Stylistic Analysis: Genre and Style
Prewriting Outline:
Analysis of Genre & Style: Didion’s In Sable and Dark Glasses vs. Erickson’s Stages of Psychosocial Development
Proposition/Thesis: Didion and Erickson speak to readers of childhood in the present, but use divergent stylistic means to describe the past and the future.
Framework:
· Introduce Didion and Erikson’s work and position them against the stylistic proposition of past, present, and future
· Explain what Didion does
· Explain what Erikson does
· Explain what they both do
· Summarize and connect back to the proposition
Introduction:
Didion’s In Sable and Dark Glasses moves the reader back in time through nostalgia to a place where Didion aspires to the norms of adulthood as a child.
Erickson’s Stages of Psychosocial Development takes adult readers into the future by rendering instruction and consequence towards the children of today and the adults they will become.
Didion’s work produces tone and rhythm through the recollection of nostalgia and indeterminate description, filling her piece with lengthy paragraphs and complex sentences.
Erickson, uses a definitive, authoritative, louder style to create instruction and consequence, establishing binaries predicated upon success and failure.
Both use stylistic elements of alliteration, comparison and evaluation to render perspective on childhood, one looking back, and the other looking forward.
Reason 1: Didion uses stylistic elements which create tone, nostalgia and a rhythm of recollection in the past
Example A: Didion produces indeterminate recollection through description and repetition. It is a style of echo. She reinforces how her memory feels, rather than how it is. It seemed that she had been married when she was 24. It seemed that I had been born when she was 24. It seemed that 24 was her “lucky number.”
Example B: Didion speaks in lengthy paragraphs filled with complex sentences rich in adjective and alliteration to describe the tone of place and person which produce a rhythm of memory. There was the white silk shirt strewn with star-shaped silver sequins that she wore when my father was stationed at Peterson Field in Colorado Springs, and she took me ice-skating at the Broadmoor Hotel.
Reason 2: Erickson uses a definitive, authoritative style to create instruction and consequence in the future.
Example A: Erickson produces authority by definitive, simple sentences, and highly concise paragraphs. There is little room for the vague in this instruction.
Example B: Loud staccato sentences are produced with a consistent binary of if / then or if / will construction directed towards the actions of adults. If the care the infant receives is consistent, predictable, and reliable, they will develop a sense of trust.
Example C: These binary sentences are reinforced through comparisons of consequence which focus on success and failure. Success in this stage will lead to the virtue of purpose, while failure results in a sense of guilt. Success leads to feelings of autonomy, failure results in feelings of shame and doubt. Success leads to a sense of competence, while failure results in feelings of Inferiority.
Reason 3: Both use stylistic elements of alliteration, comparison, and evaluation to render perspective on childhood for the reader in the present.
Example A: Erickson uses alliteration to reinforce comparison. Industry vs. Inferiority. Intimacy vs. Isolation. Didion uses it to paint texture onto objects. There was the white silk shirt strewn with star-shaped silver sequins that she wore.
Example B: Both are speaking to the reader in the present, but at different volumes. Erickson is speaking loudly in the present but comparing it through consequence in the future. Didion is speaking softly in the present, but of recollection of the past.
Example C: Both speak of childhood success and failure, but with different intent. Didion describes childhood as a way of being it seemed flat, failed to engage and of the small victories of interaction with friends. Erickson speaks of childhood success and failure as consequence of instruction. Success at this stage leads to feelings of wisdom, while failure results in regret, bitterness, and despair.
Conclusion: Didion and Erickson speak to readers of childhood in the present, but use divergent stylistic means to describe the past and the future.
Didion’s work produces softer tone and rhythm through the recollection of nostalgia and indeterminate description, filling her piece with lengthy paragraphs and complex sentences to paint a memory of the past.
Erickson uses a loudly definitive, authoritative style to create instruction and consequence, establishing binaries predicated upon success and failure for the child in the future.
Both use stylistic elements of alliteration, comparison and evaluation in the present to render perspective on childhood, one looking back, and the other looking forward, and wrap them around the reader, in the present.
Prose Draft: The Stylistic Past, Present & Future of Childhood
Joan Didion’s In Sable and Dark Glasses transports the reader back in time through a layered, hazy, nostalgic recollection of childhood, to a place where she aspired to the norms of adulthood far earlier than her years would allow. In contrast, Erik Erickson’s Stages of Psychosocial Development takes adult readers in the present into the future by rendering instruction and consequence towards their children and the adults they will become.
Didion’s work produces soft tone and rhythm through detailed nostalgic recollection and indeterminate description, where she fills her piece with lengthy paragraphs and complex sentences which swing between recollections of place and person. Erickson’s work uses a loudly definitive, authoritative style inherent in the genre of advice given to parents to create a tone of instruction and consequence, establishing strict binaries predicated upon success and failure to adhere to the rules he lays out for the reader. Both use stylistic elements of alliteration, comparison, and evaluation to render perspective on childhood in the present. Didion uses style to look back. Erikson uses it to look forward.
Didion produces this indeterminate recollection of the past through description and repetition. She reinforces how her memory feels, not how it is. She describes how ‘It seemed that she had been married when she was 24. It seemed that I had been born when she was 24. It seemed that 24 was her “lucky number.’ Memory for Didion is inaccurate, the raw clay of her past which becomes shaped with time. She speaks in lengthy paragraphs, filled with complex sentences rich in adjective and alliteration to visualize and provide tone to place and person. In doing this she creates the rhythm of recollection as she gets more specific and alliterative. The more detailed she goes into nostalgia, the more alliterative she gets, as in ‘There was the white silk shirt strewn with star-shaped silver sequins that she wore when my father was stationed at Peterson Field in Colorado Springs, and she took me ice-skating at the Broadmoor Hotel.’
Erikson also looks at childhood, but uses a more confident, definitive style to produce authority towards the future through the use of crisp, succinct, declarative sentences, and highly concise paragraphs. There is little room left for the vague in this instruction, punctuated as it is by staccato sentence and consistent binary. It is a style of ifs and thens. Of ifs and wills. A construction which is directed towards adults through action and consequence, as in ‘If the care the infant receives is consistent, predictable and reliable, they will develop a sense of trust.’ Erikson lays out his thoughts about what needs to happen in the present to get to a more productive and healthy future. He reinforces these binaries through comparisons of consequence sharpened and repeated across success and failure. A technique he uses to instruct but also to summarize. For example:
Success in this stage will lead to the virtue of purpose, while failure results in a sense of guilt.
Success leads to feelings of autonomy, failure results in feelings of shame and doubt.
Success leads to a sense of competence, while failure results in feelings of inferiority.
Both Didion and Erikson use stylistic elements of alliteration, comparison, and evaluation to render their divergent perspectives on childhood in the present. Didion uses alliteration to paint texture onto objects as in the white silk shirt strewn with star-shaped silver sequins that she wore. Erikson uses it to reinforce and title comparison as in Industry vs. Inferiority or Intimacy vs. Isolation.
Both speak to the reader in the present but with different chronological intent. Didion uses the reader in the present to recall elements of the past. Erikson also speaks in the present but compares behavior in the present with consequence in the future. In doing so, Erikson’s voice is louder than Didion’s. More declarative. More authoritative. More directed toward outcome. Didion’s memories are more echo than voice. Less defined despite being highly descriptive. She recalls the decisions of the past without submitting to declarative tone in the present.
Both also speak of childhood success and failure, but with divergent intent. Didion describes childhood as a way of being it seemed flat, failed to engage and the small victories of interaction with friends. Erikson speaks of childhood success and failure as consequence of adult instruction. Of goals and stages. Milestones reached and distance traveled. Success at this stage leads to feelings of wisdom, while failure results in regret, bitterness, and despair.
Didion and Erikson use style and tone to render childhood in the present but use divergent stylistic means to describe the past and the future. Didion’s work produces tone and rhythm through the recollection of nostalgia and indeterminate description, filling her piece with lengthy paragraphs and complex sentences to paint memories of the past. In contrast to Erickson, who uses a definitive, staccato, authoritative style to create instruction and consequence, establishing binaries predicated upon success and failure for the child in the future. Both use stylistic elements of alliteration, comparison, and evaluation in the present to render perspective on childhood, one looking back, and the other looking forward, and wrap them around the reader, in the present.
