A Mountain Journey
1. Dave Conroy was in the mountains to deliver fur for the Market. He was going to stop at Hoodoo cabin on Hoodoo Creek to stay for the night, which was 5 miles away. “Hoodoo cabin on Hoodoo Creek, where he could pass the night, was still five miles away.” (pg. 91)
2. We knew the protagonist was in serious trouble when the moon was out, and his fingers and feet started getting numb. Also, when he decided to keep going to his destination without resting at an area and he soon regretted that later in the story. “He should stop, make a fire, dry his hands and feet, change his socks and mittens. But it was late. It would mean siwashing for another night underneath a tree.” (pg. 94)
3. The three mistakes Conroy made were travelling alone in the mountains and snowy conditions , not resting to make a fire and change his clothes after falling into the water, and not taking a break under the tree when he had a chance to. To prevent himself from freezing he should have made a fire right after he fell into the water.
4. Exposition: Dave Conroy, a hunter, is in the mountains to bring fur to the market.
Complicating Incident: When Conroy fell into the river and got soaked.
3 crisis:
– After Conroy fell into the water, he didn’t make a fire to get warm and instead he kept going.
– When he wanted to rest and make a fire, but he couldn’t because his hands were frozen.
– When he was climbing up the mountain and decided to take a break and sleep in the snow, he ended up waking in the morning and slid further down the hill.
Denouement: Conroy couldn’t make it to MacMoran’s cabin, and he slowly dies.
5. Setting: Snowy Mountain, day/night time, around the 1600’s, cold weather.
The setting affects the plot because the place that the character is in affects them a lot. There are obstacles and challenges that the character must face because of the setting. “He had fallen into an air hole.” (pg. 93)
Theme: It’s okay to take a break when you need it and be patient, go slow, you don’t have to always be in a rush.
6. Concrete place: Cabin
Abstract: warmth and comfort
The meaning is that when he thinks about the cabin, he thinks about the warmth and comfort that the cabin will bring. The cabin has beds and is nice and warm.
7. Metaphor: “The cold was an old ma’s fingers feeling craftily through his clothes.”
Simile: “He was beginning to feel like a ghost on an abandoned planet.”
Personification: ““That tree, like a strong and lonely woman, called to his wary body to stop.”
Simile: “They were cold and white and unresponsive as a dead man’s.”
Vocabulary:
- Eternal– lasting or existing forever
- Immobility– the state of not moving
- Opaque– not able to see through (nontransparent, cloudy)
- Reverberation– the echo of a sound
- Momentum– motion of a moving body
- Cadaverous– looking corpselike, very pale, bony, or thin
- Congregated– gathering into a mass or crowd
- Inundation– a flooding
- Beggared– ? to reduce
- Filched– to take something in a furtive manner