A Journey into Bhutan

Question 1

‘Mountains all around, climbing up to peaks, rolling into valleys’

Answer 1

• Aysyndetic list
• Shows how overwhelmed she is by the landscape

Question 2

‘Bhutan is all and only mountains’

Answer 2

• Hyperbole
• Again, shows how overwhelmed she is by the beauty and magnitude of everything

Question 3

‘landscape, landmass meeting landmass’

Answer 3

• Repetition and alliteration
• Showing the endlessness of the mountains and how overwhelmed she feels

Question 4

‘the Indian subcontinent collided into Asia thirty of forty million years ago’

Answer 4

• 30-40 million is very ambigious
• Her lack of precision is mimetic of her lack of interest in knowing the specifics, emphasising the mysticality she attributes to Bhutan

Question 5

‘rock’, ‘mud’, ‘valleys’, ‘gorges’

Answer 5

• Semantic field of nature
• Shows how untouched and vast the land is

Question 6

‘from Toronto to Montreal to Amsterdam to New Delhi to Calcutta to Paro’

Answer 6

• Polysyndeton
• Shows the length of her journey, emphasising the remoteness and isolation she is attributing to Bhutan

Question 7

‘I am exhausted, but I cannot sleep’

Answer 7

• Compound sentence
• Shows how despite the fact that she is tired, she so entranced by this countries beauty that she cannot sleep

A compound sentence is a sentence with two clauses seperate by a comma

Question 8

‘mountains rise to meet the moon’

Answer 8

• Hyperbole and personification of the mountains
• Shows how large these mountains are

Question 9

‘on the other side of mountains are mountains, more mountains and mountains again’

Answer 9

• Repetition
• Shows how dramatic the scenery is

Question 10

‘frozen desert’ and ‘baked brown plains of India’

Answer 10

• Juxtaposition
• Shows how severe the landscape is in comparison to most other places
• Also shows the wide range of landscapes she has seen to be here, further emphasising the isolation

Question 11

‘the winter air is thin and dry and very cold’

Answer 11

• Polysyndeton
• Emphasises the hostility and otherness she attributes to Bhutan

Question 12

‘The next morning, I share breakfast of instant coffee, powdered milk, plasticky white bread and flavorless red jam’

Answer 12

• List of low quality foodstuffs juxtaposes the beauty of the landscape
• Shows that she is disappointed and expected better, with words like ‘plasticky’ and ‘flavorless’ showing this

Question 13

‘Both Lorna and Sacha have travelled extensively; Lorna trekked all over Europe…’

Answer 13

• ‘Traveled’ and ‘trekked’ are active verbs
• Shows how they are seasoned in travelling which is a contrast to her lack of expertise, with the adverb ‘extensively’ especially showing this

Question 14

‘hoping to pick up some of their enthusiam’

Answer 14

• ‘Enthusiam’ is an abstract noun
• Shows how nervous she is and potentially disappointed she is, further showing her lack of expertise especially in comparison to Sacha and Lorna

Question 15

‘the occasional truck’

Answer 15

‘Occasional’ shows how empty and quiet the place is, showing her disappointment and contrasting it to the surrounding landscape

Question 16

‘using incomprehensible but graceful hand gestures’

Answer 16

‘Incomprehensible’ shows the exoticness she attributes to this place as she does not even want to try and learn but settles with ‘graceful’

Question 17

‘selling the same thing’

Answer 17

• Sibilance
• Shows how monotonous everything is, emphasising her disappointment, and further contrasting it with the surrounding landscape

Question 18

‘onions, rice, tea, milk powder, dried fish, plastick buckets and metal plates, quilts and packages of stale, soft cookies’

Answer 18

• Long, monotonous and boring list
• Shows how she is becoming less excited and more disappointed, which is a contrast to the surrounding landscape

Question 19

‘teenagers in acid washed jeans, Willie Nelson’s greatest hits after the news in English on the Bhutan Broadcasting Service, a Rambo poster in the bar’

Answer 19

• Asyndetic list
• Shows her overwhelming disappointment as she expected it to be a certain way but it was not

Question 20

‘they are startling against the Bhutanese-ness of everything else’

Answer 20

• ‘Bhutanese-ness’ is a neologism
• It shows how her expectations were very assuming and she is disappointed at how things did not fit into her pre-fabricated picture of Bhutan

Question 21

‘Thimphu will look like New York to you when you come back’

Answer 21

• Similie comparing Thimphu to New York
• The mocking tone and sarcasm of the person increases her disappointment of how rural Bhutan is

Question 22

‘a grand, whitewashed, red-roofed, golden-tipped fortress’ and ‘hamlets are connected by footpaths’

Answer 22

• Juxtaposition
• Emphasises the rurality of the country despite having a few wonders, being mimetic of the juxtaposition between the landscape and the artificial aspects of Bhutan
• This highlights the tension between the expectations and reality

Question 23

‘“The best built race of men I ever saw”’

Answer 23

• Allusion and alliteration
• Shows her appreciation of the people yet her stereotypical portrayal of them and her lack of cultural understanding

Question 24

‘Of medium height and sturdily built, they have beautiful aristocratic faces with dark, almond-shaped eyes’

Answer 24

• Descripive list, being a contrast between the disappointing buildings and these people
• Shows that she has some appreciation for the land, despite her predilection for steretyping and without a cultural understanding

Question 25

‘the young man behind the counter walks up with us to the street, explaining politely in impeccable English’

Answer 25

• Alliteration
• ‘Impeccable English’ is slightly insulting as it shows she did not expect this
• However it also shows how amicable the Bhutanese people are and her admiration for them

Question 26

‘Historical records show that waves of Tibetan immigrants settled in Bhutan sometime before the tenth century , but the area is thought to have been inhabited long before that’

Answer 26

• Complex sentence structure
• Shows her intrigue in Bhutanese history and how she is becoming more understanding

Question 27

‘When the Tibetan lama Ngawang Namgyel arrived in 1616’ and ‘The Indian saint Padmasambhava brought Buddhism to the area’

Answer 27

• Proper nouns
• Showing her interest and increased understanding of Bhutanese cultural and history

Question 28

‘Rainbow District of Desires’ and ‘Lotus Grove of the Gods’

Answer 28

• Alliteration
• Pretty place names juxtapose historical material
• Shows how despite her becoming more understanding she still values the fantastical and make-belief value of the country

Question 29

‘… the disatrous visit of Ashley Eden in 1864. Eden, who had gone to sort out the small problem…’

Answer 29

• Litote shows how she dislikes the violence happening here
• ‘Disastrous’ shows how she dislikes the fact that there was a risk of Western colonisation and foreign influence over the country

A litote is an understatement

Question 30

‘had his back slapped, his hair pulled and his face rubbed with wet dough’

Answer 30

• ‘face rubbed with wet dough is a metaphor’
• It shows how he was humiliated and highlights her admiration for Bhutan for not letting Europeans take them over, emphasising her expectation that Bhutan was going to be exotic and untouched