Annie Dillard The Chase Analysis

549 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: An essay about Annie Dillard

“We didn’t know we were making memories, we just knew we were having fun.” This quote by an unknown author gives us a unique vision of memories; it shows that memories are powerful. The most powerful can be made without recognition. The most powerful are made with excitement. Annie Dillard clearly portrays this idea in “The Chase,” a chapter in her autobiography. She tells the story of her rebellious childhood and one of the most heart-pumping events of her life - a redheaded man giving her a chase. With this, she demonstrates the need for excitement, fearlessness, and recklessness in one’s childhood. In order to convey this idea, Dillard not only employs fierce and vivid description, but she impassionedly transitions from spine-chilling tone to thrilling. Dillard utilizes …show more content…

This alarming tone is further supported when Dillard narrates, “Wordless, we split up… He chased [us] around a yellow house and up a backyard path… under a low tree, up a bank, through a hedge, down some snowy steps… We smashed through a gap… we ran across Edgerton… He chased us silently… [We] had nowhere to go… we were losing speed… He caught us…” This final use of tone reveals her intention of creating an unnerving atmosphere. She outlines the situation in a manner that will make the readers feel worried and scared for her and her friend’s life. This supports her purpose by describing what “excitement” feels like. The use of tone allows the reader to feel her anxiety and her terror. The audience feels as if her life is in danger, and the use this nerve-racking tone is how we know when we are feeling what she intends for us to feel. It shows us what excitement is

Show More
Related

  • Annie Dillard's Interior Life

    159 Words  | 1 Pages

    In the “Interior Life”, Annie Dillard discusses the minds process of realizing the difference between imagination and reality. Dillard begins her narrative by recounting the childhood memory of an oblong shaped light that invaded her room every night, terrorizing her with the possibility of death. Beginning at the door of her bedroom this “oblong light” quickly slid across the wall, continued to the headboard of her little sister Amy’s bed and suddenly disappeared with a loud roar. Oftentimes it returned, noisily fading away just before seizing her, meanwhile Amy slept, blissfully unaware. Continuing on, Dillard describes the unforgettable discovery of the connection between the noise the oblong light made and the sound of the passing cars

    Read More

  • Sharon Creech Biography

    1112 Words  | 3 Pages

    A. Creech accounted for many memories during her early childhood years. She took many trips with her parents and four siblings. She enjoyed the company of others and making memories. Often, grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins, and friends visited her and her family, making her always used to warm, large, extended family. Her favorite memories came from Creech’s traditional summer vacations to various destinations. She loved road tripping with her “noisy and rowdy family” across the country. Her never-forgotten memories eventually led to her recreation of the trip into many of her books.

    Read More

  • Red Plaid Shirt

    663 Words  | 2 Pages

    Where are the memories of our pasts held? In scrapbooks full of photographs, or perhaps written on the pages of a locked diary? Picture though, something as simple and ordinary as a closet full of clothes. Think about its contents, where they have been worn, what they have been through, the stories attached to each item. The nameless protagonist of Diane Schoemperlen’s short story Red Plaid Shirt does this as she recalls a snippet of her past life with each article of clothing she picks up. Red plaid shirt, blue sweatshirt, brown cashmere sweater, yellow evening gown, black leather jacket…each item has a tale of its very own, and when combined they reveal the full story of the main character’s life.

    Read More

  • Malpractice and Malediction in The Marquise of O. and The Yellow Wallpaper

    1031 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...mother realize the identity of her daughter's rapist before the Marquise, establishing irony and advancing engagement between reader and text. It is also clear to the reader that by the conclusion of The Yellow Wallpaper, the narrator has become maniacal.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Oliver Sacks's 'A Hospital And A Prison'

    764 Words  | 2 Pages

    Although the author portrays a bitter tone throughout the text, there are many occasions in which there are multiple tones being used at the same time. For instance, when the author was in the ambulance, he was perceived as having a critical tone. He was criticizing and finding fault in what the paramedics and doctors were doing as he began to lose his feeling of personalization. Diction begins to tie into here as it also reflects onto the tone through complex word choice. Once in the hospital, he began to compare the hospital with prison by using a depressed yet confused tone. He compares them by telling the audience about the infamous Tower of London. Sacks became delirious and was unsure of what was going on. Adding such tone entices the audience though the effect of depersonalization on Sacks. However, after being told about the operation, Sacks’ tone went from constrained to incredulous and unsure. He claims of having “hallucinatory vividness” which ties back to the incredulous tone. This tone adds the suspicion to the hospital because such distinctness is not a normal occurrence. As explained, tone plays a crucial role in exemplifying the negative connotation and subject of the passage by using pathos and feelings of the author to reflect in the

    Read More

  • Messages Revealed in Annie Dillard's, An American Childhood

    731 Words  | 2 Pages

    In An American Childhood by Annie Dillard, Dillard reminisces on her many adventures throughout her childhood living in Pittsburgh. Her stories explain her school, her home life, her family, and growing up. Dillard also talks about changes in her life, and how they affect her, and how she felt about others around her. One’s childhood is a crucial part of life, because it’s a time of learning more than any other time of life. Childhood is a time of curiosity and realization. What you learn in your childhood has a big impact on how you make decisions and act as an adult.

    Read More

  • Into The Wild, by Jon Krakauer

    964 Words  | 2 Pages

    The tone is set in this chapter as Krakauer uses words to create an atmosphere of worry, fear, and happiness in McCandless’s mind. “The bush is an unforgiving place, however, that cares nothing for hope or longing”(4). McCandless is on the path of death, which creates worry and fear for the young boy. “He was determined. Real gung ho. The word that comes to mind is excited,” (6). Alex is very excited and care free, which Krakauer used to his advantage in making the tone of Alex’s mind happy. The author creates tones to make the reader feel the moment as if the readers were sitting there themselves. Krakauer uses dialogue and setting to create the mixed tones of this chapter. As one can see from the quotes and scenery the author uses tones that are blunt and are to the point to make the reader feel as though the emotions are their own. Krakauer uses plenty of figurative language in this chapter. He uses figurative language to support his ideas,to express the surroundings, and tone around the character. To start the chapter he uses a simile describing the landscape of the area, “…sprawls across the flats like a rumpled blanket on an unmade bed,” (9). This statement is used to make reader sense the area and set the mood for the chapter. The use of figurative language in this chapter is to make a visual representation in the readers mind. “It’s satellites surrender to the low Kantishna plain” (9).

    Read More

  • Free Essays - Memories and Motherhood in Landscape for a Good Woman

    512 Words  | 2 Pages

    In reading Carolyn Kay Steedman's Landscape for a Good Woman, two themes took center stage: Memories and Motherhood. As the book unfolds Steedman repeatedly points out that childhood memories are used by individuals for various purposes; rather than objective recollections dominated by facts, she proposes that they are more subjective in nature, likely to alter with time or as circumstances dictate.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Childhood Dreams By Jennifer Yee

    854 Words  | 2 Pages

    Standing in the front of the mirror every day, people see themselves gradually become an adult from a little boy or a little girl. In “Childhood Dreams”, Jennifer Yee describes a story that her father and she used to spend a lot of happy time in the amusement park together, riding carousels and so on, but now she felt lost and uncertain about her life. The reason why the author felt she was smothered by the real world was probably because she found out that as growing older, life became more complex, and she did not have as much time as she used to have to enjoy life in the childhood, and therefore felt quite depressed about the way she was.

    Read More

  • The Underpinnings Of Literary Style In Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter

    1492 Words  | 3 Pages

    In his style, word choice play a role as evidenced in Arthur Dimmesdale’s last moments when Chillingworth “[tears] away the ministerial bands from before his chest” and the “down he [sinks] upon the scaffold” (210). Here, words like “taken” are replaced by “tore” and falls by “sank.” By doing this, the tone is not monotonous, rather it is theatrical and thrilling. As for sentence structure, it is obvious that Hawthorne’s sentences is unconventional to the modern eye as it uses an unconventional amount of commas. The reasoning behind this is not nearly likely to confuse readers, rather the wordiness adds depth to the story and can keep the intrigued reader thirsty to learn more. In some instances, even a suspenseful tone is created since the sentences are dragged on. The dynamic tone can switch from a peaceful one where the setting is being described to a suspenseful one such as where Chillingworth lurks over Dimmesdale’s sleeping body. This ability to seamlessly flow from one feeling to another adds to the overall flow of the story as well. Hawthorne liberally uses motifs for tone. One example is the repetition of Pearl’s strange yet acute behavior. He does this to emphasize the fact that Pearl is a product of sin. As for tone, it makes for a dreadful tone since Hester does not enjoy being incessantly reminded of her sin and crime. She explicitly expresses this position

    Read More

  • Growing Up-A Comparison

    1000 Words  | 2 Pages

    ...ealized that experiences happen and that time doesn’t wait so you have to just keep moving on. The mood was heavily affected by each of these characters narration of each story and seems to take a reflective outlook throughout the duration of each story.

    Read More

  • Edgar Allan Poe Rhetoric And Style Analysis

    1061 Words  | 3 Pages

    Utilizing adverbs such as “tremulous” to amplify “shake” and “violently” to amplify “move” create a perceivable image of interaction; here, the violent move is not truly an actual motion, rather, it is a physical manifestation of the intangible mental shock that the narrator experiences. However, it is important to note that, to the narrator, the most physically shocking and moving thing in this interaction was not the “finger” of this stranger, but the tone, the intangible abstraction of the “solemn admonition” in the “low whisper”. This abstraction had the electrical current of a “galvanic battery” to “shock” the non-physical soul of the protagonist. The complexity of this excerpt is seen through the multiple dependent clauses, lists of adjectives, and conjunctions; this complex and “serious” style is what Allen Tate, in his essay found in “Modern Criticism”, believes “makes the reading of more than one story an almost insuperable task” (Foster 389). However, this failed criticism does not truly comment on the Poe’s style, but rather, comments on the reader’s interpretation. This style doesn’t create an insuperable task of reading, but rather creates a gradually intensifying sense of Poe’s methodical complexity that incentivizes the reader to keep reading, while providing specific ambiguities through indirect concretizations like the aforementioned “shock” to

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Seeing By Annie Dillard

    1038 Words  | 3 Pages

    In her essay “Seeing”, Annie Dillard focuses on showing how different people have different perceptions. Dillard gives multiple examples to support her main idea, which is that preconceived and inherited notions influence our perceptions. Dillard discusses the different ways of seeing, how people with different backgrounds have different experiences with seeing, and many more. While Dillard’s idea about perceptions is definitely relevant and accurate, but are certainly not complete as there are multiple things that influence our perceptions.

    Read More

  • Eva Hoffman's Lost In Translation

    1245 Words  | 3 Pages

    Eva Hoffman’s memoir, Lost in Translation, is a timeline of events from her life in Cracow, Poland – Paradise – to her immigration to Vancouver, Canada – Exile – and into her college and literary life – The New World. Eva breaks up her journey into these three sections and gives her personal observations of her assimilation into a new world. The story is based on memory – Eva Hoffman gives us her first-hand perspective through flashbacks with introspective analysis of her life “lost in translation”. It is her memory that permeates through her writing and furthermore through her experiences. As the reader we are presented many examples of Eva’s memory as they appear through her interactions. All of these interactions evoke memory, ultimately through the quest of finding reality equal to that of her life in Poland. The comparison of Eva’s exile can never live up to her Paradise and therefore her memories of her past can never be replaced but instead only can be supplemented.

    Read More

  • A Hymn To Childhood Analysis

    566 Words  | 2 Pages

    Good memories-we bury them in the chest of our hearts, locked in so tight, to never be forgotten. Yet, the harder we hold on, the more they seem to slip away. So we document these memories in some way, whether by a photograph, journal entry, or poem. But, the wretched hardships are twisted in with the beautiful moments in life. No one wants to remember the awful memories, but we record them any how. They give us perspective. It’s through life’s trials we grow the most; it’s through living and revisiting our worst moments that we can reflect how wonderful life truly is. Memories about childhood written by nikki Giovanni in “Knoxville, Tennessee” and Li-Young Lee in ”A Hymn to Childhood” are diverse on the their difficult experiences,

    Read More

More about Annie Dillard The Chase Analysis

Open Document