Close reading

8. Close reading "Can you hear me, lord?" I called. His voice came back, wraithlike in the wind; I could not make out his words. "The bridge is damaged!" I called. "Leave the donkey. Come on alone" I waited again, hardly breathing, terrified. I saw the ropes of the bridge go tense, and threads break. There was a creaking, snapping sound, and a great and awful cry; I saw the ropes part, tearing, separating, threads flying in the wind, rope and wood and life hanging, falling, gone. Then there was a silence, but for the storm. And nothing. Nothing across all that abyss but mist and ice and wind. I stared at it, unbelieving, half expecting the ropes and wood to materialise, to form again with my firelord there, smiling, and laughing in that quiet way of his. But the ropes did not come back, no matter how hard I stared and hoped and prayed, and after a while I knew they never would. And I knew I'd never see the firelord again, or hear his voice, or know the great and gentle way of him.

B) "There was a creaking, snapping sound, and a great and awful cry" - verb, it is ending with "ing". This shows tension by explaining and describing the sounds and what's happening, the technique that is being used is called onomatopoeia.

"Then there was silence, but for the storm" this shows that the author is trying to create tension, she does this by describing what has happened and what is going on, for example, she is telling us that there is a storm going on while the screams of the fire lord falling into the crevice stops giving us the impression that he is dead.

"I saw the ropes of the bridge go tense, and threads break." She sets a picture in your mind that makes you think what's going to happen without telling us this giving added tension to the sentence. For example, she makes you wonder if the firelords going to die, or if he is going to use something to save himself, such as a mythical force that a fire lord might have that leaves us to wonder if there is more to a fire lord than we think.