Practice Diction Analysis

                In The Mezzanine, Nicholson Baker has the speaker describe his  office place and the sunlight flowing into it in a detailed, lyrical, an mellifluous manner. He uses figurative language to describe a “steeper escalator of daylight, formed by the intersections of the lobby’s towering volumes of marble and glass, met by the real escalators just above the middle point.” This vivid word picture describes a peaceful, placid office building that is one that a visitor would feel welcomed to. The towering volumes of “marble and glass” and brushed “brushed steel side-panels” of the escalator create an elegant and ornate atmosphere. The speaker’s careful, precise, and harmonious description of his office building followed by him “voluntarily [transferring his] paperback and CVS bag to [his] left hand” create a mood of easiness and relaxed movement to the passage from The Mezzanine.