2. Analysis of Mood ( Touching the void)

In the last paragraph of the passage, Simpson gives a detailed description of the scenic view of the mountains that he and Simon get to experience, with the help of visual sensory language, long sentences and polysyndetic listing. In this paragraph, he talks about how they find the mountains calming and surreal for example when he says “God it's fantastic” and “It’s far bigger than those pictures suggested”. This sense of calmness and content further adds to the feeling of isolation and peacefulness he mentions at the beginning of the passage. The paragraph seems long and slow due to the big descriptions of the mountains. This indicates the steadiness the characters have achieved and also suggests a sense of comfort. However, this could also be seen as “the calm before the storm” and the feeling of comfort and soothing could completely transition into something dangerous and somewhat unexpected which might throw the characters off course since they seem to be quite settled in the comforting beauty of the mountains.