Character+Sketch

=Character Sketch= =﻿= =﻿= In the story "A Mountain Journey," Dave Conroy is a confident, foolish, and courageous character. These three traits are what led him to wrong choices, pain, and even the result of death. Confidence is something good to have, but when someone is over confident it can result into something very bad to something surrounding them, or even them. In Dave Conroy’s case, his confidence led him to his cold, painless death. He had thought that skiing down the river would be faster than skiing down the deep snowy slope, but his confidence was wrong, "And as he looked back, while still sliding forward with the momentum of his descent, the ice broke beneath him." If he weren’t so confident that the river would get him to the cabin faster, he would never had fallen into the river, or risked his life. Another important trait of Dave Conroy was his foolishness. "He knew what he should do. He should stop, make a fire, dry his hands and feet, change his socks and mittens. But it was late. It would mean siwashing for another night underneath a tree." If Dave had actually stopped and done all of those, he wouldn’t have been freezing or numb, and would have been able to continue on even further in the night to his destination. But that wasn’t the only example of how foolish he was, "He gathered his muscles together, summoned his strength that was slipping from him like a loosened garment. Then he lay back for another moment, to rest." When he had woken up there was to much weight from the snow lying on top of him, and he even move, "He tried to rise, but his arms stayed still at his side. Snow had drifted over them. A weight was on them that he could not lift. They were heavy with the burden of their own inertia. Snow like a blanket covered his body and the wind blew snow against his face." When Dave stopped to rest, his whole body temperature had dropped, and heartbeat had slowed down. If Dave had chosen to change his wet clothes after falling into the river, and not stopping to rest, he would have made it to the cabin in no time. The last, but most important trait of Dave Conroy was that he was extremely courageous. One of the first courageous things he had done in the story was when he decided to ski on top of the river instead of the snowy mountain, because he thought the snow was less deep and powdery. Another courageous move he had made was when he stopped to rest for the day because he thought he was fairly close to the MacMoran’s cabin. But the most courageous thing Dave had done in the story was that he did stop to change his wet socks and mittens after he’d fallen into the shallow river. Most people would have stopped to change them, and would have built a warm, bright, crackling fire to unfreeze their cold, numb fingers and toes. If Dave hadn’t been so confident, foolish, or courageous, he may have actually made it to the MacMoran’s cabin safe and sound, instead of falling into a deep sleep, on a cold, snowy mountain.

Great job Carlie! Remember the criteria for formal writing! 5/6