold back the tears so she didn’t cry in front of the class and the children.  When the teacher was reading the story, “She shut her book with a snap and stood up. She hadn’t finished the story ”, this is defiantly put in this story deliberately and is comparing the actions of the teacher to the accident that the boy had. Snap? Why did the writer put this? The answer is defiantly to make a reference to the crash and the sounds involved in a R.T.A. As for the unfinished story this is to demonstrate that the boys life had ended before it had finished.

Although I did not like the story that much I think most of the contrasts and comparisons are not put in deliberately but have turned out very well and work with the plot of the story.  But the ones that were put in by the writer are excellent and add a great touch and twist to the story.