new orleans descriptive essay

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How Do You Describe New Orleans?

M uch has been said, written, and sung about this city. Some people become enamored with this place because of its rare and enticing culture that allows them freedoms that they can’t experience anywhere else. Others detest the city because they find it too indulgent and vulgar. One way or another, this 300-year-old city knows how to leave a mark on everyone who sets foot within it. Authors, actors, and artists of all kinds have left a trail of sayings about New Orleans that could fill a book.

Author Anne Rice was born in New Orleans, finally moving out-of-state when she was in her teens. She lived in Texas and then in California through her early adulthood, yet she used New Orleans as the setting for her most famous books, including Interview With a Vampire . After finding success as an author, she bought a home in New Orleans and started spending more time here. She said, “In the spring of 1988, I returned to New Orleans, and as soon as I smelled the air, I knew I was home. It was rich, almost sweet, like the scent of jasmine and roses around our old courtyard. I walked the streets, savoring that long-lost perfume.” 

The Greek-Irish writer Lafcadio Hearn is best-known for his writings about Japan, but complicated circumstances took him to New Orleans for 10 years first. Writing for various newspapers in the late 1800s, Hearn was fascinated with opera, Voodoo, and Creole cuisine. He described the city as a “dead bride crowned with orange flowers” and often focused on the glorious decay that he saw all around him. One of his writings includes the quote, “Times are not good here. The city is crumbling into ashes. It has been buried under taxes and frauds and mal-administrations so that it has become a study for archaeologists . . . but it is better to live here in sackcloth and ashes than to own the whole state of Ohio.”

Aleister Crowley , occultist and founder of the religion of Thelema, became obsessed with imbibing absinthe at the Old Absinthe House when he moved in 1917 into an apartment that currently houses The Dragon’s Den. The writer, known for his works about the practice of magic and mysticism, spent hours appreciating the intoxicating qualities of the green liquor. He wrote, “Keep always this dim corner for me, that I may sit while the Green Hour glides, a proud pavine of Time. For I am no longer in the city accursed, where Time is horsed on the white gelding Death, his spurs rusted with blood. There is a corner of the United States which he has overlooked. It lies in New Orleans.”

The award-winning TIME Magazine writer and editor Nancy Gibbs covered many hard-hitting and controversial subjects in her over-30-year career. She wrote a particularly relevant article entitled “Hurricane Katrina: An American Tragedy” about how the U.S. government failed to protect and rebuild the city. The first line of the poetic (and even a bit sentimental) article states, “New Orleans lives by the water and fights it, a sand castle set on a sponge nine feet below sea level, where people made music from heartache, named their drinks for hurricanes and joked that one day you’d be able to tour the city by gondola . . . So as Katrina, wicked and flirtatious, lingered in the Gulf with her eye on the town, many citizens decided they would stay, stubborn or stoic or too poor to have much choice.”

Sherwood Anderson spent most of his life in Ohio, and his large body of novels, short stories, and essays are based there, too. However, when he moved to New Orleans in the 1920s, he was finally able to write his only best-selling book, entitled Dark Laughter . He wrote about the people of New Orleans: “Blessed be these people. They know how to play. They are truly a people of culture . . . putting the joy of living above the much less subtle and . . . altogether more stupid joy of growth and achievement.”

The famed playwright Tennessee Williams is celebrated in New Orleans annually during the Tennessee Williams New Orleans Literary Festival. New Orleans was certainly one of Tennessee’s favorite American cities, which he put on par with New York and San Francisco. He claimed that “everywhere else is Cleveland.” Of the many things that he wrote about the city, he explained why he personally enjoyed it so much, saying, “In New Orleans . . . I found the kind of freedom I had always needed, and the shock of it—against the Puritanism of my nature—has given me a subject, a theme, which I have never ceased exploiting.”

Benjamin Latrobe was the British architectural artist responsible for designing some of the most recognizable buildings in the U.S., including the United States Capitol and the White House as well as the Basilica of the Blessed Virgin Mary, located in Baltimore. He and his son Henry Boneval Latrobe arrived in New Orleans and began several projects in the early 1800s. He foresaw great potential for financial gain in the city, as it was a port city. The father and son duo participated in designing a waterworks system, Charity Hospital, the St. Louis Cathedral, the French Opera House, and more. Tragically, both Benjamin and his son Henry died from yellow fever in 1820 and 1817, respectively. Before his untimely death, Benjamin wrote about the city in which he saw so much potential: “New Orleans has at first sight a very imposing and handsome appearance, beyond any other city in the United States in which I have yet been. Mud, mud, mud. This is a floating city, floating below the surface of the water on a bed of mud.”

Whether or not it is your home or your escape to a corner of the globe outside of time, and whether or not you consider it a blessed place of freedom or a beautiful place of decay, floating on water—New Orleans has moved countless numbers and will continue to inspire awe, desire, and enchantment in those lucky enough to plant their feet on its cobblestone banquettes.

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• How to write a descriptive essay | Example & tips

How to Write a Descriptive Essay | Example & Tips

Published on July 30, 2020 by Jack Caulfield . Revised on August 14, 2023.

A descriptive essay gives a vivid, detailed description of something—generally a place or object, but possibly something more abstract like an emotion. This type of essay , like the narrative essay , is more creative than most academic writing .

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Descriptive essay topics, tips for writing descriptively, descriptive essay example, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about descriptive essays.

When you are assigned a descriptive essay, you’ll normally be given a specific prompt or choice of prompts. They will often ask you to describe something from your own experience.

• Describe a place you love to spend time in.
• Describe an object that has sentimental value for you.

You might also be asked to describe something outside your own experience, in which case you’ll have to use your imagination.

• Describe the experience of a soldier in the trenches of World War I.
• Describe what it might be like to live on another planet.

Sometimes you’ll be asked to describe something more abstract, like an emotion.

If you’re not given a specific prompt, try to think of something you feel confident describing in detail. Think of objects and places you know well, that provoke specific feelings or sensations, and that you can describe in an interesting way.

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The key to writing an effective descriptive essay is to find ways of bringing your subject to life for the reader. You’re not limited to providing a literal description as you would be in more formal essay types.

Make use of figurative language, sensory details, and strong word choices to create a memorable description.

Use figurative language

Figurative language consists of devices like metaphor and simile that use words in non-literal ways to create a memorable effect. This is essential in a descriptive essay; it’s what gives your writing its creative edge and makes your description unique.

Take the following description of a park.

This tells us something about the place, but it’s a bit too literal and not likely to be memorable.

If we want to make the description more likely to stick in the reader’s mind, we can use some figurative language.

Here we have used a simile to compare the park to a face and the trees to facial hair. This is memorable because it’s not what the reader expects; it makes them look at the park from a different angle.

You don’t have to fill every sentence with figurative language, but using these devices in an original way at various points throughout your essay will keep the reader engaged and convey your unique perspective on your subject.

Use your senses

Another key aspect of descriptive writing is the use of sensory details. This means referring not only to what something looks like, but also to smell, sound, touch, and taste.

Obviously not all senses will apply to every subject, but it’s always a good idea to explore what’s interesting about your subject beyond just what it looks like.

Even when your subject is more abstract, you might find a way to incorporate the senses more metaphorically, as in this descriptive essay about fear.

Choose the right words

Writing descriptively involves choosing your words carefully. The use of effective adjectives is important, but so is your choice of adverbs , verbs , and even nouns.

It’s easy to end up using clichéd phrases—“cold as ice,” “free as a bird”—but try to reflect further and make more precise, original word choices. Clichés provide conventional ways of describing things, but they don’t tell the reader anything about your unique perspective on what you’re describing.

Try looking over your sentences to find places where a different word would convey your impression more precisely or vividly. Using a thesaurus can help you find alternative word choices.

• My cat runs across the garden quickly and jumps onto the fence to watch it from above.
• My cat crosses the garden nimbly and leaps onto the fence to survey it from above.

However, exercise care in your choices; don’t just look for the most impressive-looking synonym you can find for every word. Overuse of a thesaurus can result in ridiculous sentences like this one:

• My feline perambulates the allotment proficiently and capers atop the palisade to regard it from aloft.

An example of a short descriptive essay, written in response to the prompt “Describe a place you love to spend time in,” is shown below.

Hover over different parts of the text to see how a descriptive essay works.

On Sunday afternoons I like to spend my time in the garden behind my house. The garden is narrow but long, a corridor of green extending from the back of the house, and I sit on a lawn chair at the far end to read and relax. I am in my small peaceful paradise: the shade of the tree, the feel of the grass on my feet, the gentle activity of the fish in the pond beside me.

My cat crosses the garden nimbly and leaps onto the fence to survey it from above. From his perch he can watch over his little kingdom and keep an eye on the neighbours. He does this until the barking of next door’s dog scares him from his post and he bolts for the cat flap to govern from the safety of the kitchen.

With that, I am left alone with the fish, whose whole world is the pond by my feet. The fish explore the pond every day as if for the first time, prodding and inspecting every stone. I sometimes feel the same about sitting here in the garden; I know the place better than anyone, but whenever I return I still feel compelled to pay attention to all its details and novelties—a new bird perched in the tree, the growth of the grass, and the movement of the insects it shelters…

Sitting out in the garden, I feel serene. I feel at home. And yet I always feel there is more to discover. The bounds of my garden may be small, but there is a whole world contained within it, and it is one I will never get tired of inhabiting.

If you want to know more about AI tools , college essays , or fallacies make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples or go directly to our tools!

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The key difference is that a narrative essay is designed to tell a complete story, while a descriptive essay is meant to convey an intense description of a particular place, object, or concept.

Narrative and descriptive essays both allow you to write more personally and creatively than other kinds of essays , and similar writing skills can apply to both.

If you’re not given a specific prompt for your descriptive essay , think about places and objects you know well, that you can think of interesting ways to describe, or that have strong personal significance for you.

The best kind of object for a descriptive essay is one specific enough that you can describe its particular features in detail—don’t choose something too vague or general.

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Caulfield, J. (2023, August 14). How to Write a Descriptive Essay | Example & Tips. Scribbr. Retrieved March 13, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/academic-essay/descriptive-essay/

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