The passage taken from the memoir, The Horizontal World, written by Debra Marquart, is a fragment that exhibits her indirect interpretation of love for the upper Midwest. Marquart’s purpose is to impress upon the readers the idea that despite being a dull and unimpressed location for certain people, it has many unknown unique qualities and can not just be found anywhere else easily. Through her usage of multiple tones from the beginning to the end, she is able to juxtapose the two distinct perspectives about upper Midwest: the drabness in the beginning to a hopeful ending.
Marquart introduces the upper Midwest by acknowledging its boring and colorless lands and by implementing particular pieces of information about upper Midwest that not many people know about; and a little facetious tone. For example, she portrays the background of the upper Midwest as she affirms, “. . . you’ll encounter a road so lonely, treeless, and devoid of rises and curves in places that it will feel like one long-held pedal steel guitar note.” (2-5), which then juxtaposed to the end where she shared how her great-grandparents and grandparents “traveled to the Midwest by train” (64-65) to receive their lands and what was the meaning of Eureka.
Marquart’s change of tones about the allusion of upper Midwest as drab to hopeful with the use of words such as “purity” and “anticipation” and the allusion of Archimedes helps her demonstrate the common point of views when it comes to the Midwest
