The Fixed Annie Dillard Summary

Rhetoric devices are often used by writers to clarify ideas, emphasize key points, or relate insights to the reader. In both “The Death of the Moth” and “On Keeping A Notebook, ” the authors heavily rely on such devices to get their points across to the audience, and these devices help strengthen overall theme the authors want to communicate. Though several may argue that Didion’s use of metaphor and rhetorical question compliment her essay very well, the repetition and metaphors Dillard uses are more effective in developing the theme of loss and gain throughout the story.

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.

A child holds innocence from a young age and does not understand the importance of having compassion. As a child's innocence gradually fade away due to maturity, he or she transforms into a compassionate person. In a coming of age short story, “Marigolds,” Eugenia Collier writes about a series of events where a young girl, named Lizabeth, develops into a compassionate person. Lizabeth narrates these events in a flashback that involve the marigolds of her neighbor, Miss Lottie. Miss Lottie's marigolds were the essence of hope in the midst of the town filled with dust and dirt. The effect of economic struggles that the townspeople go through causes Lizabeth to destroy Miss Lottie's marigolds. Throughout the short story, “Marigolds,” the characterization

As human beings we’re all affluent to live on this fascinating place called earth. We live everyday normally just as every other human, animal or insect. But we eradicate insects and animals as if they aren’t as important as we are. Nature is being inherently demolished by humans who are oblivious to know that all living things on the earth have a purpose . However, Annie Dillard, well-known for her ambiguous nonfiction books help support the importance of nature and why we shouldn't intrude upon it. For example, Dillard’s excerpt from “The Fixed” about a Polyphemus Moth uses countless rhetorical strategies to construct a compelling message about the peace and beauty of nature, but it also illustrates how easily mankind can destroy it. Therefore, a part of nature is to be naturally

Watching the hopeless death of the vulnerable moth leaves Woolf contemplating her own life, as she compares the moth to herself, and the human race. The moth, caught in a windowsill, is compared to the outside world by Woolf; while the moth flutters and exhibits life,

All good things must come to an end. A common phrase we have become accustomed to hearing, and a phrase that parallels the meaning of Annie Dillard’s “The Chase”, an excerpt from her autobiography “An American Childhood.” In “The Chase” (1987), Annie Dillard recounts how childhood, no matter how enjoyable, will come to a close. Dillard conveys this by carefully detailing her childhood experience as a tomboy and that “nothing girls did could not compare” (1). Her experience during “the chase” symbolized an end of Dillard's childhood and wishing for “the glory to last forever” (19). The author recounts her story of “the chase” in order to express exuberance and love for childhood compared to the fact of mandatory growing old. The author addresses the audience in this narrative chapter of “An American Childhood” to express how short childhood is is this passing craze of life. The author uses expertly composed imagery, parallelism, diction and tone to create the impactful story in a chapter of her autobiography.

A child holds innocence from a young age and does not understand the importance of having compassion. As a child's innocence gradually fades away due to maturity, he or she transforms into a compassionate person. In a coming of age short story called, “Marigolds,” the author Eugenia Collier writes about a series of events about a young girl, named Lizabeth, develops into a compassionate person. Lizabeth narrates these events in a flashback that involves the marigolds of her neighbor, Miss Lottie. Miss Lottie's marigolds represented the essence of hope in the midst of the town, filled with dust and dirt. Despite the dirt and dusty roads that were accompanied by the house, Miss Lottie decided to plant her marigolds. The effect of economic struggles the townspeople go through causes Lizabeth to destroy Miss Lottie's marigolds. Throughout the short story,

Dillard also accomplishes to draw a strong parallel between herself and the symbol of this essay. As Dillard reads by candlelight, a “golden female Moth, a biggish one” flies into her candle, bringing itself to its own demise. Dillard closely analyzes this majestic Moth that has suddenly flapped itself to the center of her world. In paragraph five, after she has witnessed the Moth burn into bits and pieces, Dillard says “that candle had two wicks, two winding flames of identical light, side by side”. Dillard then begins to draw similarities between herself and the ill-fated moth. The moth was “golden” and “biggish” before she had flew into the fire, much like the writer that Dillard was like before she became a victim of writer's block. Dillard also draws a connection to religious figures in paragraph six, when she says “She burned... like a hollow saint, like a flame-faced virgin gone to God.” A parallel that can be

“The Chase, written by Annie Dillard, is a short narration about an experience Dillard has as a child. When Dillard was growing up she had constantly played with the boys, from the thrill of football to the enthusiasm of baseball, where she was known to have a “boy’s arm.” Winter rolled around and the children could no longer play baseball or football, they decided to throw snowballs at passing cars. Consequently, this act went downhill fast when Dillard hit a passing Buick. She was so proud of her perfect snowball and perfect hit. However, never in their lives had a car stopped, but this time was different, the suit wearing man driving left the Buick and began running for the kids. The kids sprang to their bases and ran forever with the man

Some things take more than just a few glances to have its substance truly disclosed. By transforming into a full-grown person, Lizabeth learns to see things not only by what is on the outside, but grasp what is inside as well. Near the beginning of the story, she recalls one of her childhood days where she and her friends once again adventure off to annoy Ms. Lottie. Once there, however, they find that, “For some reason, we children hated those marigolds. They interfered with the perfect ugliness of the place; they said too much that we could not understand; they did not make sense” (Collier 26). Lizabeth and her thrill-seeking friends are bewildered by the beauty of the marigolds amongst Ms. Lottie’s barren land, causing them to despise it. This conveys the kids as being unable to grasp the true meaning behind the planted marigolds. By using the oxymoron “perfect ugliness” to describe Ms. Lottie’s surroundings, the interference of the “too beautiful” marigolds highlights its value and its symbolism as hope. The significance of this is that by employing the children’s ignorance of the marigolds, it is able to reveal their innocence. It shows how they aren’t yet able to perceive things beyond their surface, to be able to understand things beyond their literal definition like the marigolds. However, this is able to set up the transformation that occurs for Lizabeth to be able to lose her innocence and unveil the author’s argument. At the end of the story, she unleashes her pent-up feelings of the marigolds by destroying it, causing her childhood to vanish and adulthood to begin. As time passes by

Creatures seem to propagate life unnecessarily, flinging life out there just to die. Dillard describes this by using aphids as an example. She says: “The faster death goes, the faster evolution goes. If an aphid lays a million eggs, several might survive. Now, my right hand, in all its human cunning, could not make one aphid in a thousand years” (Dillard,). She is amazed by how many eggs an aphid can produce so effortlessly, yet us humans cannot create a single one ourselves. This allegory compares this seemingly wasteful evolution of other species, to the lack of ability for us humankind to do so on such a large scale. She also mentions that only several might survive, which again show the apparent wastefulness of producing such a large amount

Finally, the reader is introduced to the character around whom the story is centered, the accursed murderess, Mrs. Wright. She is depicted to be a person of great life and vitality in her younger years, yet her life as Mrs. Wright is portrayed as one of grim sameness, maintaining a humorless daily grind, devoid of life as one regards it in a normal social sense. Although it is clear to the reader that Mrs. Wright is indeed the culprit, she is portrayed sympathetically because of that very lack of normalcy in her daily routine. Where she was once a girl of fun and laughter, it is clear that over the years she has been forced into a reclusive shell by a marriage to a man who has been singularly oppressive. It is equally clear that she finally was brought to her personal breaking point, dealing with her situation in a manner that was at once final and yet inconclusive, depending on the outcome of the legal investigation. It is notable that regardless of the outcome, Mrs. Wright had finally realized a state of peace within herself, a state which had been denied her for the duration of her relationship with the deceased.

Woolf’s essay is based on the symbolic meaning of the moth which she explicitly identifies as “little or nothing but life” (Woolf 57). Therefore, this “tiny bead of pure life” exists to “show us the true nature of life” which begins animated, innocent, and energetic, but eventually dwindles because it is overcome by “an oncoming doom” known as death (57). Juxtaposition is used because the moth is portrayed as a “tiny” and “pure” form of life while death is an unavoidable “doom.” The figurative meaning of this literal situation is examined as she says, “When there was nobody to care or to know, this gigantic effort on the part of an insignificant little moth, against a power of such magnitude, to retain what no one else valued or desired to keep, moved one strangely” (58). Here, Woolf is watching a small seemingly “insignificant” moth struggle to live while also observing the omnipotent

Just like in the rest of the works, Sharon Olds’ poem, Still Life in Landscape, is presented on a confessional note. The speaker, who is the author, is a child. This child narrates about her experience as a witness of an accident caused by recklessness due to drunk driving. It is easy to tell from the line 1, “It was night, it had rained, there were pieces of cars and half-cars strewn,” that a terrible accident had happened on the road during that night. The poem presents a truthful meaning of how real reality is, and it can be elucidated and viewed via varying viewpoints by the audience, the child and the reader. The interpretation of the poem by the child is that it is a traumatic exposure to the raw life reality that likely cannot be undone nor can he forget the happenings of the night.

The Caterpillar is a poem which focuses on the previously overlooked actions some of us may partake in, that may not be thought much of, but have short and long lasting effects on a scale we might not be very familiar with. Do we feel remorse for living organisms on a small macroscopic level, or is it just an insignificant part of our complex lives? Is the appreciation of life developed through experiences? Do we feel more pity for a single being that has been through trauma than we do for thousands that have not? In this poem, the conflict between caterpillars and humans is discussed in a such a way that brings up questions about how valuable we perceive other life to be, and how different