Jamie's English Journal

In touching the void page 53, you see joe expressing what he feels about ambition and that it is not always good.
When he said “I felt the usual ain’t I climax” that quote shows that he is ain’t as satisfied as he thought he was going to be.
When he says “what now, it was a vicious circle. If you succeed with one dream, you come back to square one and its not long before your conjuring up another, slightly harder, a bit more ambitious- a bit more dangerous.” He demonstrates how he keeps climbing them then when he does succeed in it he’s ego makes him climb a bigger one and he’s scared that he might do one to big.
The example of the quote for me is when I skateboarded down a ramp and there was a bigger one so I did that then after I kept feeling it was nothing until I did the bigger one.

When exploring the title “touching the void”, I find there are many different types of interpretations.

The title could be about more of an emotional side.
When the title says “void” it could link with how he feels about being on a big mountain, with no one else or support apart from he’s friend. every were he looks around is empty and containing no matter (another meaning of void), he will probably feel lonely as well because he might be with he’s friend but when they are climbing they are still metres away from each other,this does not help as a minor thing like communication Can have a major affect defiantly with them climbing for a long amount of time. they could possibly feel slightly insane from all the work and feeling like they are by them selves.it even shows how lonely he feels when he says “I think that it was that loneliness, that sense of being abandoned”.

There is another term of “void” it can be interpreted as ineffective or useless, this could be from when he fell down abit and cracked he’s knee, because of that inncident he struggled to walk and is bassically no good or useful.

I come up with a suitable idea from what the title “touching the void” could be about. I think its called that because it represents a image of a near death experience, people say that death is “nothing…Empty..not matter”… Well then if you think about it, touching is not exactly holding so, that could possibly mean that instead of him dieing ( holding) he nearly did Or possibly for a small amount (touching).
When I was reading this, the moment were he was hanging off the cliff another thought come into my mind.
when he was hanging off the cliff, under neath him was nothing… A void, and the rope he was on that was supporting him has been let go of.