Diction In Eudora Welty's Essay

656 Words2 Pages

What role has reading had in your life? Through the essay, One Writer's Beginnings, Eudora Welty explores the memories of her childhood that are intertwined with her love of reading. Using effective diction, illustrative exemplification, and tone Welty lovingly reconstructs the scenes that helped develop her intense hunger for books that has followed her throughout her life.

Utilizing effective diction is key as Welty to put together the mosaic of memories that illustrates the intense presence of reading in her life. Her use of diction pulls the reader into the scenes, it makes them real. When she describe the library the wording allows to hear “the steady seething of the electric fan”, the harsh tone of the librarian’s “normal commanding …show more content…

For that, Welty needs exemplification. When coupled with the diction, exemplification serves as the main device implemented merging her experiences into a essay the explains the her relationship with fiction, and reading as a whole. Welty is a storyteller and she uses her skill to craft the narrative that describe her relationship with fiction. She describes the near mythological terror of the minotaur of the librarian, Ms. Jackson, who guarded the labyrinthian library of her hometown. She reminisces over the titles countless books she inhaled, two by two, as she rushed, back and forth, day after day, to the library for more. She speaks of her mother, who shared that same joy of reading, and who also enabled her to get her first library card. She illustrates about how books were ever present in her house. It’s through this exemplification and description that Welty is able to justify to the reader why books had such an intense role in her life, and why reading has held such value to her. Books were everywhere, they permeated her childhood. The effect of her vivid descriptions are that the reader and the author's perspective are merged. Rather than reading than reading the text, the reader experience’s it, and it's through the shared viewpoint that reader is able to realize the intensity and value reading brought to Welty’s

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