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Want to revise your theme evaluation skills in 'Climbing My Grandfather'?
Well, you've come to the right place to do this!
In this activity, you'll be able to practice your evaluating skills concerning key themes in 'Climbing My Grandfather'. This activity should allow you to practice some key skills in detecting how the writer develops key themes and presents them effectively. This is a mixed activity - some of your answers will need to be manually marked!
An evaluation template:
Identifying the theme ie: In 'Climbing My Grandfather', Waterhouse presents the theme of mountain climbing through the extended metaphor of the grandfather being a mountain for the speaker to climb.
Example i.e: The beginning of the poem, "I decide to do it for free, without a rope of net" shows this.
Effect i.e: The extended metaphor of mountain climbing as the main theme in the poem really emphasises the speaker equating the close relationship with his grandfather as something which requires the same physical effort as climbing a mountain.
Linking the theme to the poem as a whole ie: The fact the this theme is quite prevalent throughout the poem illustrates the idea of emotional closeness as something which requires effort. The theme of mountain climbing, which requires a lot of physical exertion and danger, really highlights the exertion and hard work required to make any relationship work.
Don't worry about making your evaluations super complex and don't get too intimidated by the example here. It's more sophisticated so that you have a great example to work towards!
Hopefully (fingers crossed) this makes evaluating themes easier to understand. If it's still tricky, don't worry, because the activity will be filled with helpful hints and explanations that you can jot down as you do it.
Remember, take your time, it's not a race!
You should always refer to your own text when working through these examples. These quotations are for reference only.
