In their artful description of large flocks of birds, both John Audobon and Annie Dillard are able to utilize a variety of imagery, syntax, diction, and points of views to describe the birds and to convey their effects in a stylistic manner. However, despite their noted similarities, including that of their fiery passion for bird watching, there are many differences in their work that make their individual descriptions unique. Audobon is more concrete and scientific, listing distinct observations and conveying them in a simple and technical manner, while Dillard is more abstract and artistic, adding more literary techniques and providing “trance-like” descriptions. John Audobon’s description of the birds were shifted more towards the technical …show more content…
By utilizing vivid details and intense imagery, she allows the readers to feel her emotions and visualize the abstract imagery that she put forth when describing the birds. Throughout her passage, Dillard incorporates very adept literary techniques to create a trance-like feeling, such as when recounting the flight patterns of the birds with, “The flight extended like a fluttering banner, an unfurled oriflamme, in either direction as far as I could see.” As she continues, she immerses the readers with the actions of the birds, in such a manner that makes it seem as if she was a bird herself, flying majestically with the flock. She stated that “Each individual bird bobbed and knitted up and down in the flight at apparent random, for no known reason except that that’s how starlings fly, yet all remained perfectly spaced.” By stating that, “The flocks each tapered at either end from a round middle, like an eye”, Dillard is able to provide additional explicit imagery and details that give the readers emotional insight rather than mere facts of what happened. Furthermore, as she describes the sounds she hears with, “Over my head, I hear a sound of beaten air like a million shook rugs, a muffled whuff. Into the woods they sifted without shifting a twig, right through the crowns of trees, intricate and rushing, like wind”, she provides so much intricate detail in a way that the
Both Virginia Woolf and Annie Dillard are extremely gifted writers. Virginia Woolf in 1942 wrote an essay called The Death of the Moth. Annie Dillard later on in 1976 wrote an essay that was similar in the name called The Death of a Moth and even had similar context. The two authors wrote powerful texts expressing their perspectives on the topic of life and death. They both had similar techniques but used them to develop completely different views. Each of the two authors incorporate in their text a unique way of adding their personal experience in their essay as they describe a specific occasion, time, and memory of their lives. Woolf’s personal experience begins with “it was a pleasant morning, mid-September, mild, benignant, yet with a keener breath than that of the summer months” (Woolf, 1). Annie Dillard personal experience begins with “two summers ago, I was camping alone in the blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia” (Dillard, 1). Including personal experience allowed Virginia Woolf to give her own enjoyable, fulfilling and understandable perception of life and death. Likewise, Annie Dillard used the personal narrative to focus on life but specifically on the life of death. To explore the power of life and death Virginia Woolf uses literary tools such as metaphors and imagery, along with a specific style and structure of writing in a conversational way to create an emotional tone and connect with her reader the value of life, but ultimately accepting death through the relationship of a moth and a human. While Annie Dillard on the other hand uses the same exact literary tools along with a specific style and similar structure to create a completely different perspective on just death, expressing that death is how it comes. ...
The tile of the poem “Bird” is simple and leads the reader smoothly into the body of the poem, which is contained in a single stanza of twenty lines. Laux immediately begins to describe a red-breasted bird trying to break into her home. She writes, “She tests a low branch, violet blossoms/swaying beside her” and it is interesting to note that Laux refers to the bird as being female (Laux 212). This is the first clue that the bird is a symbol for someone, or a group of people (women). The use of a bird in poetry often signifies freedom, and Laux’s use of the female bird implies female freedom and independence. She follows with an interesting image of the bird’s “beak and breast/held back, claws raking at the pan” and this conjures a mental picture of a bird who is flying not head first into a window, but almost holding herself back even as she flies forward (Laux 212). This makes the bird seem stubborn, and follows with the theme of the independent female.
Rowland, Beryl. Birds With Human Souls, A Guide to Bird Symbolism. Knoxville: U of Tennessee P, 1978.
Audubon and Dillard’s general outlook of the flocks of birds in flight and how they are affected by their experiences differ. In the end, both writers exhibit their own perception of beauty through their encounter with the birds, although Audubon saw the beauty in factuality, and Dillard saw it in her own interweaved thoughts and emotions.
The image of the “detailed and lifelike painting of a smiling clown’s head, made out of vegetables” (Dillard) evokes an unforgettable haunting that would journey with Dillard and me wherever we go. Although Annie Dillard’s disarranged ramblings are mentioned here and there, she is always able to relate back to them with a connection. The jumbled ramblings illustrate that the human thought process is not always consistently straightforward and directly logical to one’s mind. While trying to grasp the workings of the total eclipse, she compared how it did not make sense to food; “given a flashlight, a grapefruit, two oranges, and fifteen years, we still could not figure out” (Dillard). Near the end, Dillard relates the smiling vegetable clown
One of the most significant details is the difference in imagery when referring to the airport and the bird. At the beginning of the story, “This place of utter anonymity, impersonality. This place of randomness. Emptiness” (517) is referred. Suddenly the focus switches from the airport to the “improbable and heartrending little musical trill” (517) coming from the bird. The airport represents a manifestation of the everyday monotonous routine of life. It is boring and
By just observing a flock of birds, John James Audubon and Annie Dillard are able to create a detailed piece of writing by representing their experience through their usage of literary devices and syntax. Indistinguishably, both Audubon and Dillard view the birds as one of the most interesting creatures on Earth. However, their diction along with their comparisons contradict when they conveyed their emotions when they viewed the flocks.
John Audubon and Annie Dillard are similar in how observing the flight of the birds affects them, although Dillard feels a more personal connection while Audubon has a scientific response, but they differ in their utilization of diction and tone. Audubon describes the pigeons he saw in flight as a scientific observation whereas Dillard describes the starlings she observed in an artful manner. There are two kinds of people; ones who think of “what could be” (an idealist) and others who see things as “what it actually is” (a realist), in these two passages this idea is brought to life through Dillard and Audubon’s voices in their writing.
In Sarah Orne Jewett’s A White Heron, Jewett uses the main character Sylvia’s innocent, and considerably naive, point of view to defend the intangible power of beauty against the young bird hunter, who symbolizes the abuse of power through the destruction of the beauty in nature.
My eyes adjusted to the darkness as I sat down on a green park bench. The sun began to come up, just barely visible beneath a layer of soft gray clouds. A duck slid off the bank to join his raft in the cool water, causing ripples to break through the smooth surface of Lake Wingra. Colorful leaves danced through gusts of morning air, which gently rustled the boughs of a tree to my right. The leaves softly rustled, accompanying the symphony of bird calls and crickets echoing across the lake. Occasionally a shiny black crow broke the cool silence with his ugly call, and twice a grand heron made his exalted, almost dinosaur-like screech as he soared across the morning sky. His gigantic wings flapped audibly through the clear air, seeming to create
The Awakening and “Mad Men” both utilize birds as symbols of freedom to contrast with the constrainment of Edna and Betty’s lives. The birds are initially caged, similar to how Edna and Betty were first kept under control as housewifes by their husbands, but when the doors to the bird cage were opened, the birds were able to fly free. When Edna and Betty had an opportunity for independence, they were unable to move on the ground. Birds in both the Awakening and “Mad Men” symbolize the freedom and independence Edna Pontellier and Betty Draper yearn for, yet are unable to attain which highlights the immobilization of women in society.
In the essay, “Living Like Weasels” Annie Dillard achieved a tone of admiration, by using strong thoughts. For example, in the essay Annie states, “In winter the steers stand in the middle of Tinker Creek, merely dampening their hooves. They look like miracles, complete with miracle nonchalance.” This statement made by the Annie is portraying how she looks at these animals as if they’re beautiful miracles, she looks at them in admiration. Another example in this essay of the author showing admiration toward nature is presented in this statement where Annie is showing she was in total surprise,
In Dickinson’s Hope is a thing with feathers she describes the bird to be singing, or chirping, constantly but ever so sweetly. The bird is a metaphor for hope but how the bird is described
The birds show symbolism in more than one way throughout the text. As the soldiers are travelling from all over the world to fight for their countries in the war, the birds are similarly migrating for the change of seasons. The birds however, will all be returning, and many of the soldiers will never return home again. This is a very powerful message, which helps the reader to understand the loss and sorrow that is experienced through war.
...riental rug covering the floor. “A little longer stay in sight.” Outside, he could see a small butterfly whose wings were the color of the sky. It perched onto a tree’s leaf, inching forward until it reached the edge. “Much converse do I find in Thee, historian of my infancy, float near me; do not yet depart.” The small insect fluttered, attempting to fly away but was unable to move its wings fast enough. “Dead times revive in thee: Thou bring’st gay creatures as thou art. A solemn image to my heart, my father’s family.” The butterfly, mustering all its strength, flapped its wings furiously. Before the creature could even leave its perch, a bird adorned with a yellow beak and a black crest flew into view. Louis eye’s never left the bird as it raced towards the butterfly before finally taking the tiny insect in between in its beak and flying back to its nest.