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

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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,

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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

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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

© Tim Pruzinsky, InThinking 2022

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