Compare/Contrast: Dillard and Rodriguez

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Compare/Contrast: Dillard and Rodriguez Dillard’s “An American Childhood” and Rodriquez’s “Always Running” both on the outside seem to be autobiographies about an experience when both writers were being chased. Both writers include cultural influences on the setting to make it more clear what life was really like for them in their autobiographies. They also both dramatize the chase to make the story more exciting. Yet, the two writers differ in what cultural setting their autobiographies are in and what style they use to dramatize the chase. While these two autobiographies are rooted in culture, they both differ in what exact cultures the autobiographies nestle in. Rodriguez writes about life in a prominently poor Mexican neighborhood. He describes many of its various aspects such as the “people … on the metal chairs … and beer” (paragraph 1), the “stucco and wood-frame homes” (paragraph 2), and the “neighborhood consisting mostly of Mexicans” (Paragraph 2). This poverty enriched land is such a clash when viewed against the presumably middle class white community that Dillard describes. Her description of the suburbs in Pittsburgh seem less poverty stricken such as with them leaving from houses (paragraph 4) and the clothes that the man that chases them wears(paragraph 10). She attaches no greatness or inadequacy about the homes which makes them just regular homes. She also addresses the man’s clothes that’s chases them as city clothes consisting of a suit and tire, which would stick out in Rodriguez’s autobiography. These two writers, though, don’t differentiate so much about the writing techniques that they employ on the chasing scenes. Dillard uses short choppy sentences as well as Rodriguez when they both want to push the action forward. Such as like when Dillard in paragraph 11 with Sanchez 2“Wordless, we split up. We were on our turf, we could lose

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