Writing Strategies
Dinesen uses this literary device when she compares the coffee plantation in bloom to "a cloud of chalk."
What is simile
"The factory...hung in the great African night like a bright jewel in an Ethiope's ear" is this type of figurative language.
What is a simile?
The author creates this sensory image when describing the coffee blossoms as "like a cloud of chalk."
What is visual imagery?
I had a farm in Africa, at the foot of the Ngong Hills" serves this purpose in the narrative.
What is to establish setting (or introduce the location)?
These are young coffee plants mentioned in the passage.
What are seedlings (or young coffee-plants)?
The author creates this effect by appealing to multiple senses, like describing the coffee-dryer's sound "like pebbles
What is imagery
Describing the coffee plantation as something that "gets hold of you and does not let you go" is this figure of speech.
What is personification
The big coffee-dryer turned and turned, rumbling the coffee in its iron belly with a sound like pebbles" appeals to this sense.
What is auditory imagery (or sound)
The line "we were never rich on the farm" serves to establish this about the farm's condition.
What is to show financial struggles (or economic hardship)?
This word means "clear and transparent," used to describe the mornings and evenings.
What is limpid?
What is a writing strategy?
What is Actions or an overall approach a writer uses to achieve a specific writing goal.
The phrase "iron belly" referring to the coffee dryer is this type of figurative language.
What is metaphor
What is the definition of Imagery
Coffee-growing is a long job" introduces this main theme of the passage.
What is patience and perseverance (or the challenges of farming)?*
This refers to the main root of a plant that grows straight down.
What is a tap-root?
This narrative technique allows the author to share personal experiences and emotions directly with the reader.
What is first-person point of view?
My oxen dragged the cultivators...many thousand miles, patiently, awaiting coming bounties" uses this technique.
What is personification
The coffee-blossom has a delicate slightly bitter scent, like the black-thorn blossom" appeals to this sense.
What is smell?
The description of machinery problems and the factory burning down serves to illustrate this aspect of farm life.
What is the constant challenges and setbacks?
This word means "rough and harsh to the touch," describing the seed-vessels.
What is scabrous?
The contrast between the beauty of the coffee blossoms and the harsh realities of farming creates this literary effect.
What is juxtaposition (or irony)
The description of living "from hand to mouth" in the final paragraph is this type of expression.
What is an idiom
The image of frost making "the shoots of the coffee-trees, and the young coffee-berries...all brown and withered" creates this emotional effect.
What is imagery of death or destruction?
The final lines about remaining on the farm and hoping "something would happen to change it all back" reveal this about the narrator.
What is reluctance to let go (or hope against reality)?
These are the children workers mentioned in the text, called out to pick coffee.
What are T#$%?