The Explorer’s Daughter

Question 1

‘evening light was turning butter-gold’

Answer 1

• They are a lot more descriptive
• ‘evening light was turning butter-gold’
• Herbert is a reporter — this descriptive approach contrasts what she normally writes. It feels more personal and has les of a news reporter bias tone
• As a result we are able to connect more with the story

Question 2

‘plumes of spray from the narwhal catching the light in a spectral play’

Answer 2

• ‘plumes of spray from the narwhal catching the light in a spectral play’
• rhyme: spray and play: shows the intensity of experience
• spectral: like a ghost; life or death; the Inughit people need to catch the Narwhals
• play; peaceful tone = beauty of nature (juxtaposes what they do to the narwhals)

Question 3

‘an essential contributor to the survival of the hunters’. ‘source of light and heat’ ‘ and they are a ‘valuable part of the diet’

‘spectral play’

Answer 3

• more factual and introduces the reader as to why the narwhal are ‘an essential contributor to the survival of the hunters’
• The Inughuit people don’t hunt for sport, they hunt because they need to
• they use them for ‘source of light and heat’ ‘ and they are a ‘valuable part of the diet’
• confuses reader after the romanticisation of hunting them in the paragraphs before, ‘spectral play’
• begins to open up the moral dilemma of hunting narwhals to the reader, we see Herbert’s thought process as she tries to justify killing the animals

Question 4

‘my heart also urged the narwhal to dive, to leave, to survive’

Answer 4

• ‘my heart also urged the narwhal to dive, to leave, to survive’
• shows her emotions controlling her as she’s overcome with irrational sympathy for the animal, listening to her heart not her head. Shows us how tough the moral dilemma is
• urgent infinitive verbs: she wants the whale to live. It’s infinitive and that shows that it is neither past or present, leaving this battle frozen in time
• rhyme and alliteration: shows the strength of her emotions

Question 5

• ‘one cannot afford to be sentimental in the Arctic’. ‘images that bombarded us several years ago of men battering seals’

Answer 5

• ‘one cannot afford to be sentimental in the Arctic’
• Money; the Inughuits need to hunt to be able to survive
• ‘images that bombarded us several years ago of men battering seals’
• she’s aware of the emotional manipulation in the media, warns the reader to be more nuanced and not to get trapped into the mindset of villainising the Innuight people (as implied by the violent language of ‘bombarded’ and ‘battering’)