The explorers daughter - how she tells the reader about the narwhal, the hunters and Greenland

Question 1

‘those of us on shore could with the naked eye see the plumes of spray from the narwhal catching the light in a spectral play of colour.’ (2-4)

Answer 1

Herbert uses a metaphor to liken the spray created by the narwhal to a ‘spectral’ (i.e. ghostly) ‘play of colour’. By doing so, she makes the distant sight of the narwhal seem almost otherworldly.

Question 2

‘Scrambling back up to the lookout, I looked across the glittering kingdom in front of me and took a sharp intake of breath.’ (5-6)

Answer 2

By likening the landscape to ‘a glittering kingdom’, Herbert uses a metaphor to show how vast and beautiful this part of Greenland is. ‘Glittering’ might also evoke the impressive sight of light reflecting on snow and ice. Her ‘sharp intake of breath’ symbolises how taken aback she is by the beauty of the scenery.

Question 3

‘The narwhal […] are intelligent creatures, their senses are keen and they talk to one another under the water.’ (41-42)

Answer 3

Herbert informs the reader about the narwhal by foregrounding their most human characteristics; they are ‘intelligent’ and ‘talk to each other’, prompting sympathy from the reader.

Question 4

‘I fell to wondering if the narwhal existed at all or were instead mischievous tricks of the shifting light.’ (11-12)

Answer 4

Herbert continues to present the narwhal as mysterious creatures; here, she refers to them as ‘mischievous tricks of the shifting light’. This metaphor suggests that the narwhal are hard to see from a distance, as well as evoking their playful movements.

Question 5

‘rich source of vitamin C was the one reason that the Eskimos have never suffered from scurvy’

Answer 5

Herbert uses a number of devices to inform the reader about the value of the narwhal to the people of Thule. She uses technical lexical, describing the blubber as ‘mattak’ and shares a number of facts and statistics to illustrate its importance.