The writers Joan Didion and Dave Berry can both create skillful sentences that carries a message to their readers. Their use of syntaxes and figurative language help shape and develop their sentences and its overall meaning, seemingly conveying ideas without actually stating it. Joan Didion writes for Vogue magazine as a essayist reaching towards a target audience of young to middle-age females. While, Dave Barry serves as a advice column writer for the washington post magazine serving a more generalized audience. Their diction reflects their target audience and their own personalities. Didion’s word are more elaborate and complex, and leaves a impression in her readers serving well in a glamorous and adult-orientate magazine. While Barry’s diction doesn’t include a lot of complex words and …show more content…
Furthermore just like how Didion does with many of her sentences, the sentence itself builds up a bigger meaning, the sentence contrasts the historical depiction of the scary and dull prison of Alcatraz with the variety of wonderful flowers that currently resides there showing the wonders and majesty of nature itself. Dave Barry on the other hand creates his sentence as to further build his humor and convey his message in a deceptively simple way. In “Dating made easy” Barry uses juxtaposition such as when he wrote “ ‘Hey, ZITFACE!’ the woodland creatures would shriek in cute little Chip ’n’ Dale voices while raining acorn across my head” (Barry 52). The juxtaposition of “gentle and understanding” forest creatures hurling bully-like insults creates a sardonic humor due to the sheer outrageousness of the situation. Barry use of juxtaposition serves as a punchline to his joke giving it a tone and feel of a comedian performing to his audience. Their use of figurative language are similar in conveying their meaning, however their utilization of said figurative language varies