43 pages • 1 hour read
Annie DillardA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
The most frequent symbol Dillard uses is the line of words. The line of words is a multifaceted tool that the writer uses and creates, but it is also a symbol of discovery. In The Writing Life, the line of words takes on many shapes to illustrate how it finds stories and ideas. The most frequent shape it takes is a laborer’s tool—a miner’s pick and shovel, a surgeon’s probe, or a workman’s hammer. As a pick, it leads a writer into the unknown depths of a story, like how it extends a mine’s tunnel. In one instance, Dillard references how she cannot manage to “pick up [her] shovel and walk into the mine” (48). Here, she represents her inability to continue writing because of difficult subject matter; she does not want to wield the line of words because she is afraid of where it will lead and what it will ask her to contemplate. As a surgeon’s probe, the line of words illuminates hidden issues, as a surgeon seeks bodily abnormalities. As a hammer, the line of words helps demolish structural errors in a work by “hammer[ing] against the walls of your house” (4). The line of words adapts its shape for each stage of the writing process, and Dillard employs its image to denote progress towards a finished work.
By Annie Dillard
An American Childhood
An American Childhood
Annie Dillard
For the Time Being
For the Time Being
Annie Dillard
Holy the Firm
Holy the Firm
Annie Dillard
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
Annie Dillard
Teaching a Stone to Talk
Teaching a Stone to Talk: Expeditions and Encounters
Annie Dillard
Total Eclipse
Total Eclipse
Annie Dillard