Summary GCSE English - Between a Rock and a Hard Place
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Course
English
Institution
GCSE
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How does the writer use language and structure to create suspense and tension? You
should support your answer with close reference to the extract, including brief
quotations
Ralston creates suspense and tension by describing how he felt ‘claustrophobic’. He
juxtaposes this by talking about the ‘space below the drop off’. The reference to
claustrophobia works to create tension as Ralston uses it to force the reader to
imagine his location between two rocks effectively appearing to be closing in on him
and swallowing him up. Ralston references claustrophobia again towards the end of
the second paragraph where he says, ‘climb up the inside of a chimney’. This phrase
uses domestic imagery and allows the reader to relate and further envision Ralston’s
situation. The unusuality of this hobby helps to make his situation ever more abstract
and thus create further tension and suspense as we have no idea what could
happen, whether he will make it out or if he’ll be crushed.
Ralston personifies the stone in his autobiography to make us feel afraid as he tells us
the stone ‘respond to his grip’. The personification could also represent his mind
racing and alert the reader that something serious is about to unfold. The extract
starts in medias res but Ralston is calm and there is nothing eventful; Ralston uses fact
and the semantic field of mountaineering ‘chockstone’ to give a sense of
professionalism and so the reader is also calm because we feel lie Ralston is in control.
This isn’t the case as the extract moves on but because Ralston made the reader
relaxed it creates a greater amount of tension and makes his situation evermore
dramatic. When the reader senses that Ralston is in a bad position we are made to
panic because he’s the expert so we feel scared for him but unable to do anything as
we have no experience.
There is a sense that Ralston is ‘dreaming’ or rather in a nightmare. He uses time
imagery and temporal language to slow the pace and give the effect of time
stretching to make his situation more dramatic but to also give the reader the effect
that this is what three seconds felt to Ralston at the time. ‘time dilates, as if I’m
dreaming, and my reactions decelerate’. This sentence consists of three separate
clauses each of which Ralston may have used to represent one of the three seconds.
The first clause is three syllables, then five then nine. Ralston may have increased the
number of syllables as each clause increased to give the effect of time slowing and
build more tension but also create more suspense as the reader has to wait even
longer to find out what will happen next. The fact the time slows down and expands
for this moment highlights the seriousness and because Ralston acknowledges this in
his autobiography the reader Is inclined to feel anxious for him.
Ralston uses very violent and aggressive imagery to create suspense and to portray a
sense of shock to the reader to encourage more sympathy and worry. ‘Flaring agony’
emphasises his pain and has long lasting connotations of flames and fire. Alternatively
it could have connotations of a flare which you would shoot into the sky to alert
people of your position . It may be slightly humorous because Ralston doesn’t have a
flare and Is truly isolated but for most readers they would be reading on horrified and
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