How Many Miles To Babylon: Form, structure and language test questions - CCEA

How Many Miles to Babylon? is a novel, but what style is it written in?

The novel deals with Alec’s formative years. What is this sort of novel known as?

A story has to be 'told' to the reader and a 'narrator' is needed to do this. In the case of How Many Miles to Babylon? the narrator is Alec. A narrator's voice can be first, second or third person.

Alec’s voice is...

Alec describes Jerry’s feet as “bare, dust-grey and with soles obviously as hard and impervious to stones, thorns, damp, as were the soles of my expensive black leather shoes”.

What literary device is Johnston using here?

Imagery is when strong pictures or ideas are created in our minds. Johnston has Major Glendinning employ dehumanising imagery when he refers to his desire that there be “no flaw in the machinery”. What does this show?

There are recurring references to particular birds throughout the novel. What are they?

At the beginning of the novel – when Alec awaits execution – he says of his mother “My heart doesn’t bleed for her.” What literary device is Johnston employing here?

The characters’ accents and language differ according to their class. Alec uses the Standard English of an educated member of the upper classes.

In contrast, the piano teacher uses terms like “fellamelad” and Jerry says things like “queer eejit”.

Each of these terms might be described as...