Compare and Contrast-Dylan

In both The Only Rule That Counts and The Burnt Plane the main theme being dealt with is personal tragedy. In The Only Rule That Counts we have John who not only has to deal with the memory of a close friend who left his side to take over a business he had no interest in but also the fact that said friend is now dead. On the other hand in The Burnt Plane the narrator himself is dealing with tragedy but the story mostly focuses on his friend Jason dealing with the death of his father. Both stories are written as personal memoirs. This is the easiest way for the writers to inject themselves into their works.
An interesting stylistic choice made in The Only Rule That Counts is that almost the entirety of the story is presented in the form of a letter sent to our narrator John. The letter lulls readers into a sense of security thinking that this is just a tale of a friend that had to grow up until the sentence "When Jeff’s letter fell out of that book last month, I cursed out loud and dove onto
my computer. I’d conveniently forgotten about the letter because I lacked the sack to
respond to it in kind, and in so doing I’d overlooked the fact that the New York office of
his family’s shipping business was in Tower One of the World Trade Center." This style differs from The Burnt Plane where the story is conveyed by a young boy through his thoughts and interactions with his friend Jason. Both styles convey the theme of personal tragedy and the different approaches are useful in conveying that theme for different ages. A young child reading a letter from an old friend would not hold much emotional impact as it seems inauthentic to reality. The sentence "He just ignored me, just like the last time I asked, and the time before that." is very effective in showing how unprepared do confront and deal with tragedy young kids are.