Blog 1-Learning Outcome 1

In Garrison Keillor’s travel narrative Take in the State Fair he uses a lot of sensory detail just like you would in any other travel narrative. The audience could simply be anyone but the purpose is to make the reader feel like they are there experiencing everything that the author is. Structure and content are affected by the audience and purpose greatly in this travel narrative. Keillor structures it in a way so that the audience can picture every little detail in their head. He also uses the word “you” a lot. This technique is actually forcing the reader to feel, see and smell everything that the author does. Here is a quote that shows how well Keillor uses this technique: “You disembark. You look like a man who could not contain his excitement. For cover, you hide in the crowd. You walk close behind people. You join the throng at the hot-corn stand and comfort yourself with a salty ear of buttered corn.” Also, Keillor does a fantastic job of using sensory detail. “You pass up the Slingshot for the double Ferris wheel. An excellent clothes dryer, lifting you up above the honky-tonk, a nice breeze in your pants, in a series of parabolas, and at the apex you look out across the gaudy uproar and the blinking lights, and then you zoom down for a close-up of a passing gang of farm boys in green letter jackets and then back up in the air. You tell your child that this Ferris wheel is the ride that, going back to childhood, you always saved for last, and so riding it fills you with nostalgia. She pats your hand.” This is a great quote that shows sensory detail. He describes the Ferris wheel ride so well that you can picture in your head just what he is seeing.