Shooting Dad by. Sarah Vowell

Shooting Dad by. Sarah Vowell

Audience

Subject/Purpose

Disagreeing Families

People that have trouble compromising

Close minded people

Style/Syntax

Syntax

Rhetorical Strategies

Style

Hyperbole

"And, because I believed in the

devil, I did what my mother told me to do every time I felt an evil presence. I

looked at the smoke and whispered under my breath, “Satan, I rebuke thee.”

As the story goes on, some sentences get shorter as she reflects on shooting a gun as a six year old, "The sound it made was as big as God. It kicked little me back to the ground like a bully, like a foe. It hurt. I don't know if I dropped it or just handed it back over to my dad [...]." The syntax changes as her age progresses to reflect her anecdote in a way that is very similar to stream of consciousness.

Syntax is also significant as the author sometimes does not com directly out and express her feelings but relies on the syntax to convey her feelings. An example of this is "Not long ago, my dad finished his most elaborate tool of death yet. A cannon. He built a nineteenth-century cannon. From scratch. It took two years."

"You could have looked at the Demo

cratic campaign poster in the upstairs window and the Republican one in the

downstairs window and seen our home for the Civil War battleground it was."

Both the style and syntax of Shooting Dad is significant and different than most essays because it was intended to be a radio essay on "This American Life". The author, Sarah Vowell carefully crafts her sentences in a way that makes the essay extremely conversational in a way that a radio show would be and a formal essay would not be. An example of this conversational style would be "I'm not saying who was the Democrat or who was the Republican- my father or I- but I will tell you that I have never subscribed to Guns and Ammo , that I did not plaster the family vehicle with National Rifle Association stickers, and that hunter's orange was never my color." Because of the specific style adopted by Vowell, the anecdote she begins with draws in the readers attention, making it easier for them to follow along with her story. The syntax can also be described as conversational as she says "I'm not saying", "I did not".

She uses extreme exaggerations to make her essay more entertaining and humors.

Imagery

"While the kitchen and the 7

living room were well within the DMZ,’ the respective work spaces governed

by my father and me were jealously guarded totalitarian states in which each

of us declared ourselves dictator."

"The available flat surfaces were

buried tinder a million scraps of paper on which he sketched his mechanical

inventions in blue ballpoint pen. And the floor, carpeted with spiky metal

shavings, was a tetanus shot waiting to happen."

Imagery is an important part of the essay because it was first delivered through the radio. By using imagery to illustrate the scene she is able to show the similarities in her and her fathers work spaces.

"Oh. My. God. My dad and I

are the same person. We’re both smart-alecky loners with goofy projects and

weird equipment. And since this whole target practice outing was my idea, I

was no longer his adversary. I was his accomplice."

Historical Allusion

Structure

"Some things were said during the Reagan administration that cannot be taken back. Let’s just say that I blamed Dad

for nuclear proliferation and Contra aid."

Vowell structures her essay in a way that also contributes to the radio essay format. There are a number of paragraphs that contain mostly short, to the point sentences with descriptive details that help the audience follow her anecdote. She does being by making the first few paragraphs long as she sets up the environment of the essay for the audience. Once she is finished with the background information of the disagreement between her and her dad, she then moves to the shorter paragraphs and sentences. This structure is significant because it reveals that she knows exactly how the feels on the topic of guns. She does not qualify her father's argument, or try to understand his position. She tried shooting guns. She doesn't like guns. Her sister does like guns. She will never shoot a gun again. She doesn't like guns. The short sentences reinforce her thoughts as she is direct with her opinions and does not consider second guessing herself.

Through historical allusion she was able to establish ethos. She also points out another similarity between her and her father.

The subject is compromise. This quote reflex the subject because it shows the moments in the story that the author show a compromise needed to be made.

Diction

"You could have looked at the Demo

cratic campaign poster in the upstairs window and the Republican one in the

downstairs window and seen our home for the Civil War battleground it was." She uses the word "battleground" the show the tension in her family.

"Nowadays, I giggle when Dad calls me on Election Day to cheerfully

inform me that he has once again canceled out my vote,..."

Her use of the word "giggle" shows how she is now more mature and doe not take there disagreements to seriously.

"Dad and I started bickering in earnest when I was fourteen, after the 1984 5

Democratic National Convention." Here she uses bickering to describe the disagreements she had with her father.