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Sarah Vowell's 'Shooting Dad And Annie Dillard'

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Sarah Vowell and Annie Dillard both wrote essays about their youth with nostalgia, highlighting the significance of childhood as an innocent and mischievous time in their lives. In Sarah Vowell’s essay “Shooting Dad,” Vowell realizes that despite their hostility at home and conflicting ideologies concerning guns and politics, she finds that her obsessions, projects, and mannerisms are reflective of her father’s. On the other hand in Annie Dillard’s essay “An American Childhood” Dillard runs away from a man after throwing a snowball at his car, after getting caught she realizes that what matters most in life is to try her best at every challenge she faces no matter the end result. Sarah Vowell’s essay is more effective than Annie Dillard’s because she includes allusions and tones, which juxtaposes warfare and religion with the innocent …show more content…

Vowell’s writing style is superior to Dillard’s because she makes allusions to warfare and separaion, which accentuates the gravity of the emotional quarrel she faced in her youth within her own family. Vowell begins her essay by explaining her and her father’s contrasting political views. Her home is described as a “house divided… [her] home [could be seen] for the Civil war battleground it was… the kitchen and the living room were well within the DMZ… guarded by totalitarian states… each of [them] declared [themselves] dictator” (Vowell). The American Civil War earned the nickname a “battle between brothers,” because Americans were killing other Americans over the distribution of federal power. By alluding to the American Civil war, Vowell parallels the hostility arising over the dispute of political ideals by a growing country at war with the arguments she had with her father. Furthermore, the DMZ (Korean Demilitarized Zone) mentioned in Vowell’s essay was the line where families were torn apart due to the seizure of power by the a dictator. Vowell ties a link to the separation of a family caused by a

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