A mountain journey questions
Dave Conroy was trapping animals for furs out in the wilderness.
2. We know that Dave Conroy was not likely to make it to the cabin after where he says that McMorran will find him instead of him making it there. He also won’t make it after him saying “He bit his fingers. They were cold and white and unresponsive as a dead man.” Which means he has stage 4 hypothermia. Without him being able to make a fire to thaw his hands he has no chance of survival.
- Three mistakes that Conroy made were having overconfidence of his strength to make it to the cabin, not stopping after he fell in the river and not realizing that he had hypothermia. If he hadn’t had overconfidence in his ability to make it to the cabin, he would’ve been under the tree, warm and well rested. If he stopped after he fell into the river, he would still be fine. Not knowing he had hypothermia was his biggest mistake because that is how he died. If he realized that he was starting to freeze he could have made a fire before his hands became unresponsive.
- The exposition of the story was Dave Conroy, trapping to get furs to sell. The complicating incident in the story was when Dave Conroy didn’t stop under the tree with exposed moss. One crisis is when Conroy falls in a sink hole 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 McMorran’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 died of hypothermia.
- The setting is Hoodoo creek Alberta, in the wilderness, in the winter around the 1880’sThe olden days. The setting affects the plot by being the antagonist in the story (cold, harsh environment that is trying to freeze Conroy). It also effects 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. For example: “men have to be tough and heartless or they aren’t real men”. In a way society kind of killed Conroy.
- 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) metaphor —– “the cold was an old man’s fingers feeling craftily through his clothes.”
2) simile ——- “his skis had sunk a foot in the new snow, white and soft as flour.”
3) metaphor—— “driven by a gnawing fear of death…”
4) personification —— “branches sweeping low, so that close against its trunk, cradled in its roots…”