From The Explorer's Daughter

Question 1

‘Spectral play of colour’, ‘butter-gold’, ‘glittering kingdom’, ‘existed at all’

Answer 1

Make the place seem utopian and magical - contrasts with the fact that they’re going to hunt there, also engages reader. Calm and tranquil environment; even the movements are gentle. Juxtaposition

Question 2

‘Looking as if they were going to merge…’

Answer 2

Anticlimax, builds tension

Question 3

‘Scrambling’

Answer 3

Dynamic vocab

Question 4

‘Pods’, ‘fjord’

Answer 4

Semantic field vocabulary

Question 5

‘Butter-gold’

Answer 5

Compound adjective, imagery

Question 6

‘Glittering kingdom’

Answer 6

Metaphor

Question 7

‘Existed at all’

Answer 7

Build tension

Question 8

‘Mischievous tricks of the shifting light’

Answer 8

Personification, engages reader

Question 9

Notes on the second paragraph

Answer 9

Informative/factual, contrasts greatly with the first paragraph which is very descriptive. The change in focus reflects how the piece fulfils 2 roles; it is informative and also expresses the writer’s feelings

Question 10

Notes on the third paragraph

Answer 10

Builds tension, used to question the morality vs necessity of the hunting by using more factual information to back up what isn’t the conventional western viewpoint on hunting

Question 11

‘Small ancient dwelling’

Answer 11

More fairytale imagery. provides cohesion within the text

Question 12

‘Particular predilection’

Answer 12

Alliteration

Question 13

‘Instinctively’

Answer 13

Almost animalistic term, emphasises difference between the people in the passage and the audience she’s writing for

Question 14

‘Every hunter’

Answer 14

Emphasises importance of the hunt and reinforces the facts in the previous paragraph

Question 15

‘It was like watching a vast, waterborne game’

Answer 15

Simile, creates sympathy for the narwhal; treats it’s likely death as game.
It makes the hunt seem like a sport and shows that you need to be skilled and have precise techniques in order to ‘win’

Question 16

‘Hunters spread like a net’

Answer 16

Simile, narwhal’s survival is unlikely and creates suspense

Question 17

‘Watched their progress intently’, ‘crucial’

Answer 17

Build tension

Question 18

Notes on the fourth paragraph

Answer 18

Less factual, account of what happened

Question 19

Notes on the fifth paragraph

Answer 19

Balances views of hunter and narwhal by giving more factual information about the narwhals when up until that point is has all been about the hunters. Informative paragraph to break up the action

Question 20

Notes on punctuation in paragraph six

Answer 20

Dashes used to fragment text, creates tension and gives a sense of the writer’s thought process

Question 21

‘My heart leapt for both hunter and narwhal’

Answer 21

Shows conflict in her feelings

Question 22

‘Could only’

Answer 22

Definite and persuasive

Question 23

‘To dive, to leave, to survive’

Answer 23

Tripling, persuasive

Question 24

Notes on final paragraph

Answer 24

Tries to convince herself and the reader that it’s fair for the hunter to kill the narwhal. She’s writing for a typical western audience so she needs to persuade them to believe something that isn’t necessarily a typical western view.

Question 25

‘True,…’

Answer 25

Anticipating rebuttal

Question 26

‘Battering seals for their fur…’

Answer 26

Typical images that make people unhappy with the idea of hunting

Question 27

General notes on the passage

Answer 27

Never explicitly states her opinion but presents arguments for both sides of the debate. This leaves room for the reader’s own views. However, she subtly persuades the reader to support the hunter

Question 28

‘Two hours after…’

Answer 28

Temporal phrase, shows how hunting takes a long time

Question 29

‘Glinting off man and whale’

Answer 29

Implies that humans are more in touch with nature than they actually are

Question 30

Notes on the genre of the piece

Answer 30

The piece is a recount, the tone of that is someone with more knowledge and is written for a non specialist. The piece is also a discursive essay which poses a discussion about ethics

Question 31

‘On the side of which we now sat’

Answer 31

Relates the factual information back to their situation

Question 32

‘Pointing in every direction’

Answer 32

Hyperbole

Question 33

‘Little use for the narwhal itself’

Answer 33

Informed opinions

Question 34

‘(A single narwhal can feed a team of dogs for an entire month) + (although the ivory was found to be brittle and not hugely satisfactory for a weapon)

Answer 34

More conversational tone, factual but less formal. It is used to persuade the reader of the writer’s expertise in order to make the reader agree with her conclusion

Question 35

‘Narwhals are intelligent creatures’

Answer 35

Creates sympathy

Question 36

‘They talk to one another…’

Answer 36

Personification, creates sympathy

Question 37

‘Gently picked up his harpoon’

Answer 37

Oxymoron, also shows that they’re not hunting out of cruelty

Question 38

‘This dilemma stayed with me the whole time that I was in Greenland’

Answer 38

Shows how important this is for her as it has stayed with her a long time

Question 39

‘One cannot afford to be sentimental’

Answer 39

Implies that the environmentalists in the west are naive

Question 40

‘Hunting is still an absolute necessity in Thule’

Answer 40

Reinforced supported opinion