16th February 2018

What Has Been Included?

Images – What Images have been presented in the text? and How do these images affect our understanding of the events, the setting, and the people?

When the narrator says ‘Indeed the only remaining evidence of my ordeal was the sight of my blackened fingertips.’ I image a man cuddled up cold and freezing with frostbite on his fingertips as when it says blackened fingertips this is a reference to frostbite which is when people get exposed to extreme cold which can end in body parts falling off or damaging yourself very badly. This affects my understanding as it makes me feel that I am with the man in the same situation feeling his pain and emotions which then allows me to know why he makes the decisions he is making for survival for example.

‘My voracious appetite attested to it, and Richard must have noticed the improvement.’ this puts a image in my mind of someone that hasn’t eaten in a long time and just wants to be in a comfortable house with their favourite food, but is actually stuck in a worse situation with food that they don’t like a lot. This is because of the words ‘voracious appetite’ which means that they are extremely hungry, this reminds me of waking up every winter morning hungry and wanting to go and have my warm honey porridge after being starved from the nights sleep. This affects my understanding as it makes me remember past experiences so I know sort of what they feel like even though their situation is a lot more extreme.

‘So why not go? I gazed across at the icy white sweep of Sarapo. Perhaps tomorrow…’ From when the piece of text says ‘I gazed across the icy white sheet of Sarapo.’ it makes me see a large desert of ice and snow that goes all the way to the horizon with no change of appearance in sight, this is because of the words icy white sheet as icy and white makes me think of the ice/snow and sheet makes me think that it is very flat and goes for a very large distance. This affects our understanding as it shows that they are in a piece of terrain that is very repetitive and lifeless. It also shows that the people are very alone and do not have a easy way out of where they are.

Language – What specific vocabulary has been chosen to add meaning to the text?

‘The deep tiredness I had felt yesterday was gone.’ The author would have added the word ‘deep’ before ‘tiredness’ to show that he was extremely tired yesterday and to part it from just tiredness so it isn’t just saying that he is tired from a day like almost everyone is after a day of work. So this shows that he has had a very intense and energy draining previous day.

‘My voracious appetite attested to it.’ The author would have added the word ‘voracious’ to indicate that he is not just hungry but extremely hungry after using up a lot of energy beforehand or the previous day etc. This also implies that they have had a very excessive time to have used up so much energy to make his appetite voracious.

‘The mountains held me in a thrall. Something prevented me from leaving’ When the author put the word thrall in he meant it to show that he was for example being held captive and couldn’t leave because of some external force but he is just attached to the mountain and can’t find himself to leave. the word implies that he is connected to the mountain in someway and doesn’t want to leave.

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Reading, Writing