Between a Rock and a Hard Place

Genre

First hand account (serious tone)

Audience

People interested in adventure/climbing

Structure - Start and end

Starts in media res and ends on a cliffhanger, makes it more immersive for the reader

Structure - Temporal markers

Chronolgical structure in retelling the event while commenting on time to speed up/ slow down the pace

Pace at the start contrast to when he gets caught.

Structure - Single word sentences

"Then silence" and "Nothing". Builds suspense and leaves a metaphorical and literal cliffhanger

Language - Tense

Present tense gives greater sense of immediacy

Language - Assonance of hard c in "scraping quake"

Highlights the sound, movement and danger of the boulder using assonance

Language - Jargon

Shows his authority/authenticity

Language - Hyperbole

"Backlit chockstone consumes the sky" "my bodys chemicals are raging at full flood"
Adds to the quick-paced drama

Language - Pace contrast

Calm and methodical language (jargon) contrasts to the emotive and graphic language (pain/agony/shock)

Language - Colloquial analogies

"The size of a large bus tire" shows how big the boulder is and foreshadows its movement

Language - Metaphor "Fear shoots my hand over my head"

Shows his powerlessness and not having control