Practice Paper 1 Essay

Audience and Purpose:

• Type of text: The text is an autobiography of Mary Seacole. 
• It aims to inform the reader of the dire circumstances faced by the English settlers in Jamaica (yellow fever). It recounts the influential events of her time in Jamaica. Her experiences inform the reader of the (maybe overlooked) non-idealistic life as a colonist. 
• Maybe for those interested in British imperialism and life on the colonies. 

Content and Theme:

• The text is about Mary Seacole, a woman we assume is a nurse, living in Jamaica during the time of the yellow fever. She discusses her experience working in close proximity to death and suffering. 
• 1. “Indeed, the mother country pays a dear price for the possession of her colonies” → Great Britain has lost many lives due to this fever (gained territory, but lost lives) 2. Message about Death that she had learnt through her experience to meet “him with a brave, smiling face, and this he taught me” 

Tone and Mood:

• The tone is serious and filled with emotion. 
• The mood is melancholy. She is not grieving for those who died, so much as telling a sad tale of loss that was one of her experiences. However, she still feels sad when she thinks of those who died. “the thought of which stirs my heart now” 

Style and Structure:

• Biased, her viewpoint is the only one considered, not purely ideological but states that how we bear death depends “on the aweful and important question of religious feeling”.
• Uses first person pronouns.
• She directly states her residence in Jamaica and draw the reader in with strong words “gloom” “suffering”.
• The selection has 4 paragraphs. She uses mainly imperative sentences. She states her experiences plainly. 
• The effect of gloominess is created by lexis with strong connotation: words such as suffering and gloom strong imagery: “to see young people in the youth and bloom of life suddenly stricken down” figurative language:”a little distance on their way into the Valley of the Shadow of Death” (also allusion to Psalm 23)