Marquart Memoir Essay

“Aside from this myth making, the Midwest is a place that’s been considered devoid of stories, a flyover region one must endure to get to more interesting places.” This quote is just a taste of a passage from Debra Marquart’s 2006 Memoir, The Horizontal World. Margaret conveys her view of growing up in North Dakota through a dynamic structure, factual diction, and eloquent details.

To begin, Marguart clarifies her view of growing up in North Dakota through analogies and similies. Marquart writes, “Like one long-held steel guitar note”, and “only need to tap your steering wheel to keep your car on a straight-ahead path”. She refers to the monotonous straight path that one drives through in North Dakota. She uses these devices to emphasize the nothingness on the roads. Marquart moves to the people. She compares them to the typical Americans that seem to come from factories. After the extended introduction, Marquart’s memoir takes a historical turn. North Dakota was so flat and empty that Edwin James coined it as the “Great American Desert”. The land isn’t as useless as one would think however, because it sparked the beginnings of surveying land through the grid system. Marquart closes with a slightly more optimistic sense as she describes her grandparents receiving of their lands in effect of surverying. Marquart utilizes the word, eureka, meaning “I have found it,” to instill a more cheerful tone to North Dakota, that what is otherwise a boring place to live.

Marquart employs a diction that is rather factual but with a personal flair. Marquart notes the types of people that come from the Midwest are typical -blond and fresh-faced