10.2 Theroux, Riding The Iron Rooster

Question 1

Genre / mode?

Answer 1

Travelogue in printed book form

Question 2

Audience

Answer 2

Readers of travel writing / those travelling or planing to / fans of Theroux

Question 3

Purpose?

Answer 3

Inform / entertain

Question 4

Ambitious language to describe voice?

Answer 4

Colloquial, critical, sardonic, nihilistic, cynical, satirical, bleak visuals

Question 5

Published in…

Answer 5

1988, American writer

Question 6

Generic conventions of travelogues

Answer 6

Positivity (broken); first person / past tense; explanation of experiences

Question 7

‘People said: “Is this Paris? Is this France? Where’s the Eiffel Tower?”’

Answer 7

Reported speech,real experience; repeated questions, shock; rule of three; subverted expectations; cultural references

Question 8

‘Designed to encourage suicide’

Answer 8

Samuel Beckett; shocks reader; hyperbolic, dark humour

Question 9

‘It wasn’t gay Paree, it wasn’t even Cleveland.’

Answer 9

Archaic use of adjective, familia collocation; references old buildings; satirical voice; incrementum; American cultural reference, boring

Question 10

‘Same in outer London: how could houses so old look so awful?’

Answer 10

Cultural reference, travels; rhetorical question; anaphora, American perspective

Question 11

‘There were too many of them, and they were too close together,’

Answer 11

Parallel phrasing; motifs of closed-off space; repetition, personal dislike

Question 12

‘The centre of Paris, the Left Bank, the museums’

Answer 12

Rule of three; cultural references; expectations of Paris, subverted

Question 13

Samuel Beckett

Answer 13

Irish playwright, nihilistic; wrote Waiting for Godot