It's a perfectly normal thing for people to reminisce about past experiences. In An American Childhood, an autobiography by Annie Dillard, a chase scene on a snowy day taught her that not all adults are boring and strict, that there are some that still understand football’s lesson: apply full effort or don't apply any at all. Whereas, in Sarah Vowell’s autobiography, “Shooting Dad,” Vowell identifies the differences between her father and her, then through mutual appreciation for a homemade cannon, realises that they have more in common than she previously believed. Sarah Vowell, however, is a more effective writer because the paragraphs were better structured and because Vowell had better control over details. “Shooting Dad” is superior…show more content… Annie Dillard limits herself to listing adjective after adjective without going in depth, “He chased us silently over picket fences, through thorny hedges, between houses, around garbage cans, and across streets” (Dillard 13). There is no intensity to her descriptions, it's only listing. Another example of Dillard’s lack of variation can be found in paragraph 16: “The man’s lower pants legs were wet; his cuffs were full of snow, and there was a prow of snow beneath them on his shoes and socks” (Dillard 16). Again Dillard just lists adjective without bringing any emotion or depth into the description. Contrary, Sarah Vowell brought pathos into her descriptions, “But I remember holding the pistol only made me feel small. It was so heavy in my hand. I stretched out my arm and pointed it away and winced. It was a very long time before I had the nerve to pull the trigger” (Vowell 11). In this, Vowell describes her first encounter with firearms using a variety of sentence structure and word choice. Instead of using a list of physical properties of the handgun, Vowell mixes in personal feelings along with description.
Annie Dillard is, although good in her own right, inferior as a writer to Sarah Vowell because of a lack of paragraph structure and poor use of details. Sarah Vowell’s use of writing stylization is skillful and creative while Dillard’s appears incomplete and
