BETWEEN A ROCK AND A HARD PLACE Flashcards
‘refrigerator chockstone’
Technical lang
Shows he is an expert
‘…you can imagine using it to climb up the inside of a chimney’
Mundane metaphor
Used to make the reader not expect anything bad
Seems easy
‘…I kick at the boulder to test how stuck it is’
Dramatic irony
Creates tension
‘…I dangle’
Connotations of vulnerability
Increases tension
‘instinctivley’
Quick
All he can do
Natural instinct
‘fear shoots my hands over my head’
Passive short sentence
Personification and dissociation
‘time dilates’
Connotations of eye pupils dilating when someone is scared
Affects time as well shows extent of danger
‘…the wrist, palm in, thumb up, fingers extended…’
Long methodical sentence
Asyndetic list
Shows dissociation to cope with pain
‘time dilates, as if i’m dreaming’
Figurative lang
Contrasts with earlier technical lang
‘…my disbelief paralyzes me’
Personifying disbelief
Dissociation from his emotions to cope with pain
Overtaking him
Shows extreme shock
Doesn’t want to relive the pain
‘I grimace and growl’
Pain is so extreme it is making him animalistic
Isn’t even human anymore
Sensory lang makes it immediate
Animal connotations
Understand the situation
Onomatopoeia
Zoomorphism
‘…my nervous system’s pain response overcomes’
Distancing himself from this extremely painful memory
Shows how extremely affecting these memories are for him that he cannot directly engage with these feelings
Scientific language
Tension
‘good God, my hand’
Short sentence
Religious lang
Alliteration
Contrast
Even more immediate as if he is reliving that exact moment
‘agony’
Strong vocabulary
Emphasises pain so we understand and adds more tension
‘flaring’ + ‘searing-hot pain’
Connotations of fire
Pain is getting worse
Semantic field of burning
