AQA GCSE JAMAICA INN DU MAURIER COMPREHENSION
Q2). The effects of the weather are evoked in the first paragraph through the use of a single, complex sentence. This sentence emulates the movement of the coach as it battles its way forwards: ‘shaking the coach’ and even takes on the human characteristics of fear as it mirrors the suffering of the passengers within. ‘ The whole body…trembled.’ The power of this relentless weather is underlined at the close of the paragraph by the revealing simile, ‘like a drunken man’ suggesting the coach is lurching about, out of control, due to the chaotic power of the stormy weather.
The abject state of the ‘muffled driver’ who is stoically trying to survive the storm’s onslaught is communicated through the driver’s distorted shape ’bent almost double’ which is then duplicated in the suffering of the ‘dispirited horses’ as they appear so ‘broken by the wind and rain’ that they can barely function.
In the third paragraph, the personification of the coach’s wheels is emphasised by the use of verbs, as they ‘creaked and groaned’ showing that the weather is completely in charge of the situation, even to the point of blinding the passengers to any view of the environment at all: ‘hopelessly obscured.’ Thus the animated, agitated weather threatens the travellers and their precarious transport throughout the course of their entire, nightmarish journey.
Q3). The writer structures the opening to interest the reader by establishing of the idea of the exceptionally challenging journey. ‘The weather had changed overnight.’ The journey begins outside the coach, with a dismal mention of the time, establishing the chronology of the journey, ‘it would be dark by four’ with vivid descriptions of the unsettled, dominant weather ‘the wind came in gusts’ which foreshadow the human agitation within the coach. This use of foreshadowing alerts us to the fact that the passengers within the coach are reckless enough to travel, possibly even anticipating the mysterious motivations for Mary Yelland’s anxious introspection at the close of the opening.
Any human community is revealed to be illusory or transient at best.
The focus shifts from the blighted driver, ‘muffled’ against the storm to the ‘dispirited horses’ and then to the complaining fellow inside the coach who temporarily ‘let the window down’ briefly merging the outside and the inside at the same time. This merging shifts to the reported speech which is futile, reflecting the powerlessness of the passengers when contrasted with the wild weather outside.
When the reader’s attention shifts to the primary colours of the greedy female passenger, the sense of something malevolent continues with the looming focus on the ‘strong white teeth ‘of the unnamed predatory passenger who shares nothing of her ‘hunk of cake’ with her fellow travellers continuing the idea that they are all separate in their misery and situation.
Finally, the protagonist is identified through the use of her full name.’ Mary Yelland.’ This character is contrasted to the egotism and selfishness of the other travellers, as she is ‘impatient’ to dismiss the ‘cold drip of moisture and seems preoccupied with her own thoughts of hope. These reflections of hope are obliquely communicated via the mention of ‘some ray of light’ and then the ‘lost blue heaven’ which clearly differentiate her character and motivation from the other travellers, whose names we never learn, because they are presumably unimportant to Mary’s literal and psychological journey.
