Mountain+Journey

By Tom Norman and Jeremy Smith Short Stories - Literary Devises Title A Mountain Journey

Point of View: Omniscient. 3rd person

Protagonist: Dave Conroy.

What type of character is the Protagonist?: The protagonist is a round character because he has different character traits and at the beginning of the story he is already fully developed as a character. He has fully developed character traits and does not change during the course of the story. What does he realize at the end of the story, before he dies?

Antagonist: Environment

Describe the setting: The setting is located in Jasper National Park, in Alberta, Canada. The story likely takes place in winter because the mountain is covered in snow and the Snake Indian River is frozen over. The setting is a vigorous mountain range with many peaks and hills. The setting is lonely and desserted and there are sparse traces of human life besides the odd lonesome log cabin or old camp site. The majority of the story takes place on the top of the mountain range but it does change as the story continues into a more wide open settlement. Although the protagonist does make many journeys so he may go from in the mountain to skiing down it then back onto another mountain. Time period?

Type of Conflict: Man vs. Environment

Describe the main conflict: The protagonist struggles against the environment that surrounds him and also against time. He has a limited amount of time to get to his destination or else he may die and has to battle against the elements to survive. He has to overcome the challenges that his environment present, frozen lakes, freezing cold snow, wind and also hypothermia. He also struggles against himself and his own decision making. Whether it be the numbing effect of the cold or the desire to stop and take a break the protagonist makes a few qeustionable descision which ultimately lead to his avoidable death. Like when the protaagonist falls through the ice his immediate thought was to stop and make camp but he ignored his own advice and instead trudged on, in that case, as a wise teacher of mine once said, he was his own worst enemy.

Describe the Climax of the Story: The climax of the story is at the point when the protagonist decides to go to Frank McMoran’s cabin in a last ditch effort to save himself from freezing to death. He decided to risk making the journey to Frank’s cabin was because his hands were to frozen to light a fire and he believed without a fire he wouldn’t be able to last the night. We believe that is the climax because after he makes that decision the story becomes less dramatic and begins to conclude. Also after that there is no more new information introduced into the story.

How does the Protagonist change over the course of the story?: As the story unwinds the protagonist gets more and more desperate. In the beginning of the story the protagonist is just a traveler but as the story goes on he begins to become desperate because he cannot find a place to camp. So he takes bigger and steeper risks because he needs a place to stay and shelter himself from the harsh environment.

Describe the relationship between the title and the theme: The title of the story is A Mountain Journey and in the story the protagonist has a journey through a mountain. Also the story has many peaks and valleys in terms of the story how it has many climactic and also anti-dramatic points. The protagonist faces times where there are many challenges and others when there are non just like on a mountain. I also beleive that the title can be a metaphor for the, if you will, peak and valley kind of adventure he has, in other words there are many ups and downs in his adventures.

How does the main conflict help to illustrate the theme?: The conflict of the story is Man vs. Environment, a nd since the environment is described as a sub zero climate on a trechorous mountain so it helps illustrate the picture of a man lost, cold and alone on a mountain batteling the elements to stay alive. The author does a good job of describing the setting and the main conflict to add to the suspense of the theme.

How does the climax help to illustrate the theme? It illustrates a man in his last moments struggling to survive and fighting a losing battle against a harsh winter climate. As I beleive the theme of the story is survival and the climax teaches a valuable lesson in survival that being that you can never stop during a survival situation.

Give examples of each of the following literary terms in the story (use quotes):

Simile:"...Searing the flesh of his skin like fire, as if he got a sweet burn from a winters crackling fire" I chose this quote because becuase the narrator compares the burn that the protagonist recieves, which he enjoys because he felt as if it was a warm sensation, to getting a sweet burn from a fire, which is what a simile is.

Metaphor: “….The cold was an old man’s fingers feeling craftily through his clothes." He uses a persons action to compare to the cold, which may feel like it comes in waves and thus he says "... fingers feeling craftily through his clothes." would feel as if it was almost ticklish or as i said, in waves.

Personification:”…A white sea frozen into weary immobility." This is personification because he gives an inanimet object which in this case is " A white frozen sea" and gives it a personality. The narrator says it, being the frozen sea, is weary and imobile and this is giving a non-living object a personality which is personification.

Symbol: The cabin with the open door symbolizes a safe haven for the protagonist to escape from the cold. Fire in the story symbolises life. Fire symmbolizes life because without it the protagonist will die of freezing to death. The open door of the cabin symmbolises a haven because it offers a warm bed, fire and a hot meal which is all pivetal in wilderness survival.

Foreshadowing (give both elements):"....Heard water tinkling over pebbles, mumuring, protesting, running downhill between ice and pebbles to the Arctic Ocean" This shows how water is going into his gloves and is freezing cold. Foreshadowing the fact that his hand would freeze leading him unable to light a fire.

Irony: The type of irony in this story is situational irony. We believe this because the protagonist believes that the only possible way to survive is to keep going and push harder when really the right choice was to set up camp where he was.

Imagery: The author uses many colourful phrases to further help illustrate a picture in the readers head. Some examples of this writing are ".....No wind blew and his breath rose white and yellow before him" ".....He bit his fingers. they were as cold and white and unresponsive as a dead mans" ".....And near him the moon thre the outlines of a peak black upon the snow, black as ink seeping through the snow"

Describe the relationships between the class theme and the story. In every story the outcome is dependant on the choices the characters make. In this story the protagonist continuously makes the wrong choice which ultimatly leads to his death. The choices in the story lead to a chain reaction of events that lead to new choices and those choices lead to other choices. The outcome of the story was the turnout of the protagonist's choices which is how the class theme ties in with the story's plot. Completion 5/5 Effort 3.5/5 Content 3/5 total 11.5/15 By Tom Norman and Jeremy Smith