7:2: Jessica Read – ‘Experience: I survived an earthquake while scuba diving’ Flashcards
What is the purpose?
To share her experience
To entertain
To encourage readers to reflect on the fragility of life
To educate on the event (more or less)
Context: the Earthquake in the Philippines
15 October
7.2 earthquake
222 died, 8 went missing, 976 injured
Deadliest earthquake in 23 years
Context: who is Jessica Read?
An editor of Guardian US
What is the voice?
Personal - This is a personal voice, as shown by the consistent use of first person.
Reflective - It is also a recount and therefore reflective voice.
Gratitude - There is also a voice of gratitude almost, as she is grateful she got away from such a catastrophe with such ease.
Educational or sympathetic perhaps - Even if she does so in her own narcissistic nature, she emphasises the scale of the event and educates on the tragedy of it, and in many ways, does not disregard the disaster by any means.
“I’ve been scuba diving for 15 years”
- temporal deixis - establishes her experience, creating a reliable voice.
“I love the calmness of being submerged, the hypnotic sound of my breath and the quiet clicks of the fish eating coral”
- “calmness”, “hypnotic”, “breath”, “quiet” - semantic field of calm and peace. Creates a serene voice. The calm before the storm.
- “calmness” - an abstract noun. Presents calmness as its own entity, emphasising the emotion.
- Sensory imagery - creates an immersive sense of calm.
- “hypnotic” - this idea of lack of control, perhaps already foreshadowing. Also holds connotations of magic, as the experience was clearly magical.
“It was a sunny morning, and after breakfast, we boarded the boat with seven other advanced divers”
- “sunny morning” - pathetic fallacy. Emphasises how everything is perfectly fine.
- plosive alliteration - builds that sense of surety due to the repetitive beat of it.
- “advanced divers” - once again creates that sense that everything will be completely fine.
“This was my 40th dive, so I knew the drill”
- “drill” - connotations of military even, perhaps emphasising her skill.
- “knew” - no room for doubt
- “40th dive” - we’re told she’s experienced again.
- Colloquial language with “the drill”, showing how relaxed she was.
“Slowly sinking to about 20m”
- sibilance - creates a sense of foreboding almost, as the words drag.
- “sinking” - negative connotations, as it is this idea of descent. Creates a sense of danger.
“I saw luminous corals, languorous turtles silhouetted in the deep blue of the ocean with hundreds of fish.”
- alliteration of L - creates a soft fluid sound that further emphasises the calm.
- “luminous corals” - creates a magical atmosphere, almost supernatural. Unsettlingly unreal perhaps?
- “languorous turtles” - representative of the current state of things.
- “silhouetted” - may build that sense of foreboding, as this is almost gothic in description.
- “deep blue” - sense of the unknown. What will happen next?
- semantic field of nature - the inevitability of nature comes into question. This is ready to be juxtapositioned by “the sound of my breathing was drowned by a low rumble like an engine”.
“the sound of my breathing was drowned by a low rumble like an engine”
- “engine” - man-made. A juxtaposition to the prior nature imagery, reflecting the juxtaposition in events.
- “breathing” and “drowned” - antithesis of each other. The transition from peace and safety to danger and death.
- That “hypnotic sound of my [her] breath” is gone now.
“I felt deep, powerful vibrations, as if a big boat with a propeller was passing overhead”
- “deep, powerful vibrations” - plosive, which emphasises the power of these vibrations. The use of sensory description immerses the reader in the experience.
- Plosive alliteration imitates this sensation of an earthquake, once again working to immerse the reader.
- A propeller passing overhead - brings in this idea of danger. The propeller could strike and injure you, just as the earthquake could.
- The boat is a metaphor for the earthquake, perhaps suggesting its incomprehensibility as she can’t think of it as what it actually is.
“The dive instructors eyes were wide with confusion”
- The diver instructor is supposed to be in control, so his confusion emphasises the power of this event as he can’t even control it.
“The situation felt sinister and dangerous.”
- “felt” - the use of this verb creates a division, as it suggests she isn’t actually experiencing the event and only feeling it. This is a clear link to context because she is an uninjured survivor of the deadliest earthquake in 23 years.
- “sinister and dangerous” - very powerful connotations of disaster, emphasising the scale of the event.
“we were enveloped by clouds of white sand that mushroomed up around us, and I thought, could it be an underwater bomb?”
- “underwater bomb” - this idea of the bomb being muffled and absorbed by the water, a juxtaposition to the real scale of the event. Symbolic of how the writer got lucky in comparison to many (e.g. the 222 people who died).
- “clouds of white sand” - reminiscent of a description of a storm. This idea again of the uncontrollable force that is nature. Also, this idea of not being able to find one’s way due to the distorted images caused by clouds.
- “mushroomed” - clear allusion to atomic bombs. This idea of unimaginable catastrophe and destruction.
“A giant turtle raced past us and into the deep”
- Juxtaposition to the languorous turtles from before.
- “raced” - sense of urgency.
- “Deep” - sense of unknown.
“the sound turned into a deafening roar”
- “roar” - personifies the earthquake. Presents it perhaps as animalistic, emphasising this idea that it is an uncontrollable natural force of nature.
- “deafening” - homophone to “death” as in dying. Sense of foreboding.
“waterfalls of sand pouring over the coral”
- metaphor - sand as water
- Perhaps goes into this idea of drowning which naturally creates a sense of disaster and even death.
- A parallel and contrast to the “quiet clicks of fish eating the coral” - reminding us of the massive change that has occurred in the time of this article.
- Sand is symbolic of lack of understanding or being lost.
“The noise was the sound of the earth splintering open and grinding against itself…”
- “Splintering open” - alludes to injury (with open like open wound and splinter), which reflects how the Earth is being injured but also the many people of the Philippines are being injured (976 people).
- “splintering” - typically refers to old wood splintering. Therefore, suggests that the Earth is old wood, emphasising its weakness against a force as powerful as this earthquake, once again emphasising the scale and tragedy of the event.
“discovered we had witnessed a huge earthquake, measuring 7.2 on the Richter scale.”
- “witnessed” - first real use of sight rather than sound as a descriptor of the event. They finally understand the scale of it.
- “discovered” - strong connotations of finding out the unknown, which emphasises how the previously had no idea.
“It released more energy than 30 Hiroshima bombs, and we had been pretty much at the epicentre.”
- Emphasising the scale of the event.
- Colloquial with “pretty much”, which is a contrast. A clear example of how she doesn’t fully understand, perhaps creating an even condescending voice.
CONSTANT USE OF SOUND TO DESCRIBE AND SOUND VS SIGHT
- You can hear events and grasp an understanding while still not seeing them and the full scale. This is incredibly reminiscent of how she experienced this event but not first.
- “witnessed” - first real use of sight as a descriptor of the event. They finally understand the scale of it.
SEMANTIC FIELD/IMAGERY OF NATURE VS INDUSTRY/MAN-MADE INVENTIONS
- Nature imagery = peace
- Industry = earthquake
- Accentuates the contrast and the devastation of the earthquake.
- Industry destroys nature. A parallel to how the earthquake has destroyed.
TEMPORAL DEIXIS AND USE OF DISCOURSE MARKERS
- “I’ve been scuba diving for 15 years”
- “This was my 40th dive, so I knew the drill”
- “After nearly 45 minutes”
“he’d done thousands of dives” - “30 minutes away”
- REPORTAGE CONVENTION
