® ENGLISH GCSE – NON-FICTION TEXTS
From Beyond the Sky and the Earth: A
Admiration:
journey into Bhutan, Jamie Zeppa
The listing in lines 82-82 reflects Zeppas’ admiration as it shows he’s
really come to understand the country and how it’s more than just
mountains. She started off by using reasonably long, dull sentences
which helps convey to the reader how Zeppa felt, but she still keeps
them interested as they want to know more on why it’s so bad – it’s
not boring it just starts with a dull, bleak, unimpressed tone. She also
says the people are ‘very handsome’ again showing her new
profound appreciation and understanding for the Bhutanese
people and the last line ‘I am full of admiration’ contrast her
opening line with the depressed tone ‘there are mountains all
around’ showing no variety. This is Zeppa’s way of telling the reader
not to judge a book by its cover and that to full admire and
understand a place that you’re not familiar with you have to get
involved and want to learn about the place
Cultural Differences:
‘Policemen…direct the occasional truck or land cruiser using
incomprehensible but graceful hand gestures’ This shows how
different the culture is to ours and the shock from Zeppa shows a
certain stereotype that she’d already put on the country, perhaps
as a Westerner. It’s weird that Bhutan is vastly different in many ways
to other countries, and she seems to notice the fact there aren’t any
traffic lights possible showing how shocked and overwhelmed she
still was that all the main differences just flew past her head. Zeppa
criticises the Western world and calls the similarities ‘cultural
infiltration’ which is a negative metaphor with sinister &
contaminative connotations
Wonder Vs Confusion:
We learn that Zeppa knows the ‘technical explanation’ but she still
can’t ‘imagine it’. Instead, she searches for a more easily
comprehensible metaphor, and she imagines a ‘giant child’ making
the landscape and Zeppa’s use of verbs ending in -ing inform the
reader that the child is almost playing with it. This is quite a startling
set of images. Zeppa is in awe of the Bhutanese people, and she is
continuously impressed by them, and she is unable to find the right
words to express what she finds so impressive. No ‘single word’ can
capture the quality of ‘dignity, unselfconsciousness, good humour,
®
Copyright © 2022 Revision Guru | All rights reserved
From Beyond the Sky and the Earth: A
Admiration:
journey into Bhutan, Jamie Zeppa
The listing in lines 82-82 reflects Zeppas’ admiration as it shows he’s
really come to understand the country and how it’s more than just
mountains. She started off by using reasonably long, dull sentences
which helps convey to the reader how Zeppa felt, but she still keeps
them interested as they want to know more on why it’s so bad – it’s
not boring it just starts with a dull, bleak, unimpressed tone. She also
says the people are ‘very handsome’ again showing her new
profound appreciation and understanding for the Bhutanese
people and the last line ‘I am full of admiration’ contrast her
opening line with the depressed tone ‘there are mountains all
around’ showing no variety. This is Zeppa’s way of telling the reader
not to judge a book by its cover and that to full admire and
understand a place that you’re not familiar with you have to get
involved and want to learn about the place
Cultural Differences:
‘Policemen…direct the occasional truck or land cruiser using
incomprehensible but graceful hand gestures’ This shows how
different the culture is to ours and the shock from Zeppa shows a
certain stereotype that she’d already put on the country, perhaps
as a Westerner. It’s weird that Bhutan is vastly different in many ways
to other countries, and she seems to notice the fact there aren’t any
traffic lights possible showing how shocked and overwhelmed she
still was that all the main differences just flew past her head. Zeppa
criticises the Western world and calls the similarities ‘cultural
infiltration’ which is a negative metaphor with sinister &
contaminative connotations
Wonder Vs Confusion:
We learn that Zeppa knows the ‘technical explanation’ but she still
can’t ‘imagine it’. Instead, she searches for a more easily
comprehensible metaphor, and she imagines a ‘giant child’ making
the landscape and Zeppa’s use of verbs ending in -ing inform the
reader that the child is almost playing with it. This is quite a startling
set of images. Zeppa is in awe of the Bhutanese people, and she is
continuously impressed by them, and she is unable to find the right
words to express what she finds so impressive. No ‘single word’ can
capture the quality of ‘dignity, unselfconsciousness, good humour,
®
Copyright © 2022 Revision Guru | All rights reserved
