The Deer of Providencia

1. The Deer of Providencia Laura Tiedeman Savannah Wagner

2. Placement • Relative placement of her life • Draws into her next lesson • This essay is in the middle of the book, so therefore she is still learning and growing throughout her life.

3. Purpose • By expressing how she left the deer alone to help itself, she draws her purpose together. • To inform people of how they are the ones who harm themselves and therefore are the ones who can fix themselves. • There are few Transcendentalist moments in this essay as she seems to be more in-touch with reality and not lost in her spirituality.

4. Imagery • Where: when she writes how the deer harms itself. • “The rope twanged; the tree leaves clattered; the deer’s free foot beat the ground. …It thrashed, kicking, but only one leg moved; the other three legs tightened inside the rope’s loop. Its hip jerked; its spine shook. Its eyes rolled; its tongue, thick with spittle, pushed in and out”(pg. 80) • Why: She describes the pain of the deer and the affects it has on itself while trying to become free. • Effect: This shows how when one it trying to save themselves, they can, in fact, be harmful. • Effectiveness: With other parts of the essay this is strong, however by itself, this scene is just another part of the essay, albeit with pretty imagery.

5. Rhetorical Devices • Allusion to Thoreau • To show how they are similar by being aware and awake to the world around them. • “I remember feeling very old and energetic. I could say like Thoreau that I have traveled widely in Roanoke, Virginia. I have thought a great deal about carnivorousness; I eat meat. These things are not issues; they are mysteries” (pg. 82 • Shows how she is different from others by her awareness. • With the following paragraph, it gives examples of how she is awake. • Doesn’t follow exactly to her essay, but supplies herself with credibility.

6. Power Moments • When she describes the deer’s situation the last paragraph of the essay. • Shows how much we can harm ourselves unintentionally. • The last paragraph drew to a close with how it was the deer’s fault and how she did not care about it.

7. The man talks about how women would react in the similar situation. She simply nodded in agreement, but said nothing. (pg. 82) She explains how eating meat isn’t an issue; its something generally not thought about. (pg. 82) Why Good Writing: Goes into detail with entire essay purpose or shows multiple examples with her lesson. Tone: Blunt; she does not sugar-coat. Stresses independency. Dillard develops her tone more toward the end because she is describing. Tone fades then returns.

8. Diction: Very descriptive “It was ‘pretty,’ delicate of bone like all deer, and thin-skinned from the tropics. Its skin looked virtually hairless, in fact, almost translucent, like a membrane” (pg. 79) Less Transcendentalist and spiritual. The metaphor does not hold out completely through the essay. At first, the structure is difficult to discern, but in the end it is clearer.

9. Closing Comments: Dillard is a very descriptive writer who puts a lot of heart into her essays. However, because she is seemingly writing o herself, some of the though process behind her writing is confusing and difficult to follow. Dillard is similar to Thoreau because they share a theme of being ‘awake’ and ‘aware’ whereas the rest of society are wasting away as oblivious individuals.