Culver City Case Study

Watkins’ chooses the literary device of foreshadowing at the start of this selection to emphasize his dissatisfaction on the trip and to provoke an emotional response from readers. To foreshadow is to warn or indicate an event. In this case, Watkins’ uses this tool to indicate the trip as melancholy. At the start of the trip where they set out from Culver City southwest of Los Angeles, where they were covering the 1970 auction of MGM’s, Watkins recalls that “(a genuine wake in the land of celluloid dreams; perhaps it should have told [him] something)” (Watkins 28). Notice how he accurately uses foreshadowing “wake” to spark a feeling of apprehension, this sense of anxiety notifies the audience that the trip will present unpleasant changes

Contrast is a strategy that shows the unlikeness or differences between two or more things. Where the journey from boy to a man and he starts it with comparing the present with the past in order to explore his disappointment towards changes in his homeland. Watkins in comparing mainly focuses on theme distinctions. Comparing is a strategy that can be defined as the similarity or dissimilarity towards sojourn which are connected with past. Newport Beach to Watkins is that, “Now [he] could hardly find it, what with a freeway interchange, motels, shopping centers, and what appeared to be a high-rise department store. The hills were alive with condominiums,” (29). Notice how in the first two sentences, the “hardly find it” inflames the reader to feel distressed with the use of his critical idea followed by powerful and stony words where he presents the unwanted change. The unwanted change of overdevelopment in the landscape makes him feel disappointed. Watkins observes, “The little road that led down to the beach-asphalt now- was chained off. Private Road. No Trespassing. Gone was anything [he] could fix [his] memory on, except the sea itself,” (30). It appears at first glance that the author does a better job of focusing on his specific word choice that creates a dominant impression: chained, Trespassing etc. reflects on his readers that the warming restrictions made him feel unwelcomed. In the second sentence he accepts that he cannot “fix” what is “Gone” which aggravates the audience to feel what is disappeared cannot be changed and cannot come