“We took the customary summit photos and ate some chocolate. I felt the usual anti-climax. What now? It was a vicious circle. If you succeed with one dream, you come back to square one and it’s not long before you’re conjuring up another, slightly harder, a bit more ambitious – a bit more dangerous. I didn’t like the thought of where it might be leading me. As if, in some strange way, the very nature of the game was controlling me, taking me towards a logical but frightening conclusion; it always unsettled me, this moment of reaching the summit, this sudden stillness and quiet after the storm, which gave me time to wonder what I was doing and sense a niggling doubt that perhaps I was inexorably losing control – was I here purely for pleasure or was it egotism? Did I really want to come back for
more? But these moments were also good times, and I knew that the feelings would pass. Then I could excuse them as morbid pessimistic fears that had no sound basis.” Quotation by Joe Simpson as the reach the summit of Siula Grande
is included to give perspective on what goes through a mountaineer’s mind. The train of thoughts that they go through every time they accomplish a summit. The ideology that they’ve done this one, now next one and after that, I’ll do another one even more difficult, every time moving on without a sense of satisfaction or accomplishment, personally, I think that the reason for this attitude is their worry and nerve of the risk of death waving at them, always a demining possibility. This reveals that the author is foreshadowing the future outcomes that could possibly happen an even more dangerous climb in the future, a near meeting with death itself or an injury which is going to forever prevent another climb, this is a very clever technique for a writer especially for an author who is recounting past experiences. The line ” “The dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible” T.E.Lawrence refers to in the opening of the text? can relate back to this passage of text written by Joe Simpson “Was I here purely for pleasure or was it egotism?” allows the audience to conclude that Joe is contemplating what he actually wants to achieve if he is in it for health and well being but rather respect and fame.