Essay Questions

What is the real underlying theme behind the story of Larry, the man who is trying to teach a stone to talk?

As Dillard herself writes, Larry is a crank like herself. In fact, cranks populate the island where she lives. This she states in the opening line and it is a clue that the story of a man teaching stones to talk is almost certainly going to be about more than that. Such an eccentric figure might be fodder for a sketch, but for an entire essay the title of which is then going to serve as the title of an entire collection? No, what is going on here must be more than some mere profile of a kook. Especially when Dillard situates his oddness within the population at large. It is the opening line of Part II of the essay that begins the broadening of the subject into something more substantial. “Nature’s silence is it one remark, and every flake of world is a chip off the old mute and immutable block.” Dillard’s essays overflow with “characters” incapable of speech, but not communication. She writes of encounters with weasels, insects, deer and other creatures with four to eight legs. And then, of course, there is an entire book about writers who speak a foreign language (Encounters with Chinese Writers) which puts a unique spin on the whole concept. Dillard’s entire career has been about trying to get subjects incapable of speech to communicate so in a very real way, “Teaching a Stone to Talk” is the thematic centerpiece of her body of work as a whole.

What are three things that define American culture, according to Dillard’s dad?

In a section from her book An American Childhood titled “Envoy” for republication as a standalone essay in a collection of essays spanning her career, Dillard opens by informing the reader that her father taught his children that American culture was Dixieland above all. From this point of origin, she then unrolls a litany of things about American culture which her parents considered important, but her dad felt came in just below Dixieland jazz in order of importance. The breadth of things mentioned reveals a staggering interest and knowledge about American history which even back then was likely unusual. Comparing it parents of today would be like comparing the knowledge required for appearing on Jeopardy! to that of being a Wheel of Fortune contestant. For Dillard’s dad, American culture begins with Dixieland jazz but is also distinctly defined by the distinctly regional folk hero, Joe Magarac, whose body of steel came to represent the contribution to American business of Dillard’s hometown of Pittsburgh. American culture is also represented by Jim Thorpe, a Native American athletic prodigy who won Olympic gold medals but was forced to give return for violating rules of amateurship. And just below Dixieland sits the contribution of American culture—for Annie’s dad at least—made by Jack Kerouac and his novel On the Road which the author asserts that between the two of them was read “approximately a million times."

“I am the man who watched the baseball game in silence in an empty stadium.” What is Dillard talking about with this metaphor?

This line appears in the seminal essay “Seeing” taken from her Pulitzer-winning book Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. The essay is central to the Dillard’s overall body of work because its subject is the difference between merely looking at things and observing them. She prefaces this baseball game metaphor with an analogy about cameras. When walking with a camera, her movement takes her from one shot to the next and involves measuring the light with a meter and adjusting the shutter opening according. When walking without a camera, the shutter is always open and the light meter is whatever her gut tells her. Perhaps surprisingly to some, it is the latter way of walking that is equivalent to observing rather than looking. The baseball metaphor expands upon the idea of photographing with one’s mind; it is analytical and highly focused, there is no room for booing or cheering until the game is done and the players leave the field. Until then, the game is seen purely through analytical eyes that someone looking at her might confused with a dazed look, but which is actually so intensely observant that the game becomes an abstraction existing outside the external influences of the crowd, the announcers and any possible distractions.