Touching the void – Practise Questions

Joe calls his book “Touching the void”. How does he present the sense of danger and his effects on the climbers?.

– “I felt sure that we were close to the end of the difficulties on the ridge” This use of premonition which means an early sign warning of future events shows the sense of danger in Touching the void by giving an example of tempting fate as Simon and Joe don’t know what is going to happen to themselves in the plot, they both do in real life but not in the context of the book. The readers realise that there must be a reason for him to say that they were at the end of their difficulties and basically tempt fate for something bad to occur eg: Simon to cut the rope on Joe. When the audience suspect something bad is going to happen it also presents a sense of danger that anything can happen to change the climbers lives forever which ends up coming in the form of Simon cutting the rope between himself and Joe.

I needed the rope” Page 135 (Joe)

Joe’s statement ” I needed the rope” shows his dependency and faith in the literal rope attached to him as he pushes to continue down the mountain. The context is that Simon has already cut the rope and the metaphorical bond between himself and Joe. The operative word in this quote is “needed” as the word suggests that the rope was basically his life-line to surviving his trip down the mountain, it builds danger because so much dependency is being put into a piece of rope that could literally break at anytime which could kill of Joe and end his life forever or injure him even more than he is with his broken leg. Desperation is also a key area of this quotation because Joe is so desperate for the rope not to break, so much so that every movement he makes can be seen a safety for him as he doesn’t want to fall any further into the crack in the crevasse he is already in, Further into the void if you will.