Travel Essay

Connor Skidmore

Essay 2

In the travel essay "How not to get mugged in San Salvador," the author makes use of many modes that help the success of the story and representing the point he is trying to get across. The greatest mode that he uses is the narration mode because he is telling the story from the point of view of himself. Another mode that the author uses very well is the process mode he explains in his adventure on the bus through San Salvador and how he gets out of the situation. Cause and effect is very prevalent in this essay as well. He uses the way he acts through the mugging on the bus and the effects his actions cause. The way he writes, he seems to be trying to reach normal travelers so he can express his experiences and possibly offer another way out if they are presented with a similar situation.

Narration was used in very great amounts in this story because the author was telling a story from his point of view and narration was the best mode to describe it. Narration is when the author tells the story from his point of view and gives personal details on what happened. He told the story from the beginning from when that he was traveling through San Salvador and how he had too switch buses at the capital and that's where he almost got mugged. The entire story was told in chronological order so it falls under the mode of narration. The reason it was in chronological order was because he used a base time and used many transition words, such as next, finally, etc, to convey the continuing of time to his audience.

The process mode is used in this adventure story as well. He is explaining how to not get mugged the way he kept himself from being mugged. The title itself is a great example of the beginning of a process mode. The title says "How not to get mugged in San Salvador." That is a huge indication of process mode because it is explaining how to not get mugged in San Salvador. Another good example of the author using process mode in his writing is when he explained his trip from where he started his journey and up till there in brief locations. He did not talk about those locations very often and he used them to just point out the process he used to his audience.

He uses cause and effect in the story a lot as well. He talks about how his actions to keep him from getting all of his money stolen cause even more escalation from the man attempting to rob him on the bus. The first time the man asks him for his money it was in Spanish and the author acted like he had no clue what he was saying even though he really did. The man proceeded to get more aggressive with his motions and physically motioned for him to hand over his money and the author finally says "No I will not hand over my money." The thief and the author then proceeded to have a tense standoff. Eventually the thief backed down because