Hometown Comparison Essay, Research Paper

Hometown Comparison

Life is greatly influenced by the hometowns which everyone is from. Hometowns help them mature and develop. When a person leaves a town, they leave with a part of everyone else and they leave a little bit of themselves behind. The two stories, “Seasons in the Rain” and “A Place to Stand On” are telling about the authors hometowns. The story tells about their experiences and the way of life, and also the climate, and scenery of their hometowns. Their two hometowns are totally different, and they help influence their style of writing. Also their hometowns set the tone in their stories. Still these two authors are totally different in their approach to literature.

Silver Donald Cameron (author of “Seasons in the Rain”) talks of his hometown of Vancouver as “crass, soggy, alluring.” (pg. 260) He also says that he likes Vancouver because of the diversity in the city, such as “the largest Chinatowns in the Western world” (pg. 259) and how Chinatown is “marvelously exotic.” (pg. 259) He describes the elements of Chinatown such as the “brass Buddhas, delicate parasols, and folding fans” (pg. 259) which make it exotic and a great place to have to liven life up in his hometown.

Margaret Laurence s hometown is totally different. In her story “A Place To Stand On”, she says that she is from Manitoba, and that Manitoba has a great scenery of a untamed place of wild prairies. But she does not like the fact of her childhood was spent in a small town in this vast province of Manitoba. Margaret writes about the loneliness and isolation of living in a small town in the middle of nowhere.

However, isolation of a small town in which Margaret was influenced by, her writing style has a unique style. She writes with a passion to express her emotions and to come to terms with her past. She writes her stories with the incorporation with her experiences in living in a rural area. She also tries to mask her unique blending of her town into her stories by making certain fictional places based on her place of birth.

Silver was living in a city with great cultural diversity, his style or approach in writing is totally different because of the generalization of his life. Since everything in the city was accessable in stores, he never really had to experience many hardships as Margaret has in her small town. Even though Silver has lived a alluring life he doe not have the imagination that Margaret has developed in her rural town.

Imagination is used in writing to set a tone for the reader. When Magaret writes she uses a plain and isolated tone which seems to bore. Her tone in the story was somewhat simple, while Silver s tone in his literature seems to have an upbeat, and exciting tone. This was probably influenced by his life in his city. The city helped him develop a more of a exciting tone in his works because he has lived an exciting life, while Margaret has not.

Excitement is always a part of a great piece of literature. When Silver and Margaret write they have a totally different style in presenting their work. Even though one s writing may be boring, and the other s is exciting, their hometown has everything to do with it. Their style, tone and even ways of presenting their writing.