An original fiction passage set in the nineteenth century.
At the mouth of the mine, Elias grinned when the older workers asked whether he was afraid. The cage began its descent with a jerk, cutting off his answer. Daylight above shrank from a pale coin to a pinprick, then vanished. Every knock against the wooden guides sounded to Elias like somebody rapping from inside the rock.
Halfway down, the cage stopped.
No warning. No voice from above.
Elias raised his lantern. The wet wall shone beside him, and his own shadow leapt across it before he moved. He seized the rail. Something cold slid beneath his collar. He struck at it, imagining fingers, and heard his cry return from the shaft in a dozen broken pieces.
The chain tightened, and the cage descended again. When it reached the bottom, Elias laughed too loudly and wiped the drop of water from his neck before the waiting men could raise their lamps.
Analyse how the writer uses language and structure to present the descent as increasingly frightening to Elias. Support your answer with references to the passage.
456 exam-style questions on Edexcel GCSE English Language 1.3 Content: prose fiction study requirements, covering 1.3.1 Read challenging prose fiction for the unseen 19th-century extract. Each one has a worked solution and a mark scheme showing where the marks go.