Task 2 Bihh.... lol

[daniellek]

The thesis of the essay written by Annie Dillard is to stand up for what you believe in or know is right regardless of what anyone else says or thinks. Dillard more eloquently relays her thesis when she says, “Torpid conformity was a kind of sin; it was stupidity itself, the mighty stream against which Mother would never cease to struggle. If you held no minority opinions, or if you failed to risk total ostracism for them daily, the world would be a better place without you.” In Dillard’s last paragraph she ends with an anecdote about her telling her mother how she thought that Eisenhower was going to win the election, while unknowingly about to fall into one of her mother’s traps, about the negativities of bandwagon fallacy. By adding this anecdote Dillard amplifies her thesis about the think-for –yourself mentality, her mother tried to instill her, thus leaving it a lingering thought in her readers’ minds.

Based on what I have come to understand about Annie Dillard’s mother, I’ve concluded that Dillard has a keen ear when it comes to dramatic words and phrases, and the inherent ability to properly, creatively, and whimsically use to English language. Her innate ability to use language also coincides with the fact that as taught by her mother she thinks and speaks her mind despite whatever opposition may come from the majority. Throughout the piece Annie speaks most highly of her mother, in a manner that shows she is grateful for the unorthodox way in which her mother raised her and relays to her audience her mother’s attention-grabbing use of words and phrases.

Dillard efficiently shows how language effects people when she points out the dramatic words and phrases her mother and those around her once used. Colloquial terms such as “Pittsburghisms” have the ability to place people in that; it is a kind of language that represents a certain area and it’s residents. When one says something like, "-the sidewalks are "slippy", or "That's all the farther I could go", depending on how familiar you are with the area you’ll know where the person is from simply based on their use of language, in this case, Pittsburg. Dillard also describes how her mother would say or do things at random, simply to get a reaction. For example, during games of checkers, when she would yell out game rules, or while playing Bridge, when she felt the game had gotten boring, she would toss her cards behind her back, show her hand, or her opponents’ suit. It is obvious that Dillard’s mother loved to use words not only because of the effect they had on people, because she used them at the most extraordinary times, but simply because she loved the drama of the words, the way they sounded, and maybe even the way they made her mouth feel as she was saying them. Dillard points out, at the beginning of her essay how her mother loved to say, “Terwilliger bunts one,” for a multitude of reasons, whether it be to test a microphone or a pen, or even to express an emotion.

Dillard like her mother also uses her words in a way that leave an effect on her audience. Especially, when she speaks about the building of the Tamiami Trial, she says "men stood sunk in muck to their armpits .... They blasted muck with dynamite, cut jungle with machetes; they laid logs, dragged drilling machines, hauled dredges, heaped limestone". This use of diazeugma, which exhibits both tactile and auditory imagery, allow the reader to feel as though they were really there, witnessing the construction of this great feat. Dillard could have easily been vague about the structuring of the Tamiami Trial, but by being specific she amplifies her point, and the effect her mother has linguistically had on her.

Although Dillard’s mother appears be antagonizing at times, Dillard keeps an upbeat and humorous tone nonetheless. She achieves this by introducing the reactions her mother receives when trying to deceive someone, or catch them off guard, for instance when tells Dillard that there is a deer standing in the front hall, simply so she can hear her respond something other than “I know,” or when she jokingly asks the surgeon if she will be able to play the piano after her operation, when she couldn’t play the piano in the first place. By relaying to the audience that her mother’s “victims” never really took her seriously, nor took her jokes in a negative way, she shows that it was really all in good fun.

Surreptitiously, Dillard does not give her mother’s name, and thus adds to the effectiveness of her essay. Dillard has given us so much insight as to what kind person her mother is, that giving her name isn’t necessary, because we already feel like we know her. By not giving her mother’s name, Dillard does not leave her audience wondering, because the mother’s name lends not to the effectiveness of the essay. Her name isn’t what’s important, only her use of words and the effect they have had on the people around her, most significantly Dillard.

[StacyAnn]

Purpose and Meaning

Annie Dillard’s mother was fascinated by words and their different uses. Annie Dillard, who grew up to be a writer, seems to have in some way inherited her mother’s love for words because she now writes and can express herself in a descriptive and rhetorical fashion. Her mother’s influence can be seen when Dillard describes the building of the Tamiami Trail. Her descriptiveness and awareness seems characteristic of her mother, yet she uses detail and a play on words in order to describe the process.

Language was very important in the Dillard household. Dillard’s mother was amused when she found a phrase that sounded unique or unheard of, it placed Annie in a position, with her mother being the kind of person she was, of always being painstakingly aware of the words she used and how she expressed or announced herself. Language separated Annie Dillard’s mother from the rest of society in that she could always pull a fast one on people, like when she asked her surgeon whether or not she would be able to play the piano after the operation, or when she went up to the unexpected young man and put questions into his girlfriend’s head about their relationship. The essay reflected how language was continually present in Dillard’s childhood and how, when she finally grew up, she realized why her mother was so persistent in recognizing and correcting clichéd ideas.

Dillard’s thesis reflects that language is an important part of life and that it makes us who we are and is a part of our memories in an important way.

Language and Style

When one says these phrases, the mouth moves in an unusual fashion. Just saying “Terwilliger bunts one” makes the mouth more active than it usually is when pronouncing other everyday words.

The use of these and other descriptive word gives life to Dillard’s writing by effectively describing, using a play on words, how she imagined the long trail being built. Another place in which she uses this method is when she writes about her mother’s mischief while playing board or card games. Dillard describes how she would “bid slams for the devilment of it, or raise[d] her opponents' suit to bug them, or showed her hand, or tossed her cards in a handful behind her back in a characteristic swift motion accompanied by a vibrantly innocent look. It drove our stolid father crazy.” She uses words like “devilment” and “stolid,” and phrases like “vibrantly innocent.”
Dillard is painstakingly specific because she wants to effectively express to her reader how she experienced these events. When she talks about the eccentricities of her mother she describes how she used to lick the corner of an envelope to place a stamp because she didn’t like the taste of stamps, and how she would glue sandpaper to the sides of kitchen drawers, and under kitchen cabinets, so she always had a handy place to strike a match. Dillard’s specificity most likely came from her mother’s constant questioning of her thoughts. She uses imagery and details to create a humorous tone.

Strategy and Structure

This shows that Dillard’s mother was an intellectual. This effectively compliments the characteristics that her mother possessed; her questioning of authority, her passion for original thought. Her mother seemed to be a prevalent force in Dillard’s life and serves well as a model because it is because of her mother why Dillard is able to think the way she does and write the way she does because she realized that her mother was trying to teach her an important lesson by constantly questioning and rarely following the rules.

Her mother remains nameless throughout the story, I think, because Dillard thinks of her mother as a series of events in which language was prevalent and in which her mother was the main cause of this. The reader, in turn, gets the idea that Annie’s mother was probably unlike anyone they ever met in that she had a unique way of looking at things.

She wants people to remember this because this is what she got out of her mother’s unique view of language. She finally realized, when she grew older, that her mother had a reason for always asking her of her own opinion. She wants the readers to also get this out of her memoir because it was an important aspect for her and her experiences with her mother.

Thinking and Writing

Annie writes in a way that mimics her mother’s appreciation of language

[daniellek]

You need to post this as a seperate thread not as a reply.