2022 Paper 1 Sample Response 1 (Travel Blog)

Guiding question: Examine how the narrative voice is used in this text to create a sense of immediacy whilst also attempting to involve the reader.

The blog “Tran to Harmanli” from “the bicycle diaries” is a diary entry, a blog, a memoir even of a journalist’s experience as he solo travels through Bulgaria. Although the blog entry serves primary as an external memory of the author’s cycling and travelling experience, the author deliberately seeks to bring readers along with him as he casually cracks subtle jokes throughout his descriptive illustration of his surroundings. Noting that this blog series pivots upon an experiential journey of cycling through continents, it can be argued that the author’s decision to travel in such an unconventional manner is one of an attempt to seek out the pure and unbridled joy of experiencing diverse environments, communities and cultures through an authentically local and down-to-Earth lens. The purpose of the blog therefore is to convince readers to take a leap towards the seemingly challenging unknown as the author attempts to shed light upon his journey to uncover his experiences for reader with a sense of immediacy and direct involvement.

The author first illustrates his initial setbacks due to heavy rainfall in Bulgaria and conveys his amused yet disappointed emotions to reader through varying sentence structures and self-deprecation. The author sets up the scene with a short and direct sentence to establish that “his first day in Bulgaria doesn’t bode well.”  The audience is immediately positioned to expect disappointment as the author’s vivid imagery of a “black sky” and “buckets of rain thumping down outside his window” sets up a gloomy atmosphere. However, the author then illustrates his attempt to continue cycling despite the weather conditions albeit in a (bemused) manner.  This is evident in the oxymoron in “an exhilarating 20 minutes” to highly the sharp contrast between his initial excitement as it is his first day in Bulgaria and the disappointment the weather weighing him down. However, his unrelenting attempt to begin his cycling ends abruptly as the author “ventures back in” 10 minutes later. The readers are positioned to be somewhat amused by the author’s actions as he spent 20 minutes preparing by wrapping his equipment and had to miserably seek shelter just 10 minutes after. The author deliberately does this to establish the casual and satirical tone of his blog entry that allows readers to feel as though they are his travelling companions as reader are amused by the author’s peculiar actions in such a foreign environment. To further cement the sense of immediacy and intimacy between the author and readers, the author employs a self-deprecating joke to justify his failure to ride out the Bulgarian storm on his bike. The vivid and hilarious imagery of having fogged up eyes and “sodden” “padded underpants” do portray the conditions of an elderly man who has loss the chains of youth and readers are hard-pressed to not laugh along as the adventurous author compares himself to one.

Perhaps more interestingly, the author utilises his humour and descriptions to mask his initial foreshadowing that his journey through Bulgaria would be a tumultuous one to lighten up the reader’s moods as they listen to the author’s journey. The next challenge was a bowl of “paunch soup” that has evidently caused the author an unpleasant dining experience. However, yet again, the author masks his dismal with the euphemism of a “soup costing under 30p” to light-heartedly reminisce about one of his most dreaded meals that he still has troubling flashbacks about today. The author further characterises his challenges with the use of personification as he vividly illustrates how his bike, “Maud” was “stripped” and “indelicately squeezed” inside a small bus. Readers are positioned to understand that the author cherishes his bicycle very much as it is not just given a name, but is personified to be the author’s human companion in his journey through Bulgaria. The words “stripped” and “indelicately” further brings a negative connotation for the way his bike was handled as he was forced to board a bus. Readers are also nudged to realise that his was not how the author expected his first day in Bulgaria to turn out and he would have much rather cycled to the city of Sofia.

Although the author’s journey thus far has been predominantly disappointing, the author then flips the readers’ conception that his journey has been a bad one on its head as he playfully illustrates the generous hospitality of his hosts in Sofia through the use of dramatic irony and even dark humour. The author first foreshadows the messy state of his host’s home with the description of their family having a “hyperactive two year old” and then transporting the audience directly to “a flat in disarray.” Perhaps more interestingly the author sheds light on his personal values and reveals vulnerability to his readers as he alludes to his lack of fondness for children. This is evident as the author does not refer to the “the infant” by name and describes the host process in taking care of the child as one that involves “dragging” it which connotes roughness and a lack of care. The author further uses dark humour to describe the hosts as “sadomasochists” which combines sadist and masochist to imply that the hosts are sadist for wanting the author to experience “an infant” clinging on to him and secondly masochists for having a child, thereby implying that the author believes that having children is a form of pain. The author even playfully extends this characterisation after being asked to take the hosts’ children along with him on his cycling journey by comparing the children to huskies and even favouring the latter. Although this may sound demeaning at first, the readers get an authentic glimpse into the author’s life and values. This involves the readers as it closes the emotional distance between a writer and his audience.

Much of the author’s journey in “Tran to Harmanli” may have been seemingly negative experiences at first, but the author ends it on a positive note as he describes his closeness to the “sweet couple” who hosted him and enlightened him on the local culture of Bulgaria. Much like the practice of Bulgarians “shaking their head when they mean yes,” a contradiction at first glance, the author has actually enjoyed and cherished much of his solo cycling journey through Bulgaria. The blog piece begins with waves of disappointing events but ends with the bitter-sweet conclusion that the author was able to experience and learn about Bulgaria from the grass-roots as a local who travelled and viewed its customs. Most importantly, the blog piece is an ode to readers to encourage them to venture into seemingly frightening unknown and to expand their horizons. Sure, readers may be rained on heavily, they may experience one of the worst 30p soup of their life, but they may also have achieved their goal of embracing the local customs of a foreign environment. In retrospect, the beauty of a solo cycling adventure is worth it.

Word count: 1155