1. Contrast is used in sections of text to assist the reader’s thoughts on Joe’s feelings and experiences in the chapter ‘Shadows in the Ice’ examples like “the stark blackness of the drops, too deep for the light to penetrate…the black space held untold horrors… staring at the black hole in front of me… the dark spaces menaced…small hole in the roof, where the sky was cloudless, packed with stars, and moonlight was adding its glow to their bright sparkle.” shows us the contrast of Joe’s feelings towards the environment and the deadly situation. It starts off with Joe describing the crevice he is stuck in as a confining, dangerous was no help or refuge will come, but later begins describing the sky. Joe almost instantly transforms the gloomy situation with an almost optimistic view on the situation. This contrast is used once again when Joe falls 100ft, a fall that no man could possibly survive, but miraculously Joe seems to appear unscarred. His only burden being he’s trapped in a crevasse presumed dead with a buggered leg. He describes his reaction to this, was laughter and tears. Whether it is tears and laughter out of happiness or the cold contributing to the mental state he is in, Joe is willing to die to natural causes with a broad open mind, without fear conquering himself.

  2. “I saw the rope flick down, and my heart sunk.” A connection between Joe and Simon, not only figuratively but also physically. Without each other support neither could survive. When Joe pulls the rope he finds it very slack, unusually easy to pull, his first thought Simon is falling but finds out else wise. “I drew the slack rope to me and stared at the frayed end. Cut!”Although Joe already knew that Simon will eventually cut the connection between them, Joe found it crazy to believe, he already survived a lot of the impossible but all along he was never meant to live, all the bother for Simon to support Joe after his injury he was still left and abandoned.

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