Bill Brickson Rhetorical Devices

When Bill Bryson went on a trip to Luxembourg he was surprised by the difference in culture. Everything was different for him, far more than he had imagined it would be. From the food, to the language, to the types of clothes people wore. He wrote this section to inform the people back home about how different Europe was from New York and, possibly, to gloat about his world travels. In the first paragraph Bryson uses the rhetorical technique of hyperbole while describing his backpack. He says, “I half expected to be asked, "Anything to declare? Cigarettes? Alcohol? Dead horse?" Bryson is implying that his backpack is so massive that he could fit a dead horse in it. This, of course, is a hyperbole. No backpack can fit a dead horse, or at least none that I have ever seen. The use of hyperbole in this sentence puts an image in the reader’s mind as to how big is backpack is (even if it is exaggerated). Bryson also uses asyndeton to describe the differences between America and Europe. He writes, “It was all so different: the language, the money, the cars, the license plates on the cars, the bread, the food, the newspapers, the parks, the people.” When writing this sentence, Bryson could’ve simplified it dramatically and he might have, if he wasn’t trying to convey how different everything
He uses repetition by using the phrase “never seen” before listing nearly every aspect of Luxembourg that is new to him. This is a very similar situation as the first list. If Bryson had simply said “there were many things that I have not seen before” the readers would most likely assume that the changes are things that you expect to see in a new place, such as new terrain and food and maybe the style of building. Bryon lists things like what the people are wearing and how the bread is prepared. These are all listed to show that Luxembourg is a very new place and there are many unexpected aspects of the