Paper 1 Question 2 Blog

    When it comes to William Least Heat-Moon’s Roads to Quoz, An American Mosey. The author chose to format the writing to be a descriptive piece that is best classified as a travel novel. The piece was written as a first-person narrative and has most of the contextual emphasis on the differences in setting and area, portrayed through the descriptions written.

    This is initially embedded in the first sentence in the description of their whereabouts saying “We went into Little Lanesboro to Joe’s Country Store.” This being the head of the piece/paragraph immediately brings importance to it, this is essential in a travel novel and rightfully put at the forefront of the writing.

    This importance and analysis of the first sentence continue when it comes to the linguistic development of Heat-Moon’s writing. The use of the words “We” and “went” reveals the first-person nature of the text and the past tense showing that the events have already occurred and are being told, respectively. As for the contextual importance of the language produced throughout the text, a thorough description of the scenery is given many times and at length. For example, Heat-Moon wrote “... counter at the rear…” and “...from a slant-front glass case.” These descriptions written in the first paragraph give the development of the scenery in which the narrator resides. 

    Although these small details are far outnumbered by the broader and more formally important descriptions like “It had the look of an old village-grocery, an institution seriously diminishing across America but perhaps less so in the Northeast.” This lengthy segment may seem unnecessary to include entirely however when we are analyzing the language the author used, we get a lot of clarity including the broader location of where the narrator is and has been in details like “across America” and “in the Northeast.” Showing the country and area the narrator resides in at the time.

On a less physical level, the narrator doesn’t shy away from the use of casual language in his writing. This is denoted most openly in his writing which states “About the time Q and I…” Talking about a character called Q. We are enlightened by the background surrounding the text that Q is the nickname for his wife. This shows possible repetition in the use of this nickname in the text we weren’t given to analyze. This may also lead to further writing about her as it is the last paragraph in the analysis I have available. 

All of these analyses pale in comparison to the structure of this text. What caught my eye the most was the structural acuities and transitions that made this piece come to life. Aided by the use of language in the text, a few different types of transitions were made throughout the text. Most notably, change that is based on the chronological order. William swiftly bounced around the ideas that must have been present in his mind at the time. This is very evident in the writing when he wrote “It still contained the standard meat-and-cheese counter… a Bert - more commonly a Betty… My fare in such a grocery is often the sandwich of several names: in western…” This quote as long as it is correctly portrays the author’s constant switching in ideological processing. In this snippet, we hop from the physical description of the location, then to a nickname possessed by a granddaughter, which would make sandwiches with ingredients, and finally to a list of names he remembers which incorporate those sandwiches throughout the different areas he has been. These ideas are all strung together by small similarities in the topic all separated within two sentences. This gives the reader a good look at the mind behind the author. This unclear transition between ideas may confuse the reader upon first reading but makes much more sense after a few times read.

    This all shows the purity and direct writing of Heat-Moon as the examples show he isn’t afraid to write exactly what he thinks. This directness continues in the third paragraph where he wrote “I expected… in the Saturday Evening Post.” In saying he “expected” he gives his direct thoughts to the readers once again. This slew of ideas spewing from the author's mind is separated most clearly by the breaks in the paragraphs which are the catalyst of new formations to the story outside of the writer's mind.