10th August 2017

Unfamiliar text

Family Holiday
Phenomena
S Daly
Short story

The bridge was too flimsy to support the weight of three family members, the narrator thought it was too dangerous to have such a weak bridge over such deep water.
The beach had a steep drop off, it was dangerous as it was sudden.

“…the waves crashed down…”
Onomateapoeia

The narrator describes the waves as they “crashed down”, this provoked negative connotations as she viewed the waves as violent. Through her narration she states several dangers or threats that she has encountered on her family holiday. As the storyline progresses her feelings develop from the nerves of venturing in a place generally isolated from ‘normal’ society. She begins to gain curiosity, as her fear seems to sink away.

Identify 2 language features that develop the narrators feelings about the holiday.
Give an example of each.

Onomatopoeia – “the waves were crashing down”.

personification – “a wave leapt up onto the beach”

Discuss how your chosen language features (along with the others in the text) an emotional theme for the family holiday.

Throughout the text an emotion of fear followed the narrator as she explored a place she was new to. The narrator describes the waves as they “crashed down”, crash is a violent word choice. This shows us that she may be afraid of her surroundings, she tends to state aloud the dangers she encounters on this family holiday. In almost every paragraph we are told another situation which has the possibility to cause harm or be a threat to her existence. The swing bridge from paragraph 2 was described walking across it with fear as “it was too flimsy” and that the water below was churning. She uses a lot of adjectives with provoke negative connotations. But as the storyline progresses the emotion of fear develops into curiosity. This is shown to us at the end of the story when her mother tells her to not get too close to the fish heads, so she took a photo of them to look at instead. This enquiry could’ve been the girl adjusting to her current situation of being in a place unbeknownst to her. “A wave leapt onto the beach”, The waves were personified giving us the connotation that the water is unpredictable. The unpredictable nature of the water means that it is a danger to her, her being the narrator