Climbing My Grandfather - Andrew Waterman

Climbing My Grandfather - Andrew Waterman

Themes

• The theme of mountaineering is present through out as an extended metaphor comparing climbing a mountain to climbing his grandfather. Waterhouse uses a semantic field of words relating to mountaineering such as "rope", "ridge", "overhanging" and "traverse". This suggests that the speaker finds his grandfather fascinating, like a nature mountain feature as well as the speaker being familiar with climbing and has in-depth knowledge.
• Another theme is childhood memories as the speaker uses micro-description to describe his grandfather such as "nails are splintered" and "skin of his finger is smooth and thick" suggesting they have a close relationship like a climber to a wall.
• The poem also…