Monthly Archives: October 2017

Comprehension & Vocabulary Questions – The Sea Devil

Posted by rubym2017 in English 9 and tagged with

Ruby Maher 

English 9 

The Sea Devil 

 

  1. The man goes fishing by night because he likes the loneliness and the labour of it. He likes the feeling of being a solitary hunter. His desire to go out fishing alone at night is what gets him into big trouble. He almost loses his life trying to survive his encounter with the giant ray because he is alone in the dark with no one there to help him. The man does not fish for a living, so he really doesn’t need to go out in the dark to fish.  

 2. Foreshadowing:  

  • The author tells the reader in the beginning of the story that porpoise are the man’s friend. In the end, it’s a porpoise that saves him from the sea devil. 
  • A school of sardines surfaces near the boat as though something had frightened them. The man does not know at this point that the giant sea ray is frightening the sardines. 
  • The author tells the reader that the man liked “the harsh tug of the retrieving rope around his wrist.” Little did he know that the rope would be the one thing that almost kills him.  

 3. The complicating incident is when the man sees the two swirling, dark pools near the boat. He thinks there are two mullet swimming under the surface. He casts his net out towards what he thinks are the mullet and nets a giant sea ray and gets pulled into the water by the rope attached to his wrist. 

A single crisis is when the man is being dragged out further and deeper I into the bay and realizes he only has moments to live.  

The climax is when with the help of the porpoise hitting the sea ray with his tail, the man is able to swim ahead of the ray to tie the rope around the barnacle encrusted stake. He hopes when the sea ray lunges forward again, the rope with break on the stake to set him free. 

The resolution is when the rope breaks free and the man swims back to his small boat. 

The ending is a happy ending in the sense that the man did not die. He lets the dying mullet go free because he is a changed man. He knows what it is like to be hunted and trapped. He vows not to go fishing alone at night ever again.  

 4. Civilized: bring (a place or people) to a stage of social, cultural, and moral development considered to be more advanced. 

Primitive: relating to, denoting, or preserving the character of an                  early stage in the evolutionary or historical development of s s                   something.  

When the author refers to the plane and the causeway he is referring to how modernized man has become. Even when he talks about how the man has job that where he doesn’t have to rely on hunting for his food. He has a job where he uses his head instead of his hands. The wife at home represents the safety that man thinks he has created for himself in his civilized world. The irony of this story is that no matter how “civilized” or modern man has become he can’t win against the “primitive” strength and power of nature.  

5.  The man learns at the end of the story that he should never underestimate the power of nature. He also learns how it feels to be trapped and fighting his life. In the end, he lets the dying mullet in the bottom of his boat go free because how helpless it feels.  

 6. Examples of Figurative Language: 

Somewhere out in the channel the porpoise blew, with a sounds like steam escaping. P. 33 

The night was black as a witch’s cat, the stars looked fuzzy and dim. P. 34 

A school of sardines surfaced, suddenly, skittering along like drops of mercury. P. 36 

 

Vocabulary 

  1. Sullen: bad-tempered and sulky; gloomy. 
  2. Weltering: move in a turbulent fashion. 3
  3. Elemental:(of an emotion) having the primitive and inescapable character of a force of nature. 
  4. Sinewy: Tough and difficult to cut, stringy.  
  5. Hoisted: To raise something by using ropes and strength  
  6. Phosphorescence: Luminescence that is caused by the absorption of radiations. 
  7. Cordage: The ropes in the rigging of a ship or boat. 
  8. Exhilaration: Feeling of great happiness and excitement. 
  9. Atavistic: A recurrence to a past style, manner, outlook or activity. 
  10. Centrifugal: To move away from the center of something. 
  11. Gauntly: Barren, desolate. 
  12. Impeding: To slow the movement, progress or action of something. 
  13. Tenaciously: Very determined to do something. 
  14. Respite: A period of temporary delay.  
  15. Equilibrium: A state of balance, one force is not stronger than the other. 
  16. Imminent: Something that is about to happen very soon.  

Comprehension and Vocabulary Questions- A Mountain Journey

Posted by rubym2017 in English 9 and tagged with

Ruby Maher 

English 9 

A Mountain Journey -Questions 

1. Dave Conroy is a seasoned trapper who has been traveling alone in the winter crested mountains and forest. He is hauling his fifty pound sack of furs on his back that he plans to sell at the market. He has been pushing himself very hard to reach his next resting point, a cabin in the woods.  

 2. The reader knows that the protagonist has pushed himself to far right from the beginning of the story when Dave Conroy has made it to the summit of the pass and realizes that he should have made camp two miles back in the shelter of the spruce tree. The author lets the reader know right away that he has pushed himself too far. We really know that he is in serious trouble when he barely makes it to the cabin after falling into the river only to find that the cabin has burned down. At this point, he can no longer feel his hands and can’t even make a fire.  

 3. The first critical mistake that Dave Conroy made was that he didn’t stop at the first spruce tree and rested, instead he went on to find the first cabin. The second mistake that he made was when he found that the cabin was burned down, he decided to make a fire with his matches but the dropped them into the freezing snow. The last mistake was that even though the was cold, wet and utterly exhausted, he continued his journey the second nearest cabin that was not a near as he wished. These critical mistakes did cost him his life. 

  4. Exposition: The story introduces the protagonist Dave Conroy as he crests a snowy mountain summit on skis. He has been hauling his 50 lb backpack full of furs that he has trapped through the wilderness to the market. He realizes as he crests the summit that he is exhausted and has pushed himself too far. He should have stopped two miles back to spend the night in the shelter of a large spruce tree.  

Complicating incident: Dave starts his descent on his skis and at the bottom falls through the ice in to the freezing cold water of the river and gets soaked. 

3 crises: He takes his gloves off because they are wet and puts on a pair of woolen inner mitts and decides to continue on even though he knows he should make a fire to dry and warm up his hands and wet feet. 

He makes it to where the cabin should be and finds that it has burned down 

He tries to make a fire, but he can no longer feel his hands. He drops his match and match safe. 

Climax: The climax of the story is when Dave makes a last frantic effort to make the ten mile climb up the high pass to MacMoran’s cabin in Terrace Creek.   

Denouement: Dave makes it to just below the summit and sits down for a rest and realizes he’s too tired to move and falls asleep. Dave dies still thinking maybe his friends MacDonald and MacMoran might come get him. 

5. The setting of this story is in the deep, mountain wilderness somewhere in Northern Canada in the winter near the end of February. The story is set back in time, as the writer talks about Dave having matches and a match safe and also refers to his friend owning a cobbler shop. The setting affects the plot and the theme of the story because this a story of a man underestimating nature and weather. This is a story of man vs. Nature and nature wins. A theme statement for this story is not to let your pride get in the way of making the right decision. Dave’s overconfidence and pride are what got him killed out in the unforgiving winter wilderness. 

 6. An example of symbolic setting in the story is the little white cottage with the open door that Dave sees in the distance at the end of the story. The cottage with the open door is symbol for death…. it’s inviting him in.  

 7. Figurative Language: Stiff branchless trees, like a parade of skeletons climbing up the mountainside (p.95) 

 

Simile: glanced a moment over his shoulder at the curved beauty of his ski trail on the hill above, curved and smooth and thin, like the tracing of a pen upon the snow.  

Metaphor: The cold was an old man’s fingers feeling craftily through his clothes (p.91) 

Personification: That tree, like a strong lonely woman, called to his weary body to stop. (p.92) 

 

A Mountain Journey Vocabulary 

  1. Eternal: Lasting or existing forever.  

 2. Immobility: Incapable of moving or being moved.  

 3. Opaque: Not able to be seen through.  

 4. Reverberation: Prolongation of a sound. 

 5. Momentum: The impetus gained by a moving object. 

 6. Cadaverous: Resembling in a corps being very thin, pale or bony. 

 7. Congregated: Gathered into a crowd or mass  

 8. Inundation: Flooding. 

 9. Beggared: A person of a specified type, often one to be pitied.  

 10. Filched: pilfer or steal in a casual way.