Ravago 1

Ravago, Joseph

HL English Y2

Casady

5 September 2018

“Encounters” Close-Read Write Up

Throughout the entire book, Dillard uses rhetorical devices often in order to convey

central ideas that she presents for the reader to interpret. Within the passage, “Encounters”,

Dillard is no different as she utilizes anaphora repetition and parenthesis in order to convey that

strangers can sometimes be the most captivating figures in revealing new experiences to us as

people.

Anaphora Repetition is used preventatively throughout the second paragraph of the

excerpt. When the narrator arrives in North Yemen, Dillard uses anaphora repetition to

emphasize the word “baby” throughout the entire second paragraph through the third one.

Simply starting off with what a baby represents within itself for us as a society adds a layer of

innocence to the the entire passage. A baby is something that is seen within society as a human

in its simplest intelligent and purest form without being able to be corrupted by the natural evil

sources within nature, or in more instinctive way, the evil sparks within the baby, such as the

ones discussed within “Israel”, haven’t been initiated to be shown yet., thus the baby is a symbol

of innocence that we gradually lose with continual. This pureness and innocence of the baby is

juxtaposed with the Westerner that is the narrator. The narrator is from the, arguably, more

civilized Western world that has become more industrialized when compared to places such as

North Yemen; however, a result of that said industrialization is that the Western world has also

become much more materialistic as a collective whole. This is just one of the many flaws that the
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Western world has created for themselves that also lead to the evil of indulgence that can

captivate the minds of many. These two contrasting ideas coming into contact with each other in

such a public matter is why all the civilians that were passing by the motorcycle stopped to

watch a scene that wouldn’t be so captivating within the world that we live in as residents of the

Western world. Our materialism is a flaw that we created and put upon ourselves as a society, a

man-made evil. We are innately afraid of stuff, especially people, people that are foreign to us

and those that we don’t understand, thus we let our fear overpower us and take firm control of

our actions which is why Dillard showed the public as holding their breath in anxious

anticipation. As a result of this, we don’t allow ourselves to utilize our greatest resource in self-

discovery via things outside of our comfort zone and we place ourselves at a significant

disadvantage because we think that we as individuals are more important than the collective

whole species, thus need to change that if we wish to continue on with innovation for our well-

being.

Dillard continues on to use parentheses in the third paragraph of the except to help further

the idea that interacting with strangers is a way for us to grow with our understanding of the

world. The parenthesis adds the fact that “the first instant the baby began, (was) visibly at the

eyebrows” and this statement that is something that we wouldn’t expect in a visualization of the

creation of a baby. However, since we are often kept within our own realm of our personal minds

then we are only accustomed to what we believe to be true within our previous notions. This

limits us as a societal group because as Dillard has often previously expressed, the best way for

us to learn is through leaving our comfort zone and allowing first-hand experiences to shape us.

The narrator’s impression that the baby “doubt(s) life’s very fundamentals” and, in a sense, gives

an inadvertent plea for us to realize that while going into an uncomfortable zone may render us
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vulnerable, it is an exchange for valuable information that we must undergo in order to achieve

the level of knowledge that we are capable of. The unnatural way that the baby is presented by

the eyebrows catches Dillard off-guard at first due to the unfamiliar structure. Eyebrows are one

of the main ways that humans can convey various types of ideas simply through facial features as

eyebrows often shape our face to conveying emotion. Dillard using this to display her own

instant uneasiness towards the baby also shows a fear of communication with things that are

unfamiliar to her while the baby, who is still going through adolescence which is the greatest

learning period of its life, instantly trusted Dillard and even offered Dillard keys due to the innate

trust the baby has. Consequently, the baby is more dynamic in its growth while Dillard is

stagnant and stuck within her own world. By this, Dillard is making a statement about humanity

being afraid of exploring different worlds than our own personal one. The outside world instils

an innate fear within us; however, the effects of something that may be against “life’s very

fundamentals” may, in fact, aid us in furthering us as a united race if we were simply more open

to it instead of being afraid based on first impressions. Our unwillingness to open up to strangers

will always hinder us unless we can progress past the aforementioned fear.

Dillard uses the anaphora repetition of the word “baby” and the parenthesis of detail of

the baby in order to convey the need for us to move past our fears of things that are foreign to us

in order to fully harness the ability to gain knowledge that we couldn’t possibly receive without

personal experiences with things unknown to us.