High country strippers

By Willis Macbeth

Rod and Rifle, Magazine article

This article is about Willis Macbeth who has to endure a week of living in the wild to achieve his goal of shooting the ultimate stag. He pushed himself to the limits both physically and mentally in hope of achieving his goal. The article is based in the high country of Kaikoura, where there is steep mountainous terrain.

The theme addressed in this magazine article is endurance. This is shown throughout the whole article while Wills is trying to kill the ultimate stag. Near the end of his hunt after he has shot his big stag and is searching for it he says; “I could hardly drag my legs up the bouldery riverbed”. This shows us the reader that he was fully exhausted mentally and physically while searching for this ultimate stag he shot. He had to endure this tough time and keep searching till he found this stag. There were plenty of other situations where he had endured a tricky situation, for example when he shot a stag before he got his big one, but it wasn’t as big as he anticipated. After shooting it he says; “Not the real monster I set out for, I was disappointed for pulling the trigger”. This would have had a big effect mentally on him as this would usually scare other deer away and make his chance of finding a bigger stag even smaller. This had an effect on Willis but he kept going with the slim chance he might find one. He kept searching and never gave up, this led to him being successful. The whole article carried the theme of endurance.

This text relates with the rest of the world as everybody can relate to a similar situation in everyday life. Everyone has or will be faced with tricky situations physically and mentally in life, whatever it may be like sport, relationships or work. You must overcome these challenges and carry on. Doing this will enable you to become a stronger and better person as shown by Willis when he is hunting.

High Country Strippers, shows us that New Zealand is one of the only countries left with a vast amount of wilderness, allowing people to hunt. Hunting is part of the culture in the South Island and has been for many centuries. People prefer meat from hunters as it is fresh and usually better quality than farmed meat. These situations of people going out and hunting are becoming much less in the world we live in. This is because most of the forests are getting cut down and it is becoming a much more populated area. Therefore, we are lucky to be in an environment where this is possible.

This text relates to my personal experiences and viewpoints. I have experienced similar situations when you’re physically pushed to the maximum in sporting events but you have to push past this and find new maximum boundaries. Willis gets mentally down after he couldn’t find his stag he shot but he doesn’t give up trying to search for it. The fact he won’t stop till he has searched everywhere, is also like sport events when you don’t give up till the finish. This magazine article relates to my personal view points as it shows that you don’t stop trying to complete your goals till you have achieved your goal. In Willis’s case, it is till he has shot a big stag that he is satisfied with. It shows us that he was pushed to the limits but he kept fighting till he got the stag he wanted. This relates to my viewpoint of never giving up and pushing your body physically and mentally further than you ever thought you could.

The author Willis Macbeth has used several language features in his article to make it more interesting and keep the reader’s attention. Some of which are Similes, Colloquial language, Onomatopoeia, Verbs and Metaphors. For example, he used a simile when a group of Keas attacked his camp site; “Scouring the nearby tussocks for my gear; it looked like a bomb site”. He refers to a bomb site as this is usually carnage and everything is all over the place, this would have also been a bit of exaggeration/ Hyperbole, as Keas can’t cause that much damage. A powerful metaphor used, was after he shoots his first stag; “The boom shattered the peace of the ever-darkening evening as the stag slumped his head”. The noise can’t actually shatter the peace of the evening but is there to show that the gun shot was loud and ruined the quietness of the night. This gives the reader a more realistic feeling of what situation he was in. There is also Onomatopoeia in that sentence which is “boom”, this is there to show the noise of the gun shot.

The ending surprised me as he did shoot the ultimate Stag even after he had already shot a Stag, this shows that his determination and his attitude of never giving up payed off. I would recommend High Country strippers by Willis Macbeth, he has written this article very well with good structure and many language features to keep the reader’s attention.

Julius

March, term one.