✰ TASK 1 ✰
Explain how language and writing style techniques were used to draw the reader into Joe’s experiences in this section of the descent. You may wish to comment on: imagery, emotive language, figurative language (simile, metaphor, personification, hyperbole), dialogue, syntax (sentence structures) and/or narrative voice.
The lead up to Joe’s sudden catastrophe starts roughly around page 70, two pages previous to the incident. Joe says that ‘I would have romped happily down the gentle slope but for the rope tugging insistently at my waist’. This quote is only one page prior to when everything goes downhill. This technique is foreshadowing, used to hint to incidents that may occur later in the book.Using this technique so close to the incident sets the scene to be prime conditions, so good that it but be too good. We are set up for a happy ending and it is abruptly ripped away from us, showing the urgency of the situation, and how impacting this is to the storyline.
❁ TASK 2 ❁
What is the purpose of including Simon’s narration when Joe shatters his knee-joint? Identify specific quotations that reveal important information about Simon and Joe’s changing relationship, through Simon’s narration. How do some of these details (from Simon’s narration) foreshadow what will happen later in the text? What do you anticipate Simon will do in these difficult circumstances?
Lillian, these are good points: “Using this technique so close to the incident sets the scene to be prime conditions, so good that it but be too good. We are set up for a happy ending and it is abruptly ripped away from us, showing the urgency of the situation, and how impacting this is to the storyline.” However, be specific to what “prime conditions”, “abruptly ripped away from us”, “urgency of the situation” are in the book.
Task 2 is not complete (?)