The Summit

This task is about understanding the language used in a poem, and the effects it creates.
Read the following extract from Everest climbed, by Ian Serrailler (1995). Then asnwer the questions that follow.

 

   

    Their steps were weary, keen was the wind,
     Fast vanishing their oxygen fuel,
     And the summit ridge was fanged and cruel –
     Fanged and cruel, bitter and bare.
5   And now with a sickening shock
     They saw before them a towering wall
     Of smooth and holdless rock.
     O ghastly fear – with goal so near
     To find the way blocked!
10  On one side darkly the mountain dropped,
     On the other two plunging miles of peak
     Shot from the dizzy skyline down
     In a silver streak.
     On they plodded, Martian-weird
15  With pouted mask and icicle beard
     That cracked and tinkled, broke and rattled,
     On to the summit –
     Till at last the ridge began to drop.
     Two swings, two whacks of Hillary's axe
20  And they stood on top.

 

Map of Mount Everest

Sir Edmund Hillary
a)
What experience is being described in each of the following lines from the poem?
 
  Example: "keen was the wind" – tells us that the wind was very biting, which made their progress more difficult.
 
i)

"Fast vanishing their oxygen fuel" (line 2)
 
 
 
  ii)
"Of smooth and holdless rock" (line 7)
 
 
 
  iii)
"Two swings, two whacks of Hillary's axe 
And they stood on top" (lines 19-20)
 
 
 
 
b) 
For each of the following language techniques find an example from the poem and explain the effect gained by using language in that way.
The terms have been defined in the table at the end of the question.
 
  i)
Onomatopoeia, line: __________
 
   
Example
 
 
    Effect
 
 
  ii)
Alliteration, line: __________
 
   
Example 
 
 
    Effect
 
 
  iii)
Metaphor, line: __________
 
   
Example
 
 
 
    Effect
 
 
Onomatopoeia – This is the use of words which imitate or suggest the sound they describe, e.g., sizzle or boom.
Alliteration – The repeating of a particular letter or sound (usually consonants at the beginning of words) to produce an interesting effect, e.g., the student slowly stirred the syrup by the silent sea.
Metaphor – Compares two things by saying that one thing is something else, e.g., that student is a computer.
c) 
The poet writes about the feelings of the two climbers.
Quote two lines which suggest these feelings, and explain what the feelings are.
 
 
1.
 
 Line
 
 
     Explanation
 
 
 
2.
 
 Line
 
 
     Explanation