The passages I will be comparing are from Bill Bryson's The Lost Continent and Caryl Phillips" The Atlantic Sound. Both passages are about the American South and the authors show similarities in their opinions but present their ideas in different styles.
Bryson is a comic writer and although he sees that the issues of society and racism in the South of the United States are serious he presents it to the reader in an amusing way "Welcome to Mississippi. We shoot to kill."( ). Bryson is also informal and at moments crude, although this is his usual writing style it seems especially appropriate in this passage, as though he is mocking the stereotype that Southerners are foul mouthed. Bryson more directly mocks them by writing how Southern Americans talk for example "ole" and "edjicated" and emphasises this when he uses high flown language, "It was an odd sensation to feel so deeply hated by people who hadn't really had a proper chance to acquaint themselves with one's shortcomings" ( ). Phillips is serious and factual, he states times and dates where Bryson is more vague. Phillips" comedy is subtler, this may be because Caryl Phillips is a black man and so is more personally involved in the issues of slavery and racism and it may be more difficult for him to find humour in the subject.
Both writers go to the South with the expectation that it hasn't changed in the last one hundred and fifty years. Bryson is half expecting to see lynch mobs and chained slaves and Phillips presumes that the doors will squeak and the lifts will be old-fashioned. Although both share the same opinion the way each author offers his ideas is dissimilar. Where Bryson exaggerates, showing his cynical humour, Phillips down plays to accentuate his seriousness. .
In both texts the Southerners are portrayed as having a paranoia of strangers and society as cliquey. When Phillips arrives at the law offices the secretary and the lawyer have a whispered conversation about him.
