How Does Dillard Use Similes In Tinker's Creek

In “Living Like Weasels,” author Annie Dillard’s idea is that humans can benefit from living wild as a weasel. I strongly agree because to live wild like a weasel is to live mindless, free and focused. With these living abilities we as humans will be able get closer to our aspirations in life and do whatever means necessary to get there.

Dillard effectively uses concrete imagery as a way of conveying her inner struggle to the reader in a handful of ways. In the first paragraph, she paints a vivid picture in the reader’s mind by writing “while barred owls called in the forest and pale moths seeking mates

Rebecca McClanahan’s essay, “Interstellar,” is a memoir explaining what it is like, “To be the sister of a sad and beautiful woman,” (354). This line is one of the many uses of repetition the narrator utilizes to speak on the relationships her sister and her endure, while also explaining their relationship with each other. These relationships are magnified by the narrator’s use of literary elements such as metaphors, allusion, repetition, second person voice and her diction. These elements help develop characters, as well as give us a deeper sense of the relationships between the characters themselves.

When needing to retreat, Annie Dillard goes to Tinker Creek and immerses herself in nature. During one of these trips, she has a snippet of a revelation, which makes her see beauty and ugliness in harmony and see the world as meaningful; even though there is sorrow. In this passage, Dillard uses the symbolism of a maple key and similes to explain its descend as something beautiful, seeing the positive in the negative.

To see the wind, with a man his eyes, it is unpossible, the nature of it is so fine, and subtle; yet this experience of the wind had I once myself, and that was in the great snow that fell four years ago: I rode in the highway betwixt Topcliff-upon-Swale, and Borowe Bridge, the way being somewhat trodden afore, by wayfaring men.

One is simile from the book Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis is on page 16-17.

In this anecdote, the author uses two metaphors. He "... compares a judicious traveller to a river, that increases its stream the further it flows from its source; or to certain springs, which, running through rich veins of 20 minerals,improve their qualities as they pass along." These metaphors describe the symbolism of a river perfectly, as it continues it grows more and more as it picks up more and more minerals. Mrs. Adams uses these metaphors to tell her son that as life passes by he will pick up more and more knowledge, thus giving him more advantages. She also later stokes her ego when saying that it is expected that he do well because he had "...the instructive eye of a tender parent..." These metaphors show that she expects a lot out of him and that she wants him to make he proud, this shows a blending of the encouraging, supportive tone and the didactic tone that she, and every other mother, seems to love to use in order to manipulate her son to do what she

When one thinks of freedom, bald eagles, black bears, and lions usually come to mind. For Annie Dillard, however, the epitome of freedom is a Weasel. In “Living Like Weasels”, Dillard comments on the human concept of freedom- more so our general denial of it. She promotes a style of living centered around “grasp[ing] your one necessity and not let[ing] it go.” To convey here the aforementioned position on human freedom, she employs the extended metaphor of the weasel as content for her argument.

Linda Pastan made this poem include various forms of figurative language to hide the literal message that it's trying to portray. Figurative language is using figures of speech to make the text be more powerful, persuasive, and meaningful. Figures of speech such as, similes and metaphors, go beyond the literal meanings to give the readers a new way of looking at the text. It can come in multiple ways with different literacy and rhetorical devices such as: alliteration, imageries, onomatopoeias, and etc. With the usage of the literary devices Pastan has used, it introduced the relationship between the mother and the daughter. It shows the memories of how the mother helped her daughter grow from a little girl to a young adult getting ready to go her own way in life.

In conjunction with the symbolic representation of Elisa’s life, the dramatic description of the environment can also be seen as a unique representation of the relationship conflict between husband and wife. Steinbeck’s foggy description demonstrates conflict through the following statement, "a time of quiet and waiting." This description is interesting because the fields are personified as waiting for rain, however, “rain and fog do not go together” therein lies the conflict just as Elisa waits for a positive change in how her husband treats her (Palmerino, Gregory J). Gregory P. further points out that, “The natural elements of the foothills ranch seem as unwilling to confront each other as the characters that inhabit its environs. Hence, fog and rain can be seen as the female and male equivalents to Elisa and Henry.” This only further solidifies the deep rooted troubles within Elisa and her relationship with her husband. The setting of the story is personified to act as a symbolic representation of the couple’s relationship (Steinbeck, John 337-338).

Near the end of the poem, Decaul makes a dejected image as he speaks of “life” being similar to “dew” and the “disappearing dew” (26,27,28). By saying this, Decaul shows us how fast a life comes and ends. The many different unfortunate and unhappy images the soldier witnesses, help the reader to connect and understand the overall meaning of what life is like during the war. It displays how the soldier would describe his life. By relating life to dew, the reader sees how melancholic a person can potentially become due to war. These images guide the reader to connect with the author and detect the unhappy emotions specified in the poem.

As she is developing, she is tantalized by the societal norms he represents. She is ready to give up the backwoods (a symbol of herself) for all he (a symbol of society) has to offer. Convinced of that, she sets off to find the secret of the elusive white heron and in order to find the heron, she had to climb to what was literally the top of the world for her, the top of the pine tree. The world from the top was different than the city and it was different from the woods at ground level. From the top her perspective about the world changed, it was vast and awesome, and she understood her place in it more than before. She understood it to mean more than to sacrifice her own self for the gifts this man had to offer that were tantalizing but incapitable with her personality and true self.

The Swimmer We all experience fear. You can have a fear for spiders, heights or having a fear of not being good enough, not strong enough for what life might throw at you. And we all experience beauty. We don’t always see it when it’s right in front of us, but we all experience it. It can be the nature around you or a human being that shows you beauty.

“This loving husband made the garden for his wife Annie, who loved the beauties of nature, perhaps, because she was one of them. The writer uses a metaphor comparing Annie to the “beauties of nature” This is to describe how beautiful Miss Annie was. Imagery is also shown because comparing Annie to the beauty of nature gives the reader a sense of sight imaging you can see Annie

The mid-level diction, that dominates most of the poem, is highlighted in these first couple of lines. This level of diction creates a happy tone that celebrates heaven and the afterlife while contemplating the reality of life here on earth. Phrases such as “I was well” and “I could tell” create a sense of rhyme and repetition that assures us that the speaker is still in control and doing fine, this initial portrayal of the speaker conflicts with the rest of the poem which takes on a more melancholy mood after line eighteen. Visual and olfactory imagery are also portrayed through specific word choice. Words such as “essence” and “scent” introduce the element of smell in the poem, while words such as “glass,” “skimmed,” and “hoary” convey the visual element. The vivid pastoral sensory imagery in the poem emphasizes the image of an apple, this motif alludes to the fall in Genesis and becomes an allegory for the Garden of Eden. Likewise, the speaker's thoughts of falling ice allude to Freud's iceberg personality theory. These allusions suggest both worldly corruption and a loss of innocence. This is emphasized through the repetition of the word “fall,” which in this case has the connotation of sin associated with it. The imagery used here also draws biblical allusions to Jacob’s ladder. The allusions draw attention to the corruption and downfall of mankind. Through the use of figurative language, the extended metaphor of apple