Literature provides the opportunity for authors to use words to describe a story, whether true or fiction. The reader is provided details to have an imaginary movie playing out in their mind while reading the story. The reader is connected with the characters, the environment, and the emotion experienced during the story. In this essay, I will be utilizing the formalist approach to review a story and further explore literature.…
Melissa Duffy’s essay titled, “Inspiration” is an excellent example of how an individual’s attitude toward a certain subject, in this case, writing, influences the way the preform. As I read, it dawned on me that the approach our teacher take in teaching us have an immense impact on our attitude towards it. Duffy tells her story of “Inspiration” in a periodical format to lay out the moments in time that shaped her as a writer.…
In A Hill Far Away, Annie Dillard is taking an evening stroll around a creek near her home when she comes across a young boy. The boy seems about eight years old and is of small stature. Dillard sees him through a barbed wire fence, where he is playing, as a child might. Eventually, the boy gains sight of Dillard and comes over to say hello. While Dillard is speaking to the boy, she is mentally making judgments over him. Soon enough, the boy starts looking even more nervous than usual and asks Dillard a seemingly forced question.…
The author of this essay uses the literary element of description well. He is able to pull his audience into the event with him. Through his use of concrete words and description, he is…
Cited: Dillard, Annie “An American Childhood” Reading Critically Writing Well. Rise B. Axelrod, Charles R Cooper, and Alison M Warriner. Boston: Bedford, 2011. 22-25. Print…
We all have read a book at some point in our lifetime. Some books we loved and even reread many times, and others - well let’s just say did not even finish. Have you ever wonder why it is that a certain book caught your attention? Are you curious why you enjoyed the book so much? Have you ever thought why the author the wrote the book or why the book was organized and developed the way it was? In the book, Wild, the author Cheryl Strayed made very interesting rhetorical appeals that both hurt and benefit her effectiveness to relate with the reader. The author very carefully and cautiously chose what and where certain parts go or even what word is the best. Authors use rhetorical choices to effectively connect with their intended audience. In this essay, I will demonstrate Strayed’s intended audience, situation, claim, purpose, and her the rhetorical appeals she made in order to demonstrate what encourage her reader to finish this book in one sitting or throw this book away.…
Abandoning the traditional book layout of chapters, Brigid Lowry brings into play new styles of writing in her novel Guitar Highway Rose (1997, McPherson's Printing Group). One of which is stream of consciousness' where the character's immediate thoughts are written as they are onto the pages, creating a better understanding of the character. The use of multiple narrating perspectives and narrator intrusion in the novel allows the reader to see problems from different perspectives. Lowry also uses allusions from the real world to give the reader additional information about various characters in a different way. Together, these writing styles complement each other to give the reader a better understanding of the characters and a refreshing read.…
Though most people don't have this advantage, Annie Dillard uses her skills as a reader to improve her writing in the moth essay from her book “Holy The Firm”. Dillard uses comparison and several other modes of writing to convey and support the main point and purpose of her essay; some of the other modes Dillard uses are: narration, description, argument, and process analysis.…
In an American childhood a young woman named Annie Dillard writes about her life growing up in Pittsburg. In the book Annie has many people who influence her throughout her life. One of her main influencers in her adolescent years was her mother (pam). Her mother was not the usual stereotypical woman; she possessed very unique qualities that distinguished her from the rest of the crowd. Everything that she did was not done in the usual way she had to put a twist on it. You had to always expect the unexpected when you were around her. Sometimes people got frustrated with her child like ways, but Dillard never seemed to.…
“The goal, I suppose, any fiction writer has, no matter what your subject, is to hit the human heart and the tear ducts and the nape of the neck and to make a person feel something about the characters are going through and to experience the moral paradoxes and struggles of being human”(Tim O’Brien).…
As soon as she pulled onto the highway, the lightning flashed across the sky and she knew it would start raining soon. Ruth was unfamiliar with the curvy roads, and slowed down when the rain started forming a lake on the road in front of her, making it difficult for her to see the lines on the highway. Dark clouds hung slightly above the road and the sounds of rain beating against the car bothered her. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have chosen this day to ghost hunting,” she said as the inside windows fogged over, turning on the defroster she calmed down and sang along with the radio.…
Beatty began teaching at the school as a person unaware of the frequency or dullness of the news of shootings. She highlights this in her article by drawing the readers’ attention to how routinely the students processed the news. There was no emotion for the students because it was a reality of life, however, for the author and the majority of the reading audience it is not a common occurrence. Beatty uses the mundane reaction of the students to strengthen her pathos by highlighting how desensitized the students are to violence. This point is further proven by the author’s shock to how unemotional Angelica is that her brother had been shot. In doing this she utilizes pathos by introducing readers to the horrible idea of the emotion of a loved one being shot being negligible. In addition to this, Beatty calls to the attention of the readers the lives of slain students. She shows readers how innocent they were and after citing their innocence the author bluntly relays the cause of their horrific death. This writing by the author introduces a character only to rip the image of innocence out of the readers head and replace it with the horrifying reality of murder and death. This use of imagery effectively triggers emotion in readers and is a use of pathos by the author. However, perhaps the most effective use of pathos by Beatty was bringing to the attention of readers that the lives of these kids are not only afflicted by violence, but are hopeless. Beatty features this sentiment saying: “They know how the world sees them, these teenagers with no cars, and no prospects for college.” By bringing the hopelessness of the kids to the attention of the reader Beatty is able to make readers think about their own lives and goals and understand that if they swapped lives with…
The writing style brings out emotions that have the power to overwhelm people, not to make them feel pity or sadness, but to help them realize the reality of the innocent kids’ lives, also it discusses the various ways kids endure hurt and no child, teen or even an adult, should have to experience the trauma that lives in the daily lives of the South Central Los Angeles school. Anne Beatty maneuvers powerful emotion with a strong writing style to draw people in and makes them empathize and sympathize with the kids or faculty experiencing the loss of a friend or family member. Furthermore, no one should have to go through the pain of the numerous amounts of death the kids, parents, and teacher see on a day to day…
When you take one look at a person what is it that you see? Is it there outfit, their hair, or do you not even see them at all because you let the things you hear not allow you to do so. Although America is filled with different ethnicity of people and people who face different financial, social, and mental differences one thing that we all can relate to is having a dream. Yet as we transform into a toddler to an adult are dreams may shift from wanting to be an epitome of a princess to the president of the United States. But nevertheless it’s a dream. And dreams today are the driving force of America. But what if out of nowhere you realized…
Many Critics refer to Raymond Carver as one of the greatest practitioners of American short stories due to the complexity of his omissive style. In the critical analysis “Narrowed Voice: Minimalism by Raymond Carver”, the author Michael Trussler discusses the significance and mechanics of minimalistic writing in Raymond Carvers short stories. Minimalism is often used in short stories because they provide a perfect foundation for this unique writing style. The goal of a minimalistic writer is to squeeze as much detail and meaning into a story with the least words possible. Carver leaves out words that are not necessary to get his point across, which limits the reader’s ability to interoperate the significance and meaning throughout the text. Carver’s stories are abrupt and include moments of silence, which can cause versatile interpretations depending on the individual reader. This is how minimalism is designed to work; some fragments of a story are not as straight forward as…