A Brief Comparison Of Annie Dillard And Luis J. Rodriguez

Annie Dillard and Luis J. Rodriguez are two award-winning American writers. Although Ms. Dillard—Pulitzer prize winner— writes in the female perspective and Mr. Rodriguez in the male point of view, both display a similarity about a childhood event that happened to both of them. Even though the grew up in America, each has a unique style which gives us, the readers, a glimpse of their environment, along with its color, sound and culture.
Each wrote about an event that occurred in their childhood, during the cold days in winter. Ms. Dillard was seven years old, and Mr. Rodriguez was ten. Ms. Dillard related her experience in her book (released in 1987), An American Childhood. Mr. Rodriguez told his story in his 1993 best-selling autobiography,

Always Running: La Vida Loca, Gang Days in L.A. Both stories excerpted from their works, provide glimpses of their experience. The way each depicts their chasing incident is culturally distinct with different outcomes and told for two unique purposes.
Annie Dillard reports the facts with eloquent, colorful words written in past-tense and in short and long, to the point, sentences. She uses words that elicit a response from her audience. For example, in telling how she preferred to play football with boys, Ms. Dillard writes, “But you flung yourself wholeheartedly at the back of his knees—if you gathered and joined body and soul and pointed the dividing fearlessly—then you likely wouldn’t get hurt, and you’d stop the ball. Your fate, and your team’s score depended on your concentration and courage. Nothing girls did, could compare with it.” The words, “wholeheartedly,” “fearlessly,” “hurt,” “concentration,” and “courage” all cause the reader to believe that she thought all boys or males had these qualities. Her style and choice of words provide the reader an awareness that she’s making the “sainted,” redheaded man that chased her all over the backyards of Pittsburgh, a sort of a hero because he pursued her and Mikey Fahey fearlessly, wholeheartedly with concentration and courage.
Luis Rodriguez narrates his account using a conversational tone. He gives his account in a past-tense voice giving the reader an inclination that the author is reflecting on his experience, his environment, his childhood. He shares clear dialogue that happened between himself and Tino, his friend. Their camaraderie and friendship are understood. His words are simple, yet descriptive of the world around him. For example, in describing the details of his environment, he writes, “Tino and I strolled past the stucco and wood-frame homes of the neighborhood consisting mostly of Mexicans with a sprinkling of poor white families (usually from Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Texas).” It’s easy for the reader to understand his culture and environment. It’s economically challenging, hard and rough.
Dillard describes her surroundings with words like picket fences, thorny hedges, houses, garbage cans, backyard, “failing always to find small places or hard places to slow him down.” Rodriguez uses different words like beer bottles, metal, fold-up, oil-grime, chain-link fence, sign, sheriff.

He writes, “We were constant prey, and the hunters soon became big blurs: the police, the gangs, the junkies, the dudes on Garvey Boulevard who took our money, all smudged up into one.” Dillard describes an open, clean and order way of life while Rodriguez portrays a tough, boundary inflicting, chaotic environment. Both writers want the reader to understand their culture. They achieve their objectives by directing the reader’s attention to the specific details of their

surroundings.
The emotional focus of Annie Dillard’s story is joy, happiness and everything that has to do with childhood memories.

Seven-year-old Dillard and a friend were chased relentlessly by an adult—a red-headed stranger—whom she and some boys had thrown snowballs on a cold, winter morning in Pittsburgh. Dillard explains the thrill and fear she felt as she ran from the stranger. She implies a euphoric happiness “for nothing had required so much” of her since that day. On the other hand, Luis Rodriguez’s account is sad, painful and life-changing. The ten-year-old can’t trust anyone in such a tough culture. “Sometimes they were teachers who jumped on us Mexicans as if we were born with a hideous stain. We were always afraid. Always running.”
These two writers, though, don’t differentiate much in the way they write their chasing scenes. Both use short choppy sentences when they both want to push the action forward. Such as like when Ms. Dillard writes, “Wordless, we split up. We were on our turf, we could lose ourselves…” The shorter breaks in-between punctuates and creates a faster-paced tempo and quick beat to the chase. Rodriguez does the same thing, “It never stopped, this running. We were constant prey, and the hunters soon became big blurs…” He too includes those quick breaks and puts shorter words to make the story flow more

quickly.

The two writers also employ another technique with the chase to dramatize it by adding different structured sentences to emphasize different beliefs. Dillard does this when she describes the man chasing her, “…knew what I thought only children who trained at football knew: that you have to fling yourself at what you’re doing…” This longer sentence helps emphasize the theme Ms. Dillard pushes throughout (what she believes about boys, perseverance, and passion). Rodriguez also emphasizes a certain theme, but instead, he does so by making the sentences even quicker, and he blurs the words together by making them all repeat with almost the same style of speaking. He does this when he describes those chasing him as “…big blurs: the police, the gang, the junkies, the dudes on Garvey Boulevard who took our money, all smudged into one.” Rodriguez helps emphasize his theme of his oppressive, troublesome, and prejudicial culture.
The ways in which both authors refer to the chase is thrilling. Ms. Dillard gives a clear indication of her excitement and challenge to keep running even after you grow up—like the man who chased her. Dillard provides the reader with a desire to feel passion about one's endeavors. Whereas, Mr. Rodriguez suggests his running meant either death or survival. He gives the indication that risk-taking had no purpose and those "chasing" you will always obscure the future.