Saturday, October 27, 2007

Outside reading final paper

I believe that Augusten Burroughs wrote this book because he wanted to show us that life isn’t always perfect. I think he did a pretty good job at it too. He does this by his use of a humorous tone, his word choice, and figurative speech. By using all those elements he paints a great picture of how screwy his life was.

The first element Augusten uses to prove his point is a humorous tone. This shows that his life was so strange to the point of being funny. A quote that proves this would be the one I used in a previous post. "I am not gonna watch my sister scoop my dad's shit out of the toilet so she can put it outside to dry." To me that’s strange enough to be somewhat humorous.

The second thing he used to write this book would be word choice. He swears a lot when he writes and I think that just adds to how real this book really is. “You are a monster, he said. You are fucking evil monster. You’re no innocent fourteen-year-old. You’re a fucking psychopath.” If he had gotten rid of fuck in that quote it would’ve been less real. Also it would have created less emotion.

The final thing he uses to his advantage would be his figurative language. He does a very good job at using metaphors and similes. In fact the name of the book is comparing his life to running with scissors. He's saying that he's living his life as if he was running with scissors.

Augusten Burroughs wrote this book to prove a point. That point would be that life isn’t always perfect, and when it isn’t you’ve got to just live through it as best you can. He did a good job proving this point by showing us his childhood and by his use of a humorous tone, his word choice, and figurative language.

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