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In Fathers, Sons, & Brothers, Bret Lott takes small events and makes them have a much greater importance. Lott shows this through 2 examples; the drive out to Wadmalaw Island, and in the essay ‘Sound’ at the end when he finds this wonderful noise after his paper route. He focuses in on these small, seemingly meaningless events, but turns them into something much better with the use of lyrical words, the flow of his sentences, and the tone changes in his writing.

A great example of where Lott brings a greater meaning out of a seemingly insignificant event is when he is in Wadmalaw. He says, "Though she does not know this yet, the view from here is the most beautiful gift I can remember Melanie giving me, and already I'm lining up words in the back of my head to give back to her once we drive back home... words that will amount, I know already, only to a meager translation of all I've seen"(149). Lott says what the whole chapter is about through this one sentence. The whole chapter is at the beauty of this experience, the drive to Wadmalaw, but after all the description he tells the reader that he cannot even come close to describing how it actually is. Lott tells more through admitting that his words are only a "meager translation" to the actual beauty that he sees.

There are many times when the reader can relate to what Lott says here, this being so great that it’s indescribable. The reason why this sticks out to the reader is because of the great picture that Lott laid out before hand. There is an image in the mind of the reader, and when Lott suddenly says no wait this is only a meager translation, just a little bit of what I am experiencing right now, then it puts this great picture that is already in the mind of the reader onto an unreachable pedestal.

Lott also does another tactic to make this sentence stand out to the reader. His writing style changes in this sentence compared to the rest of the essay. Lott writes this to have a flow to what he is saying. This flow happens because Lott has terrific use of commas, and lyrical words. The first is easy to see. Commas are obvious and stand out to the reader. Instead of putting a period at the end of each idea, he puts these commas in so the reader just feels like they need to keep going. If he were to stick a period at the end of each sentence then Lott would definitely not get this desired effect on the reader. He also uses these lyrical words though. They are words that do not necessarily stand out, but together seem to give an uplifting tone different from the rest of the essay. Lott says that he received “most beautiful gift” from Melanie. This is an example of these lyrical words that Lott uses. Ordinary enough if they stood alone, but saying the most beautiful gift leaves some sort of mystique around it. The reader knows through these types of adjectives, and also the run on of the commas Lott, uses that he really is trying to emphasize this sentence, and set it apart from the rest of the essay.

The reader gets this type of writing style before in the collection of essays. In ‘Sound’ Lott does this at the end after going through what he had done during the day. He says, “It was what I waited for, something even more mysterious than a snake on the driveway, than a shooting star above me while a folded papers on a winter morning: the high-pitched and constant flow of sound in the room, right there in my ears, a sound so loud, the house quiet, my body whipped by the work of delivering all those papers, that at times I thought my head would burst with it, and I had to sniff or cough or hum a song just to make sure the world wasn’t drowning in all that sound”(22). Lott uses these lyrical words again, and the flow of sentences to get this thing that seems so small, a noise he heard after delivering all of the newspapers, to this much greater amplification in meaning. He changes quickly from the type of tone at the beginning of the essay, to this once again, uplifting or enlightening feeling.

Before this part, Lott is simply explaining the paths he took, the encounters he would take on daily, and the houses he threw papers at during his route. But when he gets to this part, it all takes on a much greater meaning. The sound he hears, which he later says he found out was his blood rushing in his ears, was a point for him to feel accomplished, better then the rest of his family still sleeping, and almost superhuman since he thought he had the hearing of a dog. This is all shown by how excited his writing gets while explaining this, his flow and lyrical words behind what seems like something ordinary to anyone else, but extraordinary to Lott.

Shown in these two quotes, is how Lott can turn what seems to be small inconsequential events into something that is more. Much more than just more though, into something of significant importance to Lott, as a kid and as an adult. He takes the two things, and finds the absolute beauty in them. More so, he does this through his writing, by changing the tone, the flow of sentences and using more lyrical words.