The Gift
metaphor
detached construction
parallel construction
polysyndenton
hyperbole
represented speech
simile
epithet
leaving me alone in the world (to demostrate Sarah Bell's grief)
In the country between dogs and barb wire and rivers there is no knowing what could befall a little stranger (to underline that the girl was sent into the middle of nowhere)
that sounds like buying a horse at market (to show negative attitude to adopting a child)
circumstances forced my hand (to emphasize that Sarah had no choice but to leave a child)
How far off do these trains go? (to show her inner doubting)
I was silent as the grave (to underline that she didn't talk at all))
Her first will be Mabel which keeps two of her old names—May Bell—in a hidden way as it were (to explain a child's name)
happy-natured, responsive one and refined enough (to outline what kind of child Bassetts wanted)
It might ease her to see how well the child is getting on, but then again it might increase the longing (to contrast the feelings of a suffering mother)
chiasmus
What is done can be undone (to show the paradox)
rhetorical question
what kind of life can it be in the wilds of Iowa when she was always nervous of a cat even? (to emphase the mother's confidence that her dauther is not happy in Iowa)
anaphora
She goes to school... She ragards tardiness... She is ... She has (to describe Mabel's life in a new family)
inversion
will come a day when I shall be able to pay you for all your trouble (to make her statement sound more prominent)