There are plenty of narrative techniques in this short story. For example, on the first page, Chellamma asks the narrator, Perumayee, "Do you want to take the first train back to Salem?" This is a rhetorical question. Chellamma doesn't mean for Perumayee to reply, but she is simply indicating that if Perumayee doesn't do as she says, then she will have to go back to Salem.

There are also, at the beginning of the story, examples of repetition. For example, "Peel, peel, grate, grate," and "Left to right, left to right." The repetition in these instances emphasizes the amount of work Perumayee is expected to do, peeling and grating vegetables. This work feels endless to her. Perumayee also uses a simile when she says that the carrots she is grating are "without their skins, red and angry like blood." This simile has rather macabre, gruesome connotations, which reflect Perumayee's feelings about her work.

Later in the story, a metaphor is used to describe the work that was required to build the highway. Perumayee says that the highway was built "after eighteen months of back-breaking work." The work was likely not literally back-breaking, but the metaphor here helps to emphasize how difficult and how physically strenuous the work must have been.

Throughout the story, Perumayee also uses sensory language to describe her environment. For example, she says that Chellamma's room "smelt like urine," and she describes the mattress that she has to sleep on as "thin" and "lumpy." She also describes the carrots that she spends so much time grating as "juicy and sweet," and she says that the water she washes with "freezes [her] fingers." Using sensory language like this, to describe not only sights but also smells, tastes, and sensations, helps to create a rich, evocative, immersive scene for the reader.