Chato De Shamrock And Danny Santiago's Goodbye To All That And The Somebody

Kayla Chen #6

Block 7

3/28/2014

“Goodbye to All That” & “The Somebody”

The world where one lives is always subject to change, creating a pool of mixed feelings and a need for escape. In Joan Didion’s “Goodbye to All That” and Danny Santiago’s “The Somebody,” the narrators Chato de Shamrock and Joan Didion create this sense where they are searching for a place where they can call “home” and fit in. One can say that neglect can allow one to search for attention elsewhere. For Chato, he constantly graffiti’s, trying to attract others. But neediness is not always necessary for escape. One’s ideal vision of a place can be distorted through realistic experiences that do not meet one’s expectations. Didion goes through this path when she chooses to go to New York. Through Chato and Didion’s independence, they are able to endure their individualism and self-discovery.

In terms of tone, both authors create a realistic tone through their diction. In Didion’s mind, she describes New York by saying that “New York was no mere city. It was an infinitely romantic notion, the mysterious nexus of all love and money and power, the shining and perishable dream itself” (231). But in reality, her imagination of such a glamorous city does not meet her expectations when she first arrives: “That first night I opened my window on the bus into town and watched for the skyline, but all I could see were the wastes of Queens and the big signs that said MIDTOWN TUNNEL THIS LAND and then a flood of summer rain” (226). Using “wastes” to describe Queens and the scene of a “flood” establishes a cold, bitter, dirty tone because Didion is unimpressed. In “The Somebody,” Santiago uses words that are related to death to create a tone of desperation. ...

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...Her memories are from many incidents that occur at her stay, described with such intricate detail that is unique for her. Through these themes, Chato and Didion coincidentally set off to Los Angeles to undertake a new path that is hopefully more gratifying to them.

Through realistic tones that the authors create in Chato and Didion’s first person narration, it is easy to notice how unsurreal the world is. As their stories continue, the tones in their narration separate paths. In “The Somebody,” Chato’s tone is ironically optimistic, and in ‘Goodbye To All That,” Didion’s tone is filled with nostalgia and regret. Overall, there is a circling theme that revolves around the characters independence and how to use that to self-discovery the outside world and other aspects of it. And with that, they center themselves so that the world can be theirs and not someone else’s.