In this passage from “The horizontal world”, Debra Marquet conveys her earnest love for the region that was labeled to be uninhabitable and a plain location. The author uses diction, allusion, and juxtaposing to break the stereotypes and she is able to convince the people of the midwest’s unique characteristics that cannot be found anywhere else in the world after characterizing the region as uninhabitable.In her memoir, the author constantly keeps referring to surveyors and writers in order to show the unique characteristics of the region. For instance, she adds a line from Sylvia Griffith Wheeler’s poem,”We are the folks presidents talk to when times require,”. She uses allusion in this line to characterize her people’s history and heritage and she also highlights the fact that presidents come here when they are in need of help to portray how important and significant their opinions are. She then adds a quote from Keillor’s radio show “where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average”. She compares her hometown to Keillor’s fictitious town to show it as a perfect society and to make people wonder how marvelous of a place it actually is and to also point out that the citizens who hail from this region are a very essential part of the society, which shows her respect and admiration for the country.
Later in the memoir the author breaks the stereotypes or the “early assessors”, particularly when she uses the quote of Major Stephen Long , “a dreary plain, wholly unfit for cultivation, uninhabitable by a people depending upon agriculture for subsistence”. Here she juxtaposes the people of the region and the region itself which shatters the “early assessors” who had been thinking of the region as a place with no good characteristics. After establishing the early thought that the region was characterized to be uninhabitable and unimpressive ,she shows discernible pride for the people who were able to thrive in the region that was dubbed to be uninhabitable.
