Shooting Dad Essay

In the essays, "Typical first year professor" by Roxane Gay, and "Shooting dad" by Sarah Vowell,
the authors indirectly discuss the ideas of feeling alone and different around people. In "Typical
First Year professor", Roxane Gay explains how she's starting a new job in a new town and the
only african american in her field. She explains how the feeling of being the only African
American in a small white town makes her miss home and the people she left behind. In
"Shooting Dad", Sarah Vowell explains how she feels isolated from her father and sister from
their hobbies. The narrator is passionate about music and the arts, while her dad and sister are
passionate about guns and hunting. This makes the narrator feels like she doesn't belong in her
family and makes her feel increasingly different."Typical First Year Professor" and "Shooting
Dad", the narrator 's use their personal experiences to indirectly show that everyone craves
connections even if in order to get these connections they must sacrifice their political values or
romantic notions. Public speaking is the number one fear in the world, which shows that the
number one fear is really a deep fear of rejection from the connection of others. The narrator in
"Typical First Year Professor", who had a fantastic education and experience, has public speaking
issues. She explains how her fear physically affects her in, "Ten minutes before my first class, I run
to the bathroom and vomit. I'm afraid of public speaking, which
Get more content on HelpWriting.net

Sarah Vowell's Shooting Dad
In Sarah Vowell's essay she talks about her life and the role her father and guns have played in it.
Being a gunsmith, her father's life revolves around guns and he loves it. This is not a view shared
by his daughter who finds that guns are constantly getting in her space. Due to this overabundance of
guns and gun–loving ideas in the household and her father trying to force his own republican
opinion on her, Sarah has developed a strong distaste for guns.
There had always been an overabundance of guns in Sarah's household, causing constant obstacles
for her. She said herself that "Guns were everywhere"(Shooting Dad) and went on to explain that
"[Guns were] leaning into corners, an entire rack right next to the TV"(Shooting Dad). Because her
father was a Republican and favored the second amendment, he felt that it was his right and privilege
to have as many guns around as he liked and push his opinion onto others, including his own
daughter....show more content...
Not only did he have guns everywhere, but he "...plaster[ed] the family vehicle in with National
Rifle Association stickers..."(Shooting Dad) He saw it necessary to show everyone that he
disagreed with her views by putting a Republican poster in the window to counter her own
Democratic poster. What he did not realise was how much it bothered her, and how relieved she
was when seeing the chance for respite, thinking, "I'm going to like it here" after her mother said
that people don't use guns as much where they had moved

Summary Of Sarah Vowell's Shooting Dad
In Sarah Vowell's essay, Shooting Dad, there are many examples of hyperbole, but one that
caught my attention was where she explains her father's shop being a messy disaster area, a
labyrinth of lathes (p.2, 7). She is implying that her father's workshop resembles a maze, meaning
that it is large and unorganized with metal and wood machines. An understatement found in this
essay was when she explains how her father wants to die and she describes it in a nonchalant
matter. Usually you figure people would mourn for their parents but Vowell writes it as, "When
my father dies, take a wild guess what he wants done with his ashes. It requires a cannon." He
wants to take his last hunting trip on open morning. The essay also has examples of humorous tone
such as, "I taped the front page of the newspaper on the refrigerator door. But there was some sort
of mysterious surge in the kitchen. Somehow, that picture ended up in the trash all the way across
the room (p.2, 5)." We can imply that the mysterious surge was her father and he threw the
newspaper in the trash as a sign of disagreement....show more content...
These paragraphs include American history and also their family history. These stories help include
more insight of her dad's perspective on guns. Contributing to the theme of the story, she does not
see that her father's hobby has more meaning than just shooting things, she is close minded to the
idea of guns. Because they have opposite hobbies, she feels they are completely different but later
realizes they are similar in personalities. Excluding this piece in the oral version was for the
purpose being that there were enough details in the included pieces to imply that her and her father
were similar and also how interested he was in

Within the first paragraph of Shooting Dad Sarah Vowell establishes her diametric relationship with
her father. Vowell says she "never subscribed to Guns & Ammo," "did not plaster the family vehicle
with National Rifle Association stickers," and always disliked "hunter's orange," which implies her
father delights in these activities. She reveals her anti–gun stance, and shows the pro–gun stance of
her father simultaneously. The historical term "a house divided" and the phrase "Civil War
battleground" suggests the hostile relationship Vowell and her father had. She accomplishes this
without "saying who was the Democrat or who was the Republican," although their preferences are
overt nonetheless. The definitive transitioning sentence is "The

I was mortified when my dad purposely farted in Buehler's. Two minutes prior we had been
walking down aisles joking about stuff in the store and poking fun at my little sister. Then all of
the sudden he looked around, saw we were pretty much alone in the aisle and farted. I
immediately gave him the 'I cannot believe you just did that' look and he just laughed, not
seeming to mind that a Buehlers associate was only a couple yards from us. When I think about
this it is easy for me to say that I am nothing like my Father. Sarah Vowell also felt very different
compared to her dad when she wrote the essay "Shooting Dad". However when Vowell looks past
their differences she finds how similar she is to her Father. I find this to be true about many child–
parent relationships, even if the child does not wish to be like their parents. Children cannot
prevent themselves from becoming similar to their parents. Throughout "Shooting Dad" Vowell
discovers how similar she is compared to her Father. She starts off her essay by examining
differences between her and her dad by saying, "You could have looked at the Democratic campaign
poster in the upstairs window and Republican in the downstairs window". This was supposed to
demonstrate a major difference between Vowell and her Father. However when I read this I see
two people who share an intense passion for politics. Instead of showing how different Vowell is
from her Father, she shows the reader how similar she is. Vowell remains

"ARM WRESTLING WITH MY FATHER" BY BRAD MANNING AND "SHOOTING DAD" BY
SARAH VOWELL
In these two stories, both authors depict the condition of his/her parent/child relationship in spatial
terms and their perception of gradual changes by expressing the hardship of understanding affection
from each of their father during their childhood. Although these two are connected, each author has
different conditions in terms of relationship with their own father and ways of describing to depict
their stories. After analyzing each story, I believe that Brad Manning's "Arm Wrestling with My
Father" wins over Sarah Vowell's "Shooting Dad" in terms of sharing with the readers about his
relationship with his father more vividly. Brad Manning's "Arm...show more content...
She shares her thoughts of seeing the gun as a killing–machine, while her father sees them as her
favorite tool. This proves that Vowell had always been tough minded the moment she had her hands
down and decided that guns were not for her. Where else, her twin sister, Amy, shares her father's
enthusiasm for firearms, making her feel sort of like and outcast in the family. Later in the story,
Vowell realizes that they do share some similarities, although both of them have totally different
passions. This was shown by her during the event of accompanying her dad to shoot off his dad's
cannon at Montana. She later finds out that she "...was no longer his adversary" (SV 139) and
stated that she "...was his accomplice" (SV 139). She depicts the irony of the whole situation by
admitting to readers that she was indeed, liking it. "... what's worse, I was liking it." (SV 139).
She also compares the loud sound of the gun when she was little to the sound of her dad's cannon
and finds herself finally embracing her dad's passion instead of rejecting it like before. When her
dad dies, Sarah vows that she is willing to embrace her dad's death by shooting his ashes off from his
cannon during the start of Hunting Season. In the story, Sarah proves to maintain her independence,
personality and characteristics–wise. For Sarah, the occurrence of that somewhat meaningful event
in her

Shooting Dad by Sarah Vowell
"Shooting Dad," by Sarah Vowell, is about two completely different groups, with contrasting views,
that can learn to get along with one another. The reader learns through unsubtle clues that Vowell is
a Democrat and her father is a Republican. These collective groups offer completely different
viewpoints on many topics, therefore Vowell has a hard time getting along with her father. Vowell is
not a strong supporter of guns; however her father has magazine subscriptions devoted to gun
ownership, owns many guns, and belongs to an association for gun enthusiasts. Each group had
their own areas devoted toward their favorite candidates and used the kitchen and living room for
neutral zones. Vowell and her father both share the trait of a messy work area, but in their own
way. Her father's work area, in the shop, consisted of a "museum of death," that displayed antler
from deer that he had previously shot and metal shavings from ammunition covering the surface
of the floor. Vowell spent her free time in the music room, which had musical instruments and
staff paper covering her available surfaces. Vowell decided her opinion on all firearms when she
was six years old. After shooting it once, she knew that guns were not made for her use. She
disliked the gun so much that she whispered to it the gun as if it were a possession of Satan as soon
as it went off. Years later her father completed a replica of the Big Horn Gun. It was acannon that
was used by white merchants

Sarah Vowell's "Shooting Dad" discusses the relationship between a daughter and father. Engaged in
a lifelong opposition to her father's politics, interests, and his work, Vowell discovers just how much
she actually has in common with him. Throughout her adolescent years, she was her father's polar
opposite. Her room was littered with musical instruments, albums, and Democratic campaign posters
while her father's, an avid gunsmith, was strewn with metal shavings and Republican party posters.
Amongst all this conflict, Vowell found that they had more in common with each other than either of
them realized. As she looks back on her childhood, Vowell explains that although it may take a while
to see and understand others' perspectives, once you...show more content...
She writes "[y]ou could have looked at the Democratic campaign poster in the upstairs window
and the Republican one in the downstairs window and seen our home for the Civil War
battleground it was" (Vowell, pg. 412). Vowell does this in order to highlight the opposing views
she had from her father regarding guns as a child. In this analogy, she resides in the upstairs
Democratic window, while her father would reside in the downstairs Republican window. The
author also writes "while the kitchen and the living room were well within the DMZ, the
respective work spaces governed by my father and me were jealously guarded totalitarian states in
which each of us declared ourselves dictator" (Vowell, pg. 414). Vowell's comparison of the
kitchen and living room to demilitarized zones contributes to her analogy that her house was a
civil war battlefield and that she was in the midst of warfare against her dad. This analogy also
adds to Vowell's purpose, which is to describe to the audience that as a child, her dad's obsession
with guns never particularly struck interest in Vowell herself, and was the subject of many disputes
between her and her father. Vowell also incorporates hyperbole in her analogy to emphasize their
differences in politics and interests, and create a humorous tone throughout the essay. The
comparison of the author and her father to two sides at war with one another exaggerates the
tensions in their household, which allows the author to put an emphasis on their differences, and to
make the essay more humorous. When referring to the sound of her dad's guns, Vowell writes "[t]he
sound it made was as big as God" (Vowell, pg.415). The exaggeration of the sound illustrates to the
audience that shooting a gun for the first time, at the age of six, left a great impact on her. All in all,
Vowell's use of

What Is Sarah Vowell Shooting Dad Essay
"Shooting Dad" by Sarah Vowell tells the interesting story of a girl with views that oppose that of
her father's. Sarah's father, Pat, works as a gunsmith and is a massive gun enthusiast, while Sarah
herself is more into music. Throughout this story, Sarah relates to the reader how passionate her and
her dad are about their different hobbies and perspectives. With all of the tension in the house from
the drastically different points of view, they must figure out how to coexist. Sarah and her father
find their bond through the joys of cannons, which also leads Sarah to the conclusion that they are
not as different as she once thought. This story goes to great lengths to show the reader that just
because people have differences, does not mean that they cannot or do not have similarities as well.
How can two people holding diametrically opposed political, social, and cultural views peacefully
coexist in the same household?
Sarah and her dad experienced a great deal of conflict with them having opposing viewpoints on
many political, social, and cultural issues. Even with all of this conflict felt by Sarah, she was able
to see that her and her dad are not as different as she may have thought. To be able to coexist...show
more content...
For example, my uncle Mark and I oppose on almost every political view. However, we both
understand that as a family, and a person in general, we must respect each other's stances. I also
believe that to coexist with someone with opposing views to yourself, you must realize that they
have had their own experiences and their own lives that have led them to these views and that you
must be as willing to listen to their reasoning as you are to explain your own reasoning. Basically, it
is all about respect. By giving each other ample time to explain and listen to their arguments two
people with opposing views may coexist

Sarah Vowell's essay, Shooting Dad, is a story about how Vowell does not see eye
–to–eye with her
family. Vowell is interested in music while her dad is interested guns. Vowell is predominantly
Democratic and her father is Republican. Even though Vowell's father is on the different end of the
political spectrum, they are both very patriotic. Vowell takes the First Amendment to heart while her
dad lives by the Second Amendment, the right to bear arms. Vowell's father is also a gunsmith, so
guns have become his lifework. When Vowell and her sister Amy were both younger they shot guns
for their first time. In addition, Vowell doesn't have the same interests as Amy. When Vowell and
Amy shot the guns, Amy enjoyed shooting the guns and Vowell wanted

Essay On Deer Shooting
Bang! A loud gunshot startled the deer and her fawns. Immediately, the deer hid her fawns under
the dead evergreen tree. The fawns were shaking, the littlest one didn't want his mom to leave.
Click! The barrel of the gun was pointing at the mom's face when she turned her head. A hunter with
big, greedy eyes, and a big, nasty wart on his nasty–looking face was about to pull the trigger. The
deer froze in fear. She was shocked! Thud! The greedy hunter fell to the ground after the surprised
father deer pounced on him. When the gun dropped, the trigger bounced and shot the momma deer.
The dad was really angry. The dad pounced on the hunter with raging fear. The man got scared and
ran. The dad saw the mom was hurt. She was losing a lot of blood.

Shooting Dad Rhetorical Analysis
Guns are vital in today's society, dividing the country, especially families with debates over the use
of guns. Sarah Vowell is a citizen who disagrees with the use of guns, talking about her experience
with a gun and her family in her essay "Shooting Dad". Using many rhetorical techniques in her
essay, she sends a message within her story, telling the audience reading her story that guns are not
worth it. Vowell's use of many different techniques helps the story come to life, explaining her life
with guns around and how someone gets weak when someone has a gun around. Sarah Vowell
writes on her life being with an obsessed gun holder dad and having a relationship where they do
not have anything in common. She talks about the division in her house when she is a democrat
and her dad is a republican, this provides a reader an understanding that this is a major difference
that Vowell and her dad have and it affects both of them at home. With the use of juxtaposition she
says it in a clear tone...show more content...
She still uses the rhetorical technique of juxtaposition but she adds more techniques to it which
explains her differences with her and her father. She talks about her different hobbies she has from
her dad, "all he ever cared about were guns, all I ever cared about was art" (Vowells). The way the
author describes her thoughts towards guns is totally different from her and her sister. In paragraphs
9–13 she writes about her attitudes toward guns and how her sister loves more than Vowell does.
She uses parallelism and pathos to discuss about how Sarah dislikes the use of guns but her sister
adores it. Explaining on how her own experience of guns around her house are horrible for society.
Although, she does not seem to get along with her dad she does towards the end of her story talk
about how her relationship towards him has changed into a positive

Shooting Dad Rhetorical Analysis
Activity #2 While reading, Shooting Dad, I have notice that Vowell uses multiple hyperboles to
develop a humorous tone. She included a hyperbole like,'' shooting crows is a national pastime,
like baseball and apple pie,'' because it demonstrates a sense of exaggeration stating , in a playful
tone, that many people shot crows just to waste time. Vowell also exaggerates about her home
being compared to a Civil War by explain that, by looking at her home, you can already see "the
Democratic campaign poster in the upstairs window and the Republican one in the downstairs
window." This expresses the text in a humorous yet ironic tone which capture readers attention to
continue forward and have a sense of completion. Paragraph 16–19 were not

Like Father, Like Daughter Let's face it; there comes a time in life when teenagers cannot stand their
parents. Arguments ensue, many things that should never be said are spoken aloud, and the
teenagers think that they have nothing in common with their parents. However, when Sarah Vowell
shares her experience in the essay "Shooting Dad," she gives the audience a complete, retrospective
look at her teenage feuds, which contrasts her relationship with her father today. Vowell uses her past
experiences with her father in order to emphasize the strong bond that they both now have, while
acknowledging that even though teenagers may clash with their parents over their beliefs or
hobbies, they will still have something, be it mannerisms or...show more content...
Both areas are described as "messy disaster areas," each with navigable mazes designed with each
person's objects of interest, while the walls boasted even more paraphernalia (Vowell, 2–3). In doing
this, Vowell lets the reader catch on to one of the more subtle resemblances that she shares with her
father: their mannerisms. She portrays this a couple more times, in that both are stubborn and stick
firmly to their opinions, before she has a revelation. In the woods, two hikers look at her equipment
in the same fashion that others look at her father's handiwork (Vowell, 7). Here, Vowell realizes that
she carries the same sort of personality and mannerisms that her father has, allowing her to look past
many differences and become an ally to her father, rather than constant opposition. This common
ground is what led Vowell to agree to her father's final plan. In finding common ground with her
father, Vowell explains how this newfound neutrality has enabled her to agree to her father's final
work of art. When Vowell explains about the cannon, and why she finds it tolerable, she says, "I can
get behind the cannon because...It's unwieldy and impractical, just like everything else I care about"
(Vowell, 8). In bringing father and daughter together for one common pastime, this cannon is
essentially the essence of Vowell and her father's relationship in that it symbolizes

Summary Of Shooting Dad By Sarah Vowell
All families have certain levels of craziness. The relationships between the members are honest
and appreciative of creativity. Families have different actions and beliefs towards particular
subjects. In a story by Sarah Vowell, she describes growing up with her father who was very
political and had a passion for firearms. The environment she grew up in made her the person she is
today. Mary Ann Cooper had a personal story that shows how her perspective changed because of her
family. All family and personal crises are resolved by strong family bonds. Families are brought
closer when a family member is lost. In the article Shooting Dad, Sarah Vowell talks about her dad
and his wishes when passes away. Her father requests that they shoot his...show more content...
The activities that families do together create the connections between members that last a
lifetime. These connections are long lasting because of the happy memories established. Mary
Ann Cooper remembers her trips to the New York Beach and describes her trip, "It was beach
day, our annual trek out east where my parents and all six children, aged two to fourteen, escaped
from our sticky house and stifling street in Queens, New York"(Forgotten). She goes on to tell the
readers about her surroundings; The people wearing swimsuits, the feeling of the sand, and her
many siblings. This event is one that she remembers being fun and scary. The family had fun at
the beach, but the became closer after going through the experience of losing and later finding one
of her siblings. In the movie Tommy Boy, the Callahan Auto Parts manufacturing company is
going through some troubles and Tom Callahan is getting old and his son Tommy comes back
from college to help take over the family business. Tommy gets put in charge of the new brake pad
department. Tommy gets used to being home and finds out that his dad is getting married again.
Tom gets married then later has a heart attack and passes away. The death of the long time owner
of the company hits everyone at the company on a personal level. Tommy and Richard, an assistant,
travel the country marketing brake pads to parts dealers so the company will stay in business. The
duo sells lots

In their recent work, Brad Manning and Sarah Vowell have written about more than one way to have
a close, but different relationship with their fathers. There is has always been a belief that to get
along with someone you would have normal conversations, enjoy each other's company, or share a
common interest. In the story they love their father as any other child would, but their ways of
communication are not the same and are different from a common father–child relationship. Both
authors use rhetorical devices as a framework for differentiating their relationships with their
fathers by characterizing them. In both stories "Arm Wrestling with My Father," and "Shooting
Dad," the authors use different rhetorical strategies that allow them to exemplify their actual
feelings of how they relate to their father's. They also employ similar rhetorical devices yet are
used differently. "Ours had always been a physical relationship, I suppose, one determined by
athleticism and strength." Manning emphasizes how his relationship with his father is very
physical and nonverbal. Manning describes the differences in perception of his father's arms,
symbolizing the change in their relationship that was about to take place. Whereas when Vowell
states, "if you were passing by the house where I grew up during my teenage years and it
happened to be before Election Day, you wouldn't have needed to come inside to see that it was
house divided," Vowell looks back on her childhood to explain that

Shooting By George Cruz Rhetorical Analysis
Reading about this devastating shooting made my heart sink. I do not understand how any human
being could have such a dark heart in order to allow this to happen. I really want to know what
was Cruz's motive or this because as of right now I think there is no reason for anyone to want to
participate in a mass shooting in which you will end up with such a bad reputation. This
19–year–old just basically ruined his life by committing such a terrible crime. Almost a year ago I
was still a high school student, and I would have never imagined experiencing a day at my school
in that way. At any school, you're supposed to feel safe. All of the students that experienced that
event were simply trying to get an education, and sadly, for those who did

Use Of Imagery In Annie Dillard's Shooting Dad
A childhood is something all people experience and often times reflect upon. These reflections
become the basis for many narratives. In Annie Dillard's essay from An American Childhood,
Dillard recalls a time from her childhood when her skill of dedication she learned from playing
football was put to use as she was chased by a man she and her friends had thrown snowballs at. In
Sarah Vowell's personal narrative "Shooting Dad," Vowell learns that different interests does not
necessarily indicate different personalities when she attempts to make peace with her
ideologically–opposite father by helping fire a cannon he made. Both authors do a great job of
telling a childhood narrative; however, Vowell conveys her deeper meaning much better than...show
more content...
Dillard's use of punctuation is mediocre, for example when she wrote that she "would have died
happy, for nothing has required so much of [her] since as being chased all over Pittsburgh in the
middle of winterвЂ’running terrified, exhaustedвЂ’by this sainted, skinny, furious redheaded man
who wished to have a word with [them]" (Dillard p.21). This is a great example of how Dillard uses
punctuation, in this case dashes, in a sub–par way. There is not a need to have this sentence phrased
how it is, and could be easily re–written to be much easier to understand. Vowell, however, uses
dashes in a much better way when she interrupts herself mid sentence, explaining how "[her] father's
sarcastic American history yarns rarely go on for long before he trots out some nefarious ancestor of
[theirs]вЂ’[she] come[s] from a long line of moonshiners, Confederate soldiers, murderers, even
DemocratsвЂ’he cracks that the merchants hired some 'community–minded Southern soldiers from
North Texas'" (Vowell p.17). Vowell's use of the dash is far superior to Dillard's, as it is written
very well and it is actually useful. Without the dashes and what lies between them, the reader would
lose examples of to what extent her dad goes off–topic about their ancestors. Another bad use of
punctuation is when Dillard recalls that "the oldest to Fahey boys were thereвЂ’Mikey and
PeterвЂ’polite blond boys who lived near [her] on Lloyd

Summary Of Shooting Dad By Sarah Vowell
"Shooting Dad'' Shooting Dad, by Sarah Vowell, is a story about the author's relationship with her
dad, herself, and guns. Not being a huge fan of guns, as much as her father is, she continues to
live with her father in a "divided house,'' confirming that one of them is republican and another is
democratic. Instead of the author starting off the story with " i am a gunsmith's daughter,'' she
created a short explanation of both point of views, herself and her father, allowing the audience to
have a better understanding of the situation. This , of course, is effective to the reader to capture a
sense or feel into what the author is trying to express with statement as '' a home for the civil war''
or ''hunter's orange was never my color.''

The Inability to Recognize Different Types of Love
Both "Arm Wrestling with My Father" and "Shooting Dad" written by Brad Manning and Sarah
Vowell, respectively, portrays a damaged and rough relationship that a son and/or daughter holds
with his father. Although they both find themselves struggling, they are dealing with different
things, Manning is dealing with a physical bounding, while Vowell finds herself handling a more
emotional and communicative type of bonding. Eventually, both characters find themselves in a
mature relationship over time. The characters had similarities and also differences with their
respective father. Throughout the stories, both authors dig into the relationship between child and
father and how it can be shaped and changed over time.
The difference between the bounding and the way affection is shown it's critical. Manning find
himself with a physical and somehow of psychological while Vowell find herself with a more
emotional relationship with more communication. Manning mentions, "We never communicated as
well in speech or in writing [...]" (1, paragraph 2), the bounding between Manning and his father
wasn't emotional, instead a more physical and psychological, were Manning always felt like the
'inferior' since his father is the dominant and always beat him in arm wrestling. Basically, Manning's
father transmitted love to his son through competition, and through "His [physical] words" (1,
paragraph 3). In Vowell's life, his father is more in

Shooting Dad Essay

Empfohlen

Empfohlen

Weitere ähnliche Inhalte

Mehr von Paper Writing Service Cheap

Mehr von Paper Writing Service Cheap (20)

Kürzlich hochgeladen

Kürzlich hochgeladen (20)

Shooting Dad Essay