Compare And Contrast Audubon And Dillard

Often times, people view the same scenario, yet distinguish two very different ideas. John James Audubon and Annie Dillard describe large flocks of birds in flight in their passages. Whether the type of birds they spot are different or their locations are far away, there is unquestionably a difference in opinion. However, Audubon and Dillard may have spotted something similar as well. Audubon uses precise and controlling values by restating the number of birds, direction, and location. When discussing how he penciled each individual bird out he says he, “found that 163 had been made in twenty-one minutes.” Several people in my family suffer from obsessive compulsive disorders, and it seems as though Audubon suffers from this slightly, the compulsion to count everything in sight that is. Whereas Dillard takes the more artistic route, for she is so overwhelmed by the way the birds are playing with her senses. Dillard mentions, “over my head I heard a sound of beaten air, like a million rugs, a muffled whuff.” It is also interesting to see how Audubon …show more content…
They both use many similes, whether they are describing the birds as separate things or not. To Audubon the birds resemble a “vast column” and a “gigantic serpent”. Dillard describes the birds as “transparent and whirling, like smoke”, “like an eye”, and “loosened like a skein”. They both use heavy imagery when describing the birds. An example of this imagery is when Audubon says, “the light of the noon-day was obscured as by and eclipse; the dung fell in spots, unlike melting flakes of snow; and the continued buzz of wings had a tendency to lull my senses to repose.” Dillard uses imagery dramatically throughout her passage, “Could tiny birds be sifting through me right now, birds winging through the gaps between my cells, touching nothing, but quickening my tissues, fleet?” Dillard and Audubon understand the beauty of the mystic