1. ‘Compass and Torch’ by Elizabeth
Baines

2. What happens in the story:
• A young boy goes on a camping expedition
with his father. His parents are separated and
his mother’s new boyfriend, Jim, now lives
with her and the boy. We are not told what on
the camping trip but for years to come the boy
will be haunted by the experience.

3. Ideas, Themes and Issues:
• Growing up/change: the boy is only eight but this is a significant moment
in his young life when things change (an epiphany). Life will never be the
same again.
• Divorce/broken families: this is a traumatic time for the family. The
parents separated a year earlier and the boy’s relationship with his
mother, Jim and his father are all difficult.
• Father and son: the most important relationship is that between the
father and the son. The boy wants to be like his father and to be loved by
him, but they are already losing touch emotionally.
• Masculinity: the father is trying to do what is sometimes called ‘male
bonding’ – sharing an activity that he thinks the boy would enjoy. The boy
loves the idea of being a man like his father, but his mother mocks the
plan.
• Man and nature: the wildness of the moors dominates the story. The
ponies belong on the moors, but the boy and his father seem very weak
and insignificant out in the darkness. The moors are notoriously
dangerous for people who are unfamiliar with them, as they cannot be
tamed.

4. Form, Structure and Language:
• Symbolism dominates the story. The title contains the
most important symbols; the compass and the torch. A
torch helps people to see things and a compass helps
others find their way. They are both important objects
on a trip like the one in the story. What do you think
they mean in the context of the boy’s relationship with
his father? What is the significance of the compass
being left behind?
• The imagery used to describe nature gives a sense of
mystery and danger: the rocks are like ‘carcasses’; the
ponies are ‘ghost-coloured’.

5. • In contrast with the vivid description of the landscape,
the conversations between characters are about
everyday things in colloquial language. While the boy
chatters on and asks questions, the man gives short,
often monosyllabic, answers. The mother expresses
herself quite violently, which is indicated through the
use of exclamation marks and question marks.
• The story is written in the third person. Sometimes the
characters and settings are described as if seen from a
distance. More often, the narrator takes us into the
boy’s thoughts, so that we see things from his point of
view. Towards the end we get glimpses of the father’s
thoughts or feelings.
• The story is divided into short sections by asterisks or
dots, which separate the different stages in the
journey, a bit like scenes in a film.

6. • Most of the story is written in the present tense,
although there are three short sections in the
past tense, as the boy remembers what
happened before he sets off in the car with his
father. Unusually, the final sentence uses the
future tense, the writer predicting what will
happen in the future.
• Although the story would seem to be set in the
present, the last sentence indicates that in fact it
is an incident recalled by the boy many years later
when he is grown up.