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Qhetorical Analysis Of Isabella Bird's Lake Tahoe

Decent Essays

Journalist, Isabella Bird, in her journal, “Lake Tahoe,” expresses her feelings about Lake Tahoe and the journey there. Bird's purpose is to outline her trip and journey to Lake Tahoe. She adopts a nostalgic tone in order to express her feelings to her readers.
Bird opens her journal, on September second, by describing what Lake Tahoe looks like in her eyes. It was “not lovable, like the Sandwich Islands, but beautiful in it’s own way!” she is saying that Lake Tahoe is not beautiful in looks however, it is more beautiful than what meets the eye. “Lake Tahoe is before me, a sheet of water twenty-two miles long by ten broad, and in some places 1,700 feet deep. It lies at a height of 6,000 feet and the snow-crowned summits which wall it in are from 8,000 to 11,000 feet in altitude. The air is keen and elastic. There is no sound but the distant and slightly musical ring of the lumberman's axe.” She is describing how Lake Tahoe looks and the atmosphere. Bird is describing her emotions about Lake Tahoe by using diction with the words keen and elastic when describing the air.
Shifting to the journey to Lake Tahoe Bird uses comparison by using details that describe what she sees on her journey to Lake Tahoe. “driving to the Oakland ferry through streets with side--walks heaped with thousands of cantaloupe and water--melons, tomatoes, cucumbers, squashes, pears, grapes, peaches, apricots—all of startling size as compared with any I ever saw before. Other streets were piled with

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