Chapter+9+Flood+pg.+149-160

Chapter 9, "Flood" __Summary:__ In this chapter Annie Dillard seemed to describe summer as a somewhat menacing time of the year. At the beginning of chapter 9, Dillard is observing how the seasons have changed from Spring to Summer; Dillard illustrated this by commenting on the gloomy days and sudden rain spurts, and also on how she could no longer see some of the images in nature that she normally would be able see because of the damp heavy air. Dillard also depicted the animals as “going wild” (149). She helped prove her accusation by narrating a few specific observations she had encountered while watching various creatures from nature acting strangely. Dillard continued on in the chapter with the same menacing feel towards summer. She told the reader about the flood that Tinker Creek suffered from a tropical storm one year earlier. Dillard narrated through the events of the flood. Dillard referred back mostly to the way that her neighbors and the members of the community were altered. She wrote about how people were coming around that she had not seen since before winter and how some of them daringly blocked off the bridge so no one would try to cross it because it was under water. Dillard could not believe how much different Tinker Creek and the rest of the area were, but also looked at the flood as allowing the Tinker Creek to be in its natural state; that the Creek was able to do what it wanted to and not confined by the banks of the land. Dillard more or less makes the reader feel that the flood was an exciting and intriguing incident because the flood made her look at the area differently and helped her notice parts of nature that she did not notice prior to the event. Dillard ends Chapter 9 by explaining a story of the Bings that showed the reader that even though the flood was horrible, there were still a few subtle gifts left behind. Dillard explained how the Bings’ house was ruined but were able to continue living like they had before the flood and were also given the gift of a giant edible mushroom, which the Bings’ enjoyed. Dillard has seemed to me to have a continuing of contradicting views throughout this book and to me I believe that Chapter 9 followed suite by giving the reader the idea that you should try to find some good in all of the bad.

**__Vocabulary:__**
 * Coot-** any aquatic bird of the genus //,// of North America, and of the Old World, characterized by lobate toes and short wings and tail.
 * Lee-** the side or part that is sheltered or turned away from the wind.
 * Etiolated-** to cause (a plant) to whiten or grow pale by excluding light.
 * Corm-** an enlarged, fleshy, bulblike base of a stem, as in the crocus.
 * Menace-** something that threatens to cause evil, harm, injury; a threat.
 * Incongruous-** inconsistent.
 * Tufts-** a dense clump, especially of trees or bushes.
 * Solstice-** either of the two times a year when the sun is at its greatest distance from the celestial equator: about June 21, when the sun reaches its northernmost point on the celestial sphere, or about December 22, when it reaches its southernmost point.
 * Opacity-** the state or quality of being opaque.
 * Uspured-** to seize and hold by force or without legal authority.
 * Buttressed-** A structure, usually brick or stone, built against a wall for support or reinforcement.
 * Lurches-** to stagger.
 * Roils-** to make muddy or cloudy by stirring up sediment.
 * Froth-** an aggregation of bubbles, as on an agitated liquid or at the mouth of a hard-driven horse; foam; spume.
 * Kindling-** material that can be readily ignited, used in starting a fire.
 * Fledgling-** young, new, or inexperienced.
 * Rough-hewn-** to shape roughly; give crude form to.
 * Lattice-** a structure of crossed wooden or metal strips usually arranged to form a diagonal pattern of open spaces between the strips.
 * Gaily-** with merriment; merrily; joyfully; cheerfully.
 * Flotsam-** material or refuse floating on water.
 * Parody-** a poor or feeble imitation or semblance; travesty.
 * Rotifers-** any of various minute multicellular aquatic organisms of the phylum Rotifera, having at the anterior end a wheellike ring of cilia.
 * Deign-** to condescend to accept.
 * Beelines-** to move swiftly in a direct, straight course.
 * Upholstered-** to supply with stuffing, springs, cushions, and covering fabric.
 * Hors d'oeuvres-** an appetizer served before a meal.

"You'd spin around like a sock in a clothes dryer." (153) "The air smells damp and acrid, like fuel oil, or insecticide. It's raining"(152) "and the three magi, plus camels, afloat on a canopied barge!"(154) "Snaps it like a matchstick"(156) "The whole city was dead-but that one bulb was giving off a faint electrical light."(159)
 * Allusions**:

Mark Spitz**- born February 10, 1950 is a retired American swimmer born to an American father and Puerto Rican mother. He is best known for winning seven gold medals at the 1972 Olympic games, Between 1968 and 1972, Spitz won nine Olympic gold medals, one silver, and one bronze; five Pan American golds; 31 National U.S. Amateur Athletic Union titles; and eight U.S. National Collegiate Athletic Association Championships. During those years, he set 33 world records
 * People:


 * John Paul Jones**- born July 6, 1747 ( 1747-07-06 ) – died July 18, 1792) was America’s first well-known naval fighter in the American Revolutionary War. During his engagement with Serapis, Jones uttered, according to the later recollection of his First Lieutenant, the legendary reply to a quip about surrender from the British captain: "I have not yet begun to fight!"


 * Bon Homme Richard**- The first USS Bonhomme Richard, formerly Duc de Duras, was a frigate in the Continental Navy. She was originally an East Indiaman, a merchant ship built in France for the French East India Company in 1765, for service between France and the Orient. She was placed at the disposal of John Paul Jones on 4 February 1779, by King Louis XVI of France.


 * Amelia Earhart**- July 24, 1897 – missing July 2, 1937, declared dead January 5, 1939) was a noted American aviation pioneer, and author. Earhart was the first woman to receive the Distinguished Flying Cross, awarded for becoming the first aviatrix to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. She set many other records, wrote best-selling books about her flying experiences, and was instrumental in the formation of The Ninety-Nines, an organization for female pilots.


 * Sir John Franklin**, FRGS (16 April 1786 – 11 June 1847) was a British Royal Navy officer and Arctic explorer who mapped almost two thirds of the northern coastline of North America. Franklin also served as governor of Tasmania for several years. In his last expedition, he disappeared while attempting to chart and navigate a section of the Northwest Passage in the Canadian Arctic. The entire crew perished from starvation, hypothermia, tuberculosis, lead poisoning, scurvy and exposure before and after Franklin died and the expedition's icebound ships were abandoned in desperation.


 * Queen Mary**- Queen Mary is a retired ocean liner that sailed the North Atlantic Ocean from 1936 to 1967 for the Cunard Line (then Cunard White Star Line). Built by John Brown and Company, Clydebank, Scotland, she was designed to be the first of Cunard's planned two-ship weekly express service from Southampton to Cherbourg to New York, in answer to the mainland European super liners of the late 1920s and early 1930s.


 * Governor Holton**- Abner Linwood Holton, Jr. (born September 21, 1923 ) was the first Republican Governor of Virginia since Reconstruction. He was governor from 1970 to 1974. Holton was a member of the mountain-valley Republican Party (GOP) that fought the Byrd Organization and was not in favor of welcoming conservative Democrats into the Virginia Republican Party.


 * Carvin's Cove**- In the 1930s, Carvins Creek was dammed to create the Carvins Cove Reservoir, which for many decades served as the primary water source for the city of Roanoke. A small rural community was displaced by the reservoir's creation, and some of its roads and housing foundations become visible during droughts.


 * Hurricane Agnes-** Hurricane Agnes was the first tropical storm and first hurricane of the 1972 Atlantic hurricane season. A rare June hurricane, it made landfall on the Florida Panhandle before moving northeastward and ravaging the Mid-Atlantic region as a tropical storm. The worst damage occurred along a swath from central Maryland through central Pennsylvania to the southern Finger Lakes region of New York.

[|**http://dictionary.reference.com/**] [] [] [] [] [] [] [|http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Bonhomme_Richard_(1765)] [] []
 * __Sources:__**