The Explorer's Daughter' Q5

5) Compare how the writers present their ideas and perspectives about their experiences.
Support your answer with detailed examples from both texts including brief quotations. (22)
Both texts are about the hunt of marine animals. Text One is about a writer who travels to
South America to find animals that can be brought back to London Zoo, while Text Two is a
narrative account of the hunt for narwhals. Although both writers experience the hunting
and capturing of animals as observers of the events, the writer of Text One is mostly
unsympathetic, choosing to relay his experience through the objective 3 rd person, whereas
the writer of Text Two displays an alternating perspective to reflect her dichotomous
position and dilemma over her sympathy for the narwhals, while also knowing that it is
essential to hunt them.
The writer of Text One has a detached perspective of his experience, choosing to utilise the
objective 3rd person to limit his expression of any sympathy for the manatee, whereas
Herbert chooses to alternate between a subjective and objective perspective, portraying the
conflict between her emotions and her rationality. The writer of Text One does not show
any doubt or hesitation; he is eager to hunt the manatee to take back to the zoo (‘Let’s go
catch her now’). Only towards the end of the passage does he become ‘worried that she had
been injured during her capture’ showing that his concern for the manatee is an
afterthought. In contrast, Text Two structurally interweaves both the subjective 1 st person
and the objective 3rd person to reflect her duality about hunting. After the poetic description
of the narwhals in their breath-taking natural habitat, Herbert adopts a factual tone and
utilises jargon, such as ‘mattak’ and ‘tupilaks’, to describe the various uses for the narwhal’s
body: she abandons the sentimental 1st person perspective and her emotional attachment
for the narwhals to take on a pragmatic view on the need to hunt the narwhals. Herbert
knows she ‘cannot afford to be sentimental’ but her ‘heart also [urges] the narwhal to…
survive’, showing her dichotomous position between the harsh fact that the narwhals are
essential for the Inughuits’ survival and the compassionate part of herself that shows
concern for the narwhals.
While Text One is about the capture of the manatee for entertainment purposes, Text Two
highlights the need to hunt the narwhals for survival: as a result, Text One is more light-
hearted in tone, whereas Text Two is reflective and serious. The writer of Text One
describes a ‘large shouting crowd’ that watches the capture of the manatee, making noises
of ‘astonishment and pleasure’ as if the hunt is a game. Contrasting the ‘excitement’ of the
crowd in Text One, Herbert describes the anxiety of the ‘clustered’ women who ‘gasp’ and
‘jump’ as they ‘intently’ watch their husbands hunt the narwhals, conveying how ‘crucial’ to
them it is that the hunters ‘catch a narwhal’. Herbert conveys that a narwhal brings in
‘much-needed extra income’ through the selling of its ‘mattak and meat’: this heightens the
tension created by the danger of the situation as the narwhals are essential for survival.
Both texts describe the landscape and the sea mammal being hunted. Text One gives a
simple description of the ‘crowded streets’ in the town and the ‘muddy’ lake, and the writer
depicts the unattractive appearance (‘she was not a pretty sight’) of the manatee by
describing her head as a ‘blunt stump’ and her body as a ‘sack of wet sand’. When hunted,
the manatee ‘arch[es]’ and ‘thrash[es]’ showing her ungraceful movements. Unlike Text
One, Text Two describes the landscape using a lexical field of light, such as ‘glittering
kingdom’ and the ‘evening light…turning ‘butter-gold’, to convey the poetic beauty of the
Arctic. Herbert also describes the narwhals’ unbelievable beauty; she even wonders if they
are ‘mischievous tricks of the shifting light’, showing how in awe she is of the narwhals. They
move ‘slowly’ and ‘methodically’, juxtaposing the ungainly movements of the manatee, and
presents the narwhals as beautiful, ‘intelligent creatures’.

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5) Compare how the writers present their ideas and perspectives about their experiences.

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