Shipping Out Analysis

Summer in Samarkand and Shipping Out are both autobiographical essays that use a reflective style to narrate the travelling adventures of the respective authors’ lives. Both Wallace and Batuman colourfully describe the situations they are in and the people they are around, and both relate their experiences with humorous incites and references. The similarities in genre and description and even topic are fairly obvious in these two essays, but the overall tone and detail attention diverge greatly. This divergence is a result of completely different content and purpose between the essays, and although at first the essays appear very similar, a deeper glance reveals a strong contrast between the two. The two areas that are most similar between these essays are their genre and general topic. Both Batuman and Wallace are relating their different travel …show more content…
In Batuman’s essay, she frequently describes people in a somewhat semi-comical, slightly exaggerated fashion, painting a vivid mental picture of their looks and character through her adjectives. One of her descriptions include her language tutor in Uzbekistan, Muzaffar, who had “pale skin, pale almond-shaped eyes, high cheekbones, and a floppy, sad, puppetlike comportment.” Wallace loves describing people as well, but his descriptions are usually more drawn out and lengthy than Batuman’s are. His method of introducing his shipmates, specifically his tablemates, causes one to feel like they are sitting at the same table, being annoyed by the same peculiarities, being entertained by the same endearments. Both essayists also described seemingly random and mundane events or objects: Wallace his shower and sink in his ship cabin, his table-mates’ practise of giving money to their granddaughter; Batuman her taxi-driver’s home-picked apples, the pink-hued sheep on the hill outside of the