Fear, constant companion of the peasant. hunger, ever at hand to jog his elbow should he relax. despair, ready to engulf him should he falter. fear; fear of the dark future; fear of the sharpness of hunger; fear of the blackness of death.

in at least one hundred words, how does markandaya use figurative language in this excerpt?

The author is describing in a poetic way the life of a peasent, so she uses different retoric figures to give an idea of the difficulty of being a peasant. In this passage the author uses the following figurative language.

Explanation:

In this passage the author uses the following figurative language.

Personification: to give not tangible feelings the characterisctics of a person.

In this poem Markandaya uses personification to explain:

Fear: "a constant companion of the peasant". Meaning it goes with the peasant every day.

Hunger: "ready to jog his elbow should he relax". Gives hunger the charactericti of a person.

Dispair: "engulf himself" if he falter.

Metaphors: which is define by the substitution of a word for another more implicit with a esthetic objective.

Examples of metaphors in this poem:

Fear of the dark future: dark is a metaphor for the unknown future or bad future.

Blackness of death: what cannot be seen or understood.

Sharpness of death:  what is letal.

we need to see the statements.