Question

Fear, constant companion of the peasant. Hunger, ever at hand to jog his elbow should he relax. Despair, ready to engulf him should he falter. Fear; fear of the dark future; fear of the sharpness of hunger; fear of the blackness of death.

In at least one hundred words, how does Markandaya use figurative language in this excerpt?

Answer 1

"It includes a couple of personifications such as "hunger, ever at hand to jog his elbow," "despair, ready to engulf him." The former means that hunger is ready to make him shake if he relaxes, and the latter means that the despair is about to overwhelm him.

"Hunger, ever at hand to jog his elbow should he relax" is an example of personification as it gives the attribution of a personal nature or human characteristics to something nonhuman or the representation of an abstract quality in human form.

"What this sentence actually means is that the man can't relax without hunger constantly interrupting said relaxation.

"Despair, ready to engulf him should he falter.

"This means that the loss of hope, in this case probably death is going to occur if he loses the strength to continue. Another personification as Despair can't literally engulf people.

"Fear; fear of the dark future; fear of the sharpness of hunger; fear of the blackness of death.

" "Dark Future" Could mean death or an unknown and probably bitter future.

" "Fear of the sharpness of hunger" probably fear of starvation.

" "Fear of the blackness of death." This could mean the fear of dying alone, meaningless, and sorrowful."

Answer 2

The author is describing in a poetic way the life of a peasent, so she uses different retoric figures to give an idea of the difficulty of being a peasant. In this passage the author uses the following figurative language.

Step-by-step explanation:

In this passage the author uses the following figurative language.

Personification: to give not tangible feelings the characterisctics of a person.

In this poem Markandaya uses personification to explain:

Fear: "a constant companion of the peasant". Meaning it goes with the peasant every day.

Hunger: "ready to jog his elbow should he relax". Gives hunger the charactericti of a person.

Dispair: "engulf himself" if he falter.

Metaphors: which is define by the substitution of a word for another more implicit with a esthetic objective.

Examples of metaphors in this poem:

Fear of the dark future: dark is a metaphor for the unknown future or bad future.

Blackness of death: what cannot be seen or understood.

Sharpness of death: what is letal.