Vocabulary
Eternal- lasting or existing forever; without end or beginning
Immobility- the state of not moving; motionlessness
Opaque- not able to be seen through; not transparent
Reverberation- prolongation of a sound; resonance
Momentum- the quantity of motion of a moving body, measured as a product of its mass and velocity
Cadaverous- resembling a corpse in being very pale, thin, or bony
Congregated- gather into a crowd or mass
Inundation- an overwhelming abundance of people or things
Beggared- reduce (someone) to poverty
Filched- pilfer or steal (something, especially a thing of small value) in a casual way
Questions
- Dave Conroy was trapping animals for furs out in the wilderness.
- We know that Dave Conroy was not likely to make it to the cabin because he says that MacMoran will find him instead of him making it there. We also know that he won’t make it because he has stage 4 hypothermia. Without him being able to make a fire to thaw his hands he has no chance of survival.
- Three critical mistakes that Conroy made were having overconfidence of his ability to make it to the cabin, not stopping after he fell in the river and not realizing that he had hypothermia. He had too much confidence that he could make it to the cabin by the time the sun sets but he didn’t make it. If he had stopped after he had fallen into the river he still would be fine. He had hypthermia and if he had realized that he was starting to freeze he could have made a fire before his hands became unresponsive.
- The exposition of this story was Dave Conroy, by Hoodoo Creek in the winter returning from his trapping to get furs to sell. The complicating incident in this story was when Dave Conroy didn’t stop under the tree with exposed moss. One crisis is when Conroy falls in a sinkhole and gets his gloves wet. The second crisis is when Conroy decides to continue to the cabin, and the third crisis is when he finds the cabin burnt down, but decides to go to MacMoran’s cabin. The climax of this story is when decides to take a rest instead of continuing to the cabin. Lastly, the denouement is when Conroy sat down to take a break he never got up because he dies of hypothermia.
- The setting is Hoodoo Creek, Alberta, in the wilderness, in the winter around the 1880s. The setting affects the plot by being the antagonist in the story (cold, harsh environment that is trying to freeze Conroy). It also affects the theme by Making Conroy try to be tough out the wilderness. It makes him try to be tough because of the stereotype society has put on him as a man so therefore society killed him.
- The symbolic setting was at the end when he saw the white cottage with its doors open like what the gates of heaven might look like.
- 1) “the cold was an old man’s fingers feeling craftily through his clothes.” (pg. 91)
2) “Small dry twigs under a spruce tree would flame-like paper.” (pg. 96)
3) ”he was beginning to feel like a ghost on an abandoned planet” (pg. 92)
4) “the world was growing small, dying in the darkness of the sunlight” (pg. 98)