Unit 4 Language Comparison: Achebe vs. Updike

Question

1. Compare and contrast diction (word choice) from the two short stories in this unit, "Dead Man's Path" and "A & P". Then, you will provide a comparison and contrast ESSAY that differentiates Achebe's and Updike's diction and other rhetorical choices. Have the OED or another academic dictionary handy for this one!

2. In both "Dead Man's Path" and "A & P" find examples of the following:

 

1. Author's clever use of diction and word choice (especially description of culture, time, and place)
2. Author's use of words with Greek & Latin roots
3. Author's use of context to provide meaning
4. Author's use of formal language
5. Author's use of informal language (including slang)
6. Author's overall narrative style (including point of view, tone, mood, and purpose)

 

3. After considering all of those elements, provide a comparison / contrast paper in which you discuss each author's use of diction (word choice) and its effects upon the reader, using quotes from each story to support your similarities and differences. Be sure to use discuss authors' use of mood and tone (Lesson 2.4) and author's style (Lesson 2.6). Use the OED or another scholastic dictionary to cite root words and definitions

Answer 1

I can help you get started with this, but if I answer all of these prompts, I'll be writing the essay which isn't allowed on this platform.

First, I'd re-read each story and track the kind of language the prompt specifies. Once you have a kind of word bank for each story, you can dig in and observe what kind of language you see the most of in each piece, and why you think the author chose that language.

I'll give you a specific example:

Updike uses 1950s slang occasionally, throughout the short story "A&P" in order to characterize the point of view of the narrator, who is also the protagonist, (or at least closest to his pov). Sammy refers to the girl's bottom as her "can," for example, in the first passage of the story. This engages the reader as they try to imagine what the word means to Sammy, and it also lends a kind of cuteness to the object of his attention, a teenage girl in a bathing suit who makes trouble in the grocery store where he works. This language choice therefore adds to the voice of the point of view character (we know he's also a teenager from the outset), as well as the setting, which is 1950s. This is important because Updike chooses a situation where the drama over the girls' bathing suits is likely to unfold due to 1950s conservative thinking about such things. (Later in the story, we have evidence of the narrator's Cold War anxieties when he wonders if the store might have a Russian/Soviet name in the future.) In short, the use of slang allows the author to tap into the character of the protagonist, and it helps the reader understand all of his subjectivities.