'Letter to Daniel' - ANALYSIS

Which words in the following lines suggest the writer's affection towards his newborn son?

Please choose two options from the list below:

My dear son, it is six o'clock in the morning on the island of Hong Kong. You are asleep cradled in my left arm, and I am learning the art of one-handed typing.

• dear

• morning

• asleep

• cradled

The writer explains that they are 'learning the art of one-handed typing'.

This is an example of which literary technique?

• Personification

• Metaphor

• Symbolism

• Alliteration

Complete the quotation from the opening of the piece - this is take from paragraph two.

Since you've arrived, days have .......... into night and back again...'

The quotation below is an example of a technique - but which one?

'...we are learning a new grammar, a long sentence whose punctuation marks are feeding and winding and nappy changing and these occasional moments of quiet.'

• Personification

• Metaphor

• Symbolism

• Simile

What word does the writer use to describe the memories of warzones that keep returning to him?

What do the the memories of warzones that are described have in common?

Select two options from the list below:

• They focus on children

• They are about the same location

• Things get better in these places

• They describe unimaginable suffering

Which sites of conflict does the writer refer to?

You should have more than one correct answer

• Angola

• Rwanda

• Eritrea

• Afghanistan

• Iraq

'It begins thirty-five years ago in a big city on a January morning with snow on the ground and a woman walking to the hospital to have her first baby. She is in her early twenties and the city is still strange to her, bigger and noisier than the easy streets and gentle hills of her distant home.'

Which words in these lines suggest the unsettling nature of the environment?

Choose 3 options from the list below:

• city

• snow

• hospital

• noisier

• strange

The sentence below is an example of which literary technique?

'The cancer of alcoholism ate away at the man and he lost his family. '

• Simile

• Metaphor

• Onomatopoeia

• Personification

Which of the following words appear in the final paragraph of this piece of writing?

Please select four options from the list below:

• hope

• innocence

• happiness

• freshness

• beginnings