David Fennario in his informal essay, “Black Rock” uses descriptive language to allow the readers to feel certain emotions on this subject of forgotten history. Early in the essay Fennario tells a little story of him and his friends on one of their bike rides in which he uses some visual language: “ Ten-year olds pedaling our bikes along Bridge St. toward the Victoria bridge in the heat and exhaust fumes of rush-hour traffic on a hot July day”. Fennario uses these visual words to allow the reader to feel some what gloomy, bringing forth the sense that this essay isn’t so positive and happy. Later in the essay Fennario uses a lot of detail when he finally encounters the Black Rock:
We stood there together, trying to read the inscription carved on the side of this strange-looking boulder. “To preserve from desecration, the remains of 6,000 immigrants who dies of ship fever, AD 1847. This stone is erected by the workmen of Peto, Brassey and Betts, employed in the construction of the Victoria Bridge, AD 1859.”
Fennario writes exactly what he read on the Black Rock to allow readers to feel like they have seen it too. This makes us feel emotion towards his little story, therefore making it seem more important to us. Towards the end if his essay Fennario continues to be very graphic with his words when describing the Irish famine and their deaths in the wooden ships. He reads part of a letter to describe this period: “‘ after a few weeks’ of service, these wooden structures contained colonies of bugs in every cranny; the wool, the cotton, the wood were black with them. Hundreds of the sick crowded upon straw; little children in the arms of their dead mothers ... a chaos of suffering and evil odours.’” The author uses such dark and descriptive words also towards the end to leave an impact on the readers, leaving us to think about this specific tragedy. Fennario used vivid description throughout this essay for readers to feel emotion which leads to thinking...