Annie Dillard

Annie Dillard in the passage uses a vast collection of metaphoric comparisons and interesting diction in order to show how special and unique a writing profession is. Annie Dillard said, “The line of words is a miner’s pick, a woodcarver’s gouge, a surgeon’s probe.” In this statement Annie Dillard utilizes a comparison between words and a list of specialized tools that require skills to operate correctly to say that writing is a specialized profession requiring skills to be able to properly harness the full potential that words hold. Additionally every single tool that she relates words to, are tools that help the user to search for something and to dig deeper which is implying that words as well help a writer to dig deeper and find things that the writer had never known. After this line Annie’s following sentence, “You wield it, and it digs a path you follow,” holds an interesting word choice of “follow”. Annie employed the word follow, her purpose, was to imply that the line of words discoursed by a writer leads and pushes the writer forwards to new heights. Meaning that rather than a writer shaping the words in a line, each line of words will show the writer a new path and show him more than he had ever known before. Later on in the excerpt Annie writes, “You will know tomorrow, or this time next year.” Annie Dillard’s diction in this line reveals her personal feelings about the inconspicuousness of writing that writers have to deal with that can be solved instantaneously or take years. Such as some complex issues, the words may lead the writer to an answer whenever the words may choose thus supporting that writers have to have great amounts of patience to have to wait sometimes for years before the answer reveals itself.