(a) What is important to Bryson in his memories of his father?
Bill Bryson’s narrative piece My Dad presents his father in mostly a frugal light. Throughout the text Bryson tells the audience a story of his childhood Summers travelling throughout the United States, however his language used jumps back and forth between his current self and him as a child ‘so that it resembled a porcupine’ and ‘it was like a bomb’ as he and his siblings would virtually throw out ‘flaming’ concoction of eggs, apples, and matches. Bryson’s tone is often pessimistic, as he cynically details out the roadhouses in which would be a ‘relative treat’ from his Father, he carries on to telling stories of siblings and him eating and ‘refuse to eat anymore’ of the undercooked food. Bryson uses many quotations from all his family members, this is to provide both examples and for the audience to understand the hierarchy in the family. It is clear through analysis that his Father was the one who held the highest ranking, as Bryson describes his Mother to use very few words, however the word’s she did use showed a lack of authority ‘I don’t know’, ‘dear’, ‘honey’, ‘can I…’ this gives the impression that Bryson’s father may have been abusive, the text does provide other examples of this for instance when they do not …show more content…
In one sense both pieces are rather similar, with the cynical language used, deep description, from a child’s perspective and use of dialogue provided. However, Bryson’s methods of conveying his memories of his Father differ from Bailey’s due to Bailey’s memories being from all different scenarios and memories while Bryson’s were purely only about the Summer holidays as well as Bryson’s memories were when his Father was lively and young while Bailey’s memories were during the last years of his Father’s life, the structures of both narrations also provide a different perspective of their