Living Like a Weasel
A mind-changing unexpected encounter Didn 't we all had one or several moments in life that made you see yourself, the way you live in a whole new perspective? That special moment where it felt like lightning struck you and you changed your perspective of life? For some of you might have been the birth of your child or the moving to a different country? To Dillard it was the unexpected encounter with a weasel. Annie Dillard was born in 1945 and it seems like she always had a thirst for reading, writing and overall literature. She studied literature and creative writing and has wrote several books, novels and essays and even won the Pulitzer Price for “Pilgrim at the Creek”. Thus I think it was really interesting to read one of her shorter works “Living Like a Weasel”, a story in which Annie Dillard describes her magical unexpected encounter with a Weasel in six parts. Dillard starts out by directly pointing to the 'weasel topic ' by introducing it with a short 4 word sentence “A weasel is wild”(Diyanni, p.97). She goes on with a question to get the readers ' attention and let them be part of her journey, “Who knows what he thinks” (Diyanni, p.97). A detailed description of a weasel 's hunting habit follows. It almost come across as a beast in a horror movie and the adjectives intensify the mental image, “he bites his prey by the neck, either splitting the jugular vein at the throat or crunching the brain at the base of the skull”(Diyanni, p.97). She uses the two comparisons of a rattle snake and a sticky label to enhance the image of the weasel that will never let go once it sunk its teeth in something. The first part creates a negative image of a wild weasel. In the second part Dillard explains why she knows all the previous stated facts in the introduction because she recently saw a weasel. After she briefly mentions this fact she guides us in to her world away from civilization. “Hollis Pond, ...also called Murray 's Pond”. Her description is again
References: Annie Dillard: Living like a Weasel in: Diyanni, Robert:50 Great Essays. 4th. New York City: Penguin Academics, 2010. Print. http://www.anniedillard.com/ http://www.numerology.com/numerology-numbers/6