Living Like Weasels

Annie Dillard, in “Living Like Weasels”, suggests a lifestyle that includes exploration and not giving into fear. She uses a personal anecdote to support her idea, keeps the reader interested by the use of alliteration, parallelism, and metaphors, and appeals to the audience’s emotions by telling off her deep, vulnerable thoughts. Dillard delivers personal thoughts and uses rhetorical devices in order to add a more poetic feeling to her writing that will carry the reader through her ideas. Her goal is to connect to the emotion of her readers, in hopes that they will not turn away from opportunities, because of fear, like she did when she came face to face with the ferret.

Question 3: Write down the verbs that are most important to the argument Dillard makes and consider what they contribute to her aim.

The most powerful verbs Dillard uses in her argument are to “vow”, to “seize”, and to “dangle”. The three actions go together in order to fill the initial goal Dillard wants her audience to achieve. She wants them to keep sticking to their interests and opportunities, and not turn away in fear. In order to do this, a person needs to first vow to take on this task. This is how they develop their motivation to be successful. Next, a person must seize the day. They must take every opportunity given to them to accomplish this goal. The last step a person must take to accomplish this goal is to let himself dangle. He must be able to not fear any challenges that are in the way and continue to focus on accomplishing the goal.

Question 4: Find two lines or so that characterize the tone of this essay and comment on how they reveal the tone.

“I have been reading about weasels because I saw one last week. I startled a weasel who startled me, and we exchanged a long glance.”

These lines characterize Dillard’s calm and enlightened tone. Dillard creates a calming poetic style by the use of alliteration and description of nature. Like many transcendentalists, Dillard’s writing reflects the calm feeling of being surrounded by nature. Dillard also seems enlightened throughout her essay. She had an interaction with a weasel, and now she is taking a life lesson from it. In these lines, the fact that she researched weasels because she saw one, shows how enlightened and inspired she is by her interaction.

Question 5: This Essay suggests the need for the wild in life. How would you describe what Dillard means by “wild”?

Dillard does not mean that one should do the most risky and outrageous things in life, rather, she is suggesting to not let fear stop you from achieving what you want to achieve. She uses her personal example of seeing the weasel. She was curious and would have wanted to learn more about it, but she was so stunned and scared it might attack her or hurt her, that she froze and cannot even remember the instant. She suggests that people, when coming close to their dreams or opportunities, should not run away in shock or fear. She wants people to take risks and give all that they possibly can to achieving their goals.