Second Home Critique - Essay Example

Specifically, the author’s diction, sentence structure, choice of words, imagery, and figurative language are important aspects of the use of tone.

One of the key techniques employed by the writer is the use of imagery in expressing the mood of the essay. The author is extravagant in painting images and visual aspects of the places that she describes in the minds of the readers. This use of image shapes the general idea of the subject in the mind of the reader by portraying it as either negative or negative. For instance, the writer clearly shows that she is lonely by saying that “in general, I get a huge amount of pleasure out of filling my home with the things that other people used to have in theirs. What more can I say?”. The writer further portrays herself as a nonsocial being using aspects of imagery. It is the reason why she constantly remembers her childhood and seeks comfort in personifying objects. “I had a nice phone conversation with the woman who runs the store and ordered two dolls from her store, both young ladies, thinking it would be awesome if my family was made up of two grown siblings living together”.

The writer further explores figurative language in shaping the feelings of the reader. For example, the writer states that “I had a revival of interest in my dollhouse when I was around 11”. This statement goes to show that she was reminiscing about her childhood and missing it. The same technique is used in her later life as she remembers her dollhouse to remember her childhood. The writer uses the scale of 1:12 to show the importance of making a good dollhouse. She says that “one inch represents one foot in a real room”. Moreover, the writer personifies the dolls towards the end of the essay by calling them Lily and Hyacinth.

The author uses her word diction to portray the mood of the essay by changing between formal and ordinary levels. In the last paragraph, the writer engages the reader in a joking mood by the choice of her words to describe the reasons for calling her dolls van der Spiegel. She switches the explanations from formal to ordinary to show both seriousness and joking respectively. She writes that “van der Spiegl because it meant ‘from the mirror’ and because who doesn’t want to have a last name with three words in it”. The writer connotes that she always had “this romantic idea that I could be a lexicographer, so I decided that should be Lily’s job”. In this statement, she expresses both romance and the personification of dolls to suit her intended images.