Explorers Or Boys Messing About?

Question 1

Title - “Explorers or boys messing about? Either way, taxpayer gets rescue bill”.
Line 1 - “Their last expedition ended in farce”.
Key words - “Drama”, “Plucked”, “Ditched”, “Scrambled”.

Answer 1

• The first impression is created in the title itself as it hints the reader of some criticism. The use of a rhetorical question makes the reader question whether these men were really explorers who had made a mistake, or just silly boys who were messing around; the journalist expresses his opinion even though he is meant to be giving an unbiased report. The writer also uses the possessive pronoun “their”, conveying his strong belief that the men should be held responsible for the accident and its consequences, making the reader feel sympathetic towards these explorers as we do not understand the full story behind the accident yet.
• As the text progresses, the writer makes use of the noun “drama” and the dynamic verbs “plucked”, “ditched”, and “scrambled” to describe how the men are viewed as small and insignificant through zoomorphism, as if they are being plucked like a bird. In addition to this, the writer uses the diction “farce”, portraying the incident as a genre of play or film that describes extreme, comic accidents.

Question 2

Line 8/9 - “The rescue involved the Royal Navy, the RAF and British coastguards”.
Line 10/11 - “The men’s adventure had cost the taxpayers of Britain and Chile tens of thousands of pounds”.
Line 12/13 - “Experts questioned the wisdom of taking a small helicopter - the four-seater Robinson R44 has a single engine - into such a hostile environment”.

Answer 2

• The writer makes the reader question these explorers’ actions even more through the use of a tripartite list, highlighting how this accident was such a big event. The use of statistics also reinforces the writers strong opinion, showing how a lot of money was spent to save them, emphasising the noun “taxpayers” as if it were the individual taxpayers themselves who had to pay for the rescue mission, when it was actually the government using the money they had collected through taxes.
• The writer extensively elaborates on the explorers’ qualifications, however, shortly follows up with a single-sentenced paragraph that highlights how none of these qualifications really mattered as they acted so unwisely that they took an “R44” into such a “hostile environment”, demonstrating to the reader how the writer strongly believes their actions were very unwise and childish. In addition to this, the writer creates a dismissive tone by emphasising his lack of regard for the explorers, also quoting a “helicopter expert” to prove to the reader that “it sounds as if they were pushing it to the very maximum”.

Question 3

Line 20 - “Also known as Q”.
Line 55 - “To demonstrate how good relationships between the East and the West had become”.
Line 58/59 - “They’ll probably have their bottoms kicked and be sent home the long way”.

Answer 3

• The writer includes the use of irony through one of the explorers’ nicknames, “Q”, as an allusion to James Bond. Supposedly, “Q” is an expert with cutting-edge technology, yet the helicopter still fails, introducing a sense of humour in the text to the reader, slightly relieving the intensity of the report.
• The writer illustrates to the reader how their actions seemed very comical and juvenile by emphasising how they called an R44 a “trusty helicopter”, as well as how they tried to prove “how good relationships between the East and the West had become”. This highlights their juvenile nature as they seem like children who apparently comprehend the world to be so simple while it is extremely complex and bound with laws.
• Finally, the writer quotes one of the explorers’ wife, highlighting the use of direct speech by their wife to demonstrate how even his wife describes him as a silly old school boy and how she says he deserves it, reinforcing the concept of how negligent these wealthy men are as many other explorers had named the accident as “a miracle that they managed to survive”.