Coiled By Annie Dillard Summary

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Annie Dillard’s purpose in writing this was to express how her incessant mood-swings affected her demeanor, causing her teenage years to be gloomy. This is exemplified when Dillard states, “I felt myself coiled and longing to kill someone or bomb something big” (Dillard 143). With this single remark, she encapsulates the extent of her anger and how it possessed her mind. The diction in this sentence, specifically the use of the word “coiled,” reflects how her feelings are similar to those a snake feels when it's about to bite its victim. This shows that Annie is filled with rage and, like the snake, wants to unleash her fury in an attempt to retain her stability. Her melodramatic nature is furthered through her use of parallelism, “[when] I