What role has reading had in your life? Through the essay, One Writer's Beginnings, Eudora Welty explores the memories of her childhood that are intertwined with her love of reading. Using effective diction, illustrative exemplification, and tone Welty lovingly reconstructs the scenes that helped develop her intense hunger for books that has followed her throughout her life.
Utilizing effective diction is key as Welty to put together the mosaic of memories that illustrates the intense presence of reading in her life. Her use of diction pulls the reader into the scenes, it makes them real. When she describe the library the wording allows to hear “the steady seething of the electric fan”, the harsh tone of the librarian’s “normal commanding
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For that, Welty needs exemplification. When coupled with the diction, exemplification serves as the main device implemented merging her experiences into a essay the explains the her relationship with fiction, and reading as a whole. Welty is a storyteller and she uses her skill to craft the narrative that describe her relationship with fiction. She describes the near mythological terror of the minotaur of the librarian, Ms. Jackson, who guarded the labyrinthian library of her hometown. She reminisces over the titles countless books she inhaled, two by two, as she rushed, back and forth, day after day, to the library for more. She speaks of her mother, who shared that same joy of reading, and who also enabled her to get her first library card. She illustrates about how books were ever present in her house. It’s through this exemplification and description that Welty is able to justify to the reader why books had such an intense role in her life, and why reading has held such value to her. Books were everywhere, they permeated her childhood. The effect of her vivid descriptions are that the reader and the author's perspective are merged. Rather than reading than reading the text, the reader experience’s it, and it's through the shared viewpoint that reader is able to realize the intensity and value reading brought to Welty’s
“ The horizon was the color of milk. Cold and fresh. Poured out among the bodies” (Zusak 175). The device is used in the evidence of the quote by using descriptives words that create a mental image. The text gives the reader that opportunity to use their senses when reading the story. “Somehow, between the sadness and loss, Max Vandenburg, who was now a teenager with hard hands, blackened eyes, and a sore tooth, was also a little disappointed” (Zusak 188). This quote demonstrates how the author uses descriptive words to create a mental image which gives the text more of an appeal to the reader's sense such as vision. “She could see his face now, in the tired light. His mouth was open and his skin was the color of eggshells. Whisker coated his jaw and chin, and his ears were hard and flat. He had a small but misshapen nose” (Zusak 201). The quotes allows the reader to visualize what the characters facial features looked like through the use of descriptive words. Imagery helps bring the story to life and to make the text more exciting. The reader's senses can be used to determine the observations that the author is making about its characters. The literary device changes the text by letting the reader interact with the text by using their observation skills. The author is using imagery by creating images that engages the reader to know exactly what's going on in the story which allows them to
Author Eudora Welty, in her Autobiography takes readers back in time to explain how she became an earnest reader. Welty’s purpose is to reveal to readers her undying compassion for reading. She gives readers a detailed flash black with her description and rhetorical strategies. She does this by describing different phenomena that occurred and their influence on her. She uses imagery, repetition and shifts in order to paint a vivid picture of those events in her childhood.
In the introduction of Thomas C. Foster’s How to Read Literature Like a Professor, Foster sets the scene for the upcoming chapters by pointing out crucial literary devices. Through several references, it is further explained how memories, symbols and patterns help to create broader understandings throughout literary texts. Foster continues by stating that the usage of these devices establishes the advanced readers from “the rest of the crowd” (xxvii).
If my origin story was a movie, the opening scene would be my discovery of books. It’d be a wide shot of me as a roley poley toddler, as I reached out to one of my brother’s old picture books. And as I grasped the cardboard cover open, I would be swallowed up by a moment of true epiphany. I can only imagine such a dramatic beginning as being dignant of what would be my lifelong obsession. As I grew up, I ate through books quickly, always craving that fantastic feeling of being completely absorbed into a world outside of my own. Until middle school this love was simple, but then there was my introduction to literary analysis. As my eighth grade English class studied Romeo and Juliet, my teacher directed us to the usage of natural imagery. Here
	"It mattered that education was changing me. It never ceased to matter. My brother and sisters would giggle at our mother’s mispronounced words. They’d correct her gently. My mother laughed girlishly one night, trying not to pronounce sheep as ship. From a distance I listened sullenly. From that distance, pretending not to notice on another occasion, I saw my father looking at the title pages of my library books. That was the scene on my mind when I walked home with a fourth-grade companion and heard him say that his parents read to him every night. (A strange sounding book-Winnie the Pooh.) Immediately, I wanted to know, what is it like?" My companion, however, thought I wanted to know about the plot of the book. Another day, my mother surprised me by asking for a "nice" book to read. "Something not too hard you think I might like." Carefully I chose one, Willa Cather’s My ‘Antonia. But when, several weeks later, I happened to see it next to her bed unread except for the first few pages, I was furious and suddenly wanted to cry. I grabbed up the book and took it back to my room and placed it in its place, alphabetically on my shelf." (p.626-627)
Another emotion portrayed through the narrators language is disappointment. The center of the work is where the story takes a deep turn downward - and the black cloud presents itself. Mr. DonLeavy's presence was insult enough, but to say he was "glad to be here to see the work going on just as it was in the other schools" (838)...
Abcarian, Richard, Marvin Klotz, and Samuel Cohen. Literature: the Human Experience. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martins, 2010. Print.
Welty, Eudora. "A Worn Path." The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1980. 142-49.
Ever since I was a child, I've never liked reading. Every time I was told to read, I would just sleep or do something else instead. In "A Love Affair with Books" by Bernadete Piassa tells a story about her passion for reading books. Piassa demonstrates how reading books has influenced her life. Reading her story has given me a different perspective on books. It has showed me that not only are they words written on paper, they are also feelings and expressions.
Welty deploys anecdote to illustrate curiosity she has with the world as a result of literacy. Welty describes how she was alone looking at the “chalky” moon. Welty continues to use imagery to show what she has encountered in an engaging way. By showing us her stories the audience receives a better understanding of what she means through how she felt and perceived each moment based on prior knowledge. For instance, Welty describes how she was alone looking at the “chalky” moon; One can be able to predict that due to her various encyclopedias she is bound to have some knowledge on the moon. By using anecdotes Eudora Welty is able to demonstrate what literacy did good for
Walker, Alice. “Everyday Use.” Robert DiYanni, ed. Literature: Reading Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. 6th ed. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2007.
Toni Cade Bambara, DiYanni, R. (Ch 10.) The Lesson (p. 427-432) & Literature Reading Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. (2007). New York:NY McGraw-Hill
Schakel, Peter J., and Jack Ridl. "Everyday Use." Approaching Literature: Writing Reading Thinking. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2008. 109-15. Print.
Literature has many purposes, and opens doors to unique worlds. Through Literature, we discover ourselves and world time and again.
Literature is rarely, if ever, merely a story that the author is trying to tell. It is imperative that the reader digs deep within the story to accurately analyze and understand the message the author is trying to portray. Authors tend to hide themselves in their stories. The reader can learn about the author through literary elements such as symbolism, diction, and structure. A good example of this is Robert Frost’s poems The Road Not Taken and Nothing Gold can Stay in which he uses ordinary language unlike many other poets that became more experimental (Frost, Robert. “1.”).