Aqa gcse english language paper one question 4 help please !!!!!!!

Hi Everyone,

I hope you are all well! I am practicing some questions for English Language paper 1. To be more specific, I am going over Question 4. I am doing a question 4 from the Life of Pi. I am really struggling with this question and I don’t really know where to start. I have been trying to find a model aswer which I could use as guidance and inspiration but I can’t find anything.

Here is the question: Focus this part of your answer on the second part of the Source from line 19 to the end.
A student, having read this section of the text, said: ‘The writer makes the reader feel sympathetic for the narrator.’
To what extent do you agree?
In your response, you could:
• write about your own impressions of the narrator
• evaluate how the writer has created these impressions
• support your opinions with references to the text
[20 marks]

I have also attatched the exract. If anyone could help by giving me some model paragraphs, answers or ideas. I would really appreciate it. I have asked my teacher for some but she just keeps forgetting and when I remind her she just feels bad, but still forgets.

Thank you for taking the time to help me. I would really appreciate some model paragrpahs which will hopefully give me an insight into what is expected of me and what I need to do.

Take care

Reply 1

Happs_2705

This is the extract. Really appreicate this! :smile:

(edited 3 years ago)

Reply 2

m.okp

Original post by Happs_2705

This is the extract. Really appreicate this! :smile:

Late reply but hopefully this may help students in the future

I agree that the writer makes the reader feel sympathetic for the narrator, the description through the extract makes this very sympathetic. Everything is about the endangerment of the narrator, from the ‘stairs vanished into watery darkness’ implying the ship he is on is sinking, to ‘the monstrous metallic burp’ implying that a terrifying creature is near the narrator. Since there is more than one dangerous event that the narrator is endangered in, we feel some kind of sorrow towards him because the chances of surviving seem to be low.

The use of the first person narrative makes me as a reader feel sympathetic for the narrator as it brings me close to the narrator and I feel as if I were in his shoes. As the narrator says- ‘I ran up the stairs. I got to the main deck,’ the repetitive use of the first person pronoun ‘I’ brings the narrator to life, us as readers feel like we are trying to survive too. Furthermore, we can sense his panic and fear as he deals with these dangers, making us as readers feel sympathetic for the narrator.

Moreover, the use of the rhetorical question: ‘Where were the officers and the crew? makes us as readers feel sympathetic for the narrator. This rhetorical question conveys the narrator's fear and confusion considering the protection against the monster is missing. Additionally, the rhetorical question is one of several questions he asks in this text yet he doesn’t get answers or clarity. The narrator's fate is unclear and we as readers wonder whether he will survive or be in more danger as the extract ends with the phrase ‘did I begin to have doubts,’ making us feel a deep sense of worry for the narrator.