One Writer's Beginnings

Eudora has a “chapter” in the second section that talks about her mother and her mother’s side of the family. It starts with her mom being a teacher and meeting her father. It also mentions that her mother’s family didn’t take to kindly to her father and their marriage. This reminds me about my family, but it’s the opposite. My father’s side of the family doesn’t accept my mother. But this isn’t the reason I am mentioning this section.
The reason for this blog is to talk about the ending of this “chapter”. Eudora ends the chapter with letters from her grandmother written to her mother and one written to her. I noticed a difference in how the grandmother wrote to the mother and how she wrote to Eudora.
In class I learned that a writer always changes the way he/she writes in order to better address his/her audience. The letters from Eudora’s grandmother is a perfect example of this.
In the letters written to Eudora’s mother it begins with “Dear Chessie” and “My dear child” and ends “with lots of love from Mother”. It is also written to update Eudora’s mother on how everyone is doing back home and mentions things that only a distant mother and child would talk about and want to know. The Court House is abbreviated as C.H.
In contrast, the letter written to Eudora begin with “My dear Eudora Alice”. Eudora’s grandmother constantly writes “little”. The letter is directly to Eudora, apologizing for missing her “little party” and then spoiling her by saying that she is going to give her “two little pigeons”. It is common for grandmothers to apologize for missing something and then butter it up by adding a gift of some sort. Unlike the letters to Eudora’s mother, the letter to Eudora spells out Court House instead of abbreviating it.
This shows how an author changes their tone to address a different audience. I think this was the reason for Eudora adding these letters-or at least one of the reasons.