Reading Goal: While reading, identify why the author using rhetorical devices rather than just pointing out the specific devices used.
Writing Goal: Arrange everything in a cohesive but interesting manner (i.e. avoid simply listing SOAPS in the introduction).
In the spring of 1995, author Bill Bryson and his family moved from England (their home for twenty years) to New Hampshire. Although Bryson had grown up in America, he was shocked at the differences between American and British life. His book, I'm a Stranger Here Myself, is a compilation of his stories about those differences, intended for a teen to adult American audience. The book has dual purposes – it strives both to highlight the contrast between life in the US and life in England and to entertain readers. Bryson's use of exaggeration and juxtaposition allows him to present the differences as well as make readers laugh.
I'm a Stranger Here Myself contains many short, four-page chapters that compare aspects of British and American life. In one particular chapter, entitled "Gardening With My Wife", Bryson discusses the difference between British "gardens" and American "yards". Bryson first describes gardening in England: "I was in a nation of people who not only knew and understood things like powdery mildew, peach leaf curl, optimum pH levels, and the difference between Coreopsis verticillata and Coreopsis grandiflora but cared about them" (118). His exaggeration of the specifics with which all British people are concerned highlights the detailed-oriented mindset in which British people garden.
Bryson then goes on to describe the contrasting American garden: "American gardens are mostly lawn, and American lawns are mostly big. This means that you spend your life raking. In the autumn the leaves fall together with a single great whoomp ... and you spend about two months dragging them into piles ... When you come out in spring, there they all are again ... So you spend weeks and weeks raking them up ... Finally, just when you get the lawn pristine, there is a great whoomp sound and you realize it's autumn again" (119). Bryson exaggerates the existence of leaves, saying that they all fall at once and, in a personified way, creep back into the yard throughout the year, so that the entire year is spent raking. In this way, Bryson highlights the monotonous nature of American yardwork. This monotony and simplicity juxtaposed against the specific and scientific dedication of British gardening shows Bryson's audience how different the two nations are when it comes to the grassy area surrounding one's house.
The exaggeration not only helps to highlight the differences between America and England but also is able to make readers laugh. It seems very unlikely that every Briton will measure the pH level of their soil to determine which flowers to plant, and any American knows that one does not literally spend the entire year raking leaves. Through this use of exaggeration and juxtaposition, Bill Bryson effectively conveys differences between American and British life in an entertaining manner.
Leaves Here, There, and Everywhere:
As Bill Bryson comments on in "Gardening With My Wife", we Americans spend a great amount of time per year dealing with the leaves infesting our yards.
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