Ekim's English Journal

Oxymorons and personification are used within the book for several effects. One such thing is ‘The Silence Spoke’ which makes no sense as silence is a total absence of sound. The fact that Joe is contradicting himself gives us the impression that he is confused. This is also an oxymoron.

‘Pain flooded’ also is a metaphor or is a personification it symbolises the feeling of pain entering his body as a flood, a sudden entrance, a sudden breach and assault by his pain. ‘Jerking fire through my join’

Simon has also personified the mountain as a giant creature he makes itout as if the mounta is a live sentient being. He is afraid of the mountain.

When joe is also in the crevasse he always talks about the silence in the cave, the silence may be similar to the void in the title. It looks like the silence is death, is continuously creeping towards him, it approaches him, the silence is an entity which is always present he talks about the very nature of the game controlling him at the summit of Siula grande. It is as if the emptiness or silence is the void which is approaching him.

The ‘blessed relief of tension’ he starts to move more into thoughts about life and about God, he uses religious words more and more often. He also uses the word limbo which is the area between life and death used in religion he believes he is reaching this stage, he is getting closer and closer to death or the void. The words malevolent and evil are also used. He also starts talking about Images of Hindu gods he saw in a temple and the statue of Apollo which he saw when he was young.

Extended description of the pain he is going through, he is always near to fainting which my take him to death or the void.

When joe is stuck in the crevasse the type of writing suddenly changes, he talks in long sentences which seem to continue to go on and on, he also seems to be questioning his own thoughts and does not believe what he says.

“I couldn’t conceive of him dead, not now, not after I’ve survived.” Here he is questioning himself, talking to himself about if Simon has died, he switches from the past tense to the future which is in italics.

He then talks about the darkness, the malevolent cackling which is coming from the darkness, he is losing his sanity, on one hand he has a cool inner voice which is keeping him safe and calm while on the other hand he is laughing, crying, he is mad or afraid. He is starting to talk about his personality splitting in two, as if he has two distinctive personalities.

“The sudden stillness and quiet after the storm.” The title of the novel, Touhing the void, may have several deeper meanings which may mirror either the attitude of to climbers within the book or may also be related to the experiences they have during their expedition. The quote above gives us an impression of what Joe, one of the climbers in the book, may think about the void.

The dictionary definition for void is a completely empty space. This may have several implications within the book such as how close to death the climber Joe came to during his journey. He may not believe in an afterlife so the void may be death or emptiness after death he faces in his journey. This shows us that the climber may have a lack of belief in God as he views death as a void.

The void could also be referring to the sudden disappearance of the relationship the climbers have with each other after the incident in which Simon end up cutting the rope causing joe to fall off the mountain.

The void is mainly used to refer to the absence of something but in this case the void has a presence so it could be something or someone may be there. This someone may be an invisible presence, this emptiness may be God. “The nature of the game was controlling me.” The fact that Joe also talks about something uncontrollable guiding him through which may show that the void is a live presence.

The title of this article ‘Up, Up and Away’ is clearly related to the article and is very effective at linking up to the text. It gives us a sense of journey, up up and away. Like we are flying to a far away land not knowing if we will make it back. This is seen in the article as the man has flown over the English channel in an armchair which is clearly very risky and could have led to the death of the man if anything had gone wrong.

Secondly, the title links to a Disney movie called up in which a young boy and an old man pair up on an adventure in which they fly into the unknown using a house which is attached to balloons much like what the individual in the article has done. The movie is also referred to in the text which again clearly shows a link and is very effective at creating an image of the experience the man had for those who have seen the movie.

The joke in the headline: “the day that armchair travel really took off” is also very effective, it creates a sense of humour around the danger which the man may have faced and how different this ‘new’ type of air travel is compared to the conventional means of aerial transport, the use of a plane. It is mainly aimed at joking at the situation the man is in and creating some humour which it clearly has done by talking about how shocked the French authorities were.

Finally the image is also extremely effectively linked to the article, it gives something to look at and shows what exactly happened, the multi coloured balloons match the humour in the title and gives a feeling of happiness and the iconic White cliffs also show us how much of a grand task this man has achieved. The image has been taken from above to show us how high the man was and also makes everything else feel small due to how high this man was. It looks more dangerous.

The first sense feeling we can see in the passage is that Claire clearly feels isolated. She is sailing alone in the Atlantic which is a huge ocean, the second largest ocean in the world in fact. We can clearly see that this isolation leads to her feeling anxious. She always thinks that after every wave and crest or every gust of wind that some part of the ship, be it the hull or the mast, is damaged. She knows that the ship can not take so much damage and it seems as if she does not think about if the ship is damaged, she thinks about how badly it is damaged as she states that it was impossible for the ship to take such a beating.

We are told she enters a mental state of paralysis which may have been induced due to the fact the she is isolated and anxious. Being alone in such harsh conditions will surely harm a human mentally and physically.
She is also feeling angered and frustrated as she tells us she repeatedly fell out of her bunk until she tied herself in. The repetitive task will obviously create some annoyance in a person.

Later on, she just does not care about what happens to her. She tells us she wouldn’t care if parts broke loose. She has lost all interest in anything else due to the storm. She is either angered or just simply doesn’t care so these conditions may have brought across a lack of feeling.

We can also clearly see that she feels tired and longs to be out of the storm. She says “I allowed myself to become excited at the sight of a clear sky”. She looks forward to this but sadly the storm just hits back even worse and her emotional cycle of trauma and distress starts again.