Early explorers used literature as a way to record their findings during explorations. Literature can mean anything from books to diaries and journals. An exploration narrative is a recorded account of things explorers discovered during their journeys. As we read exploration narratives, also known as travel literature, it’s important for us to pay attention to specific details that the authors give. Details in literature can relay messages indirectly to the readers that can easily be looked over. In “A Journey through Texas”, we can already gather ideas about the geography of the place being explored in the first sentence. In the first sentence it says “a plain beyond the chain of mountain…” The word “chain” is a vivid adjective, with the author’s use of this word we can imagine that the mountains are continuous and interconnected, just like a chain. Another detail that we gather from this narrative is found when it says “our route was towards sunset.” When we read this, we can hypothesize that they rely on the sun for directions. On page 46 (The American Experience) the narrative says “…on which trail for seventeen days we would find not a thing to eat.” This is a vivid detail that describes the difficulties of …show more content…
These sentences, found on page 48 of The American Experience describes the size of boulders they have come across. The narrative talks about how from the top of this canyon where they are, looking down, the boulders look about the size of a man. Instead, people who have been down to them swore that they weren’t the size of a man, instead they were taller than “the great tower of Seville.” (de Castaneda) By using this description and comparison this piece of literature gives us the image of how big these boulders really are. Without this vivid description, nobody would be able to really know what the author/s were