Close Reading # 4

You can find this article at  http://www.slate.com/articles/life/holidays/2011/12/stephen_tobolowsky_on_discovering_that_santa_isn_t_real_.3.html 


I must say, I'm a little skeptical of the profundity of the thoughts the speaker in Stephen Tobolowsky's article, "The Santa Conspiracy," claims to have had as a five year old. He does, however, send a strong, valid message and does a nice job of using DIDLS to get this message across. This article uses diction, syntax, and details to emphasize the importance of the ability to believe.

A lot of the syntax comes into play by helping readers connect with the story more and understand the emotions the speaker is going through, which in turn helps us see the overall point more clearly. For example, when the speaker describes his childhood "monster," he says, "Then I heard his voice behind me. I turned. Nothing. Then Eye spoke."(Toboloswky). He uses short, choppy sentences to create a feeling of suspense. This helps us get into the character of the speaker more. Also, a lot of the sentences start with the word "I". This keeps the focus on the speaker and his experiences, so readers can empathize with him. At one point, the speaker uses repetition of the word "different." This makes the word stick in the readers' brains, and helps them see the roots of the speaker's first "crisis of belief," and again better connect with his emotions. These uses of syntax make the story seem more real and help readers understand the emotions better, so that at the end when the speaker is talking about how the ability to believe is a beautiful thing and how it can help us dig deeper, we can see where he's coming from and why he thinks this. Another strategy the author uses, although I'm not sure if this falls under syntax or not, would be the passing of time. The story starts out by describing events the speaker experienced at age 5, and ends with the speaker's experiences as an adult. This passing of time shows that although the author has had several crisis of beliefs during that time, the ability to believe is always there to guide him and give him hope.

This article's diction is mostly colloquial. This makes it so that a wide audience can understand it, and makes the speaker seem more real and relatable. Also, specific diction is sprinkled throughout, to make the descriptions of the memories seem more real and to pull readers into those memories. Saying things like "Dwayne," instead of "The little boy," or "Daugherty's Drugstore," instead of "the drugstore," puts readers inside the story. This diction, like the syntax, helps make the story more real and easier to empathize with, which makes the point about belief at the end resonate more.

The author didn't have to tell this story of a five year old boy questioning his beliefs in Santa to make his point. He could have spent the whole essay getting deep into the philosophical aspect of believing, and taken the point further. But, if he had done that, the paper would be very interesting, but probably less relatable. By taking all this time to tell this story and including lots of smaller details, the author is showing rather than telling. He is giving readers a real example of how the ability to believe, as well as a crisis of belief has impacted the speaker's life and brought him to the realization he makes as an adult. The author also uses details to connect the story from the speaker's past to the point he's trying to make in the present. For example, he mentions a "night noise" at the end, a reference to one of his childhood fears, which brings the work in a full circle and makes readers think about how that whole story ties into the thoughts on the power of belief the author has in the present.

The author of this story makes extensive use of syntax to tell a story that drives his point that the power to believe is incredibly important, and that it gives people hope.