# From The Explorer's Daughter
By Kari Herbert


> [TOC]

## What is it about?
- The writer grew up in Northwest Greenland in the Arctic.
- Her father was a polar explorer, Sir Wally Herbert.
- Returned in 2002; this extract from her book.
- Inughuts still retain many cultural traditions out of necessity, such as hunting narwhal.
- Sympathising with Narwhal and Inuit Hunters.
- formative: impactful, profound

## GAP-Genre
- Part *memoir* as we kow Herbert
- She lived amongst the people
- Part travel writing, or *travelogue*
- Memoir, form of autobiography.
- Do not quote from boldened introduction.

## GAP-Audience
- Western as evidenced by Herber's explanation of the Inughuit people
- Worldy, she is known for travel writing.
- Pleasure reading category.

## Purpose - Why was it written?
1. Persuade - to consider other cultures' viewpoints
2. Writing to argue, exploring dilemma calmly - to encourage reflection.
3. Writing to advise - to know the facts before making judements
> More Importantly...

4. Writing to entertain, thrilling and tense.
5. Informative, foreign culture and tradition.
6. Explain - the practicalities and necessities of life in harsh environments
7. Describe - The practices of foreign cultures and traditions

## An overview of the passage
- A **description** of the narwhal and setting
- Tangible sense of time, place and circumstance
- Sets a clear pallete for readership.
- **Factual and Scientific** Tone becomes more informative.
- Gives statistics, information, jargon comes through.
- Moves to **tension filled hunting** of the narwhal.
- Extrem risk. Miles from land, freezing sub-zero waters.
- From perspective of observing crowds, women and children. Kari herself looks on with trepadation.
- May wish to be part of action, but at a deliberate distance.
- One of the ways in which Herbert explores moral dilemma; we are at a distance.
- **Conflict** of traditional and modern ways of life.

## Language that moves from:
- Mystical, romantic, laden with vivid imagery
- To factual, specific, scientific,
- Transitioning to emotive
- And finally reflective

## Structure
- Romantic fiary tale form of the opening.
- Through scientific context of narwhal and their necessity to the people.
- Tension filled hunt.
- To the moral dilemma of an outsider witnessing this traditional way of life.

## Paragraph Starters (12 Marks)
- **Section 1** (L1-12) At the **start** of the extract, **Herbert highlights her admitration** for the narwhal by emphasising their beauty and majesty in a mystical setting
- **Section 2** (L13-33) As extract progresses, she factually details how narwahl is a multi-faceted resource to the inuit, alongside the hardships of life for them.
- **Section 3** (L34-End)After **expanding** upon her **conflict** between **admiring** and thus **sympathising with the narwhal and understanding the Inughuit people's actions**, Herber **crafts a sense of resolution** by closing the xtract with the *absolute neccessity* of the hunting.


### Section One: Language

- Lingustic Feature:
- Visual Imagery: *spectral*, *glittering, kingdom in front of me*, *butter gold* and *solf billows*, *glinting*
- Semantic Field of light
- Subsequent **adverbs**, *always slowly, methodically passing each other by*
- Effect:
- Captures the awe she experiences when looking at the natural world and creates almost romantic, fairy tale idyllic depiction. Effect is one of a beautiful, calm and tranquil landscape.
- Shines a spotlight on her fascination with both the beauty of the landscape and mystique of the narwhal.
- "always" implies a perpertual state of calm from the narwhal heightened by repeated lulling sounds of the following adverbs.

#### Perspective and structure

- Feature
- **Perspective/Structure:** Herbet writes the passage as a first person narrative. First person pronouns such as *us* and *we* are used in the passage to establish this first person perspective. The first paragraph is written in the **past tense**
- **Structure:** The first paragraph is largely composed of **long multi-clause descriptive sentences**. Notably, the **one short sentence** is *The hunters were dotted all around the fjord*.
- Effect:
- Creates **tone of experience**: we **trust** the writer. She displays **a first hand knowledge of the inuit**. The **plural first person pronouns** craft a more **intimate** experience as Herbert experienced with Inuit women. Usage of **past tense assures** the reader that Herbert has reflected on the event.
- The **long descriptive sentences** amplify the earlier discussed appreciative language.

### Section 2: Language

- Feature
- **Informative, factual** language and **terminology**.
- Powerful use of **Irony**
- *The tusk seems to have little use for the narwhal itselft* Almost a justifictation for the hunting as they seem not to waste the Narwhal but recycle it.

- Effect
- Creates an **authoratitive, scientific tone:** we **trust writer** again, but this time as an **expert**. Bilogical facts serve to inform reader of her knowldege.

### Perspective and Structure
- Feature
- **Perspective/Structure:** Herbert writes the passage with alternating *present tense sentences and past tense*
- **Structure:** The second and third paragraphs are larely comosed of *long multi-clause informational sentences*. Notably, **structure shifts** from **descriptive and chronological** to purpose justified with examples.
- Effect
- Not some blood sport; inuits respect this animal: narwhal.
- Here the **present tense** serves to remind the reader that the narwhal is currently and will always be a resource to the Inuit, as long as it is present in Greenland. The **past tense** is used to highlight evidence that the inuit have used narwhal's resources responsibly for centuries.

## Section 3: Language
- Linguistic Feature
- **Simile** *It was like watching a vast waterborn game*
- **Repetition** of emotice verb *urged*.
- *In that split second my heart felt for both hunter and narwhal.*
- Heart urges narwhal to surive while respect for Hunter facing this danger
- Wants both for hunter to succeed without slaughter of Narwhal -> Impossible situation
- **Asyndetic tricolon:** *to dive, to leave, to survive**
- Asyndetic -> Left out to distil a point, to amplify, to intensify
- Third part of tricolon most important: *to survive.*
- **Personification** of narwhal as *intelligent*, *keen* and with the capacity to *talk*.
- Equality of hunter and narhwal
- **Synecdoche**
- References heart and head, these are aspects of Herbert that represented emtions and logic respectively.
- *I urged the man on in my head*
- *My heart leapt for both hunter and narwhal

- Effect
- Creates image of the hunt as **a game of luck and skill** needed in equal measure to succeed.
- Narwhals breach the water, running the risk of being hunted.
- **Intesifies writer's conflicting desires.** First for the hunter to succeed, then for the narwhals to survive.
- Again writer emphasises
- Elevates Narwhal to man's equal, creating sympathy; such is the perilous situation of the heroic men and the beauty and necessity of the narwhals, they have become equal in Herbert's eyes.
- Writer's moral dilemmma is epitomised. The head represents her logic, the heart her emotoions. Through synecdoche, her dilemma is portrayed.

### Structural Finish
- *Hunting is still an absolute necessity in Thule*
- A **simple last sentence with *hunting* as the subject**.
- Cassts the final vote in favour of the hunter

## Ideas and perspectives: Western culture versus Inughuit culture from start to finish.
- First paragraph-- **dental alliteration**.
- *Distances are always deceptive in the Arctic* (line 11) describes the way quantitative measurements dissolve, break down, in this mystical landscape.
- The author's dilemma again foreshadowed as many Western values do not apply hear.
- Last paragraph--**Rhetorical question:** *How could you possibly eat seal?*
- Highlights the Western viewpoints towards the Inughuit way of life although Herbert justifies their choices shortly after on economic and logistical grounds