Based on Annie Dillard’s account of witnessing a total eclipse in her essay “Total Eclipse” I would have to say she definitely encourages her readers to witness a total eclipse. She says that it is almost the opposite of a partial eclipse, which I am sure most people have seen many times before, that’s how different they are and I believe most people including myself think partial eclipses are spectacular and almost dreamlike. The opening line in “Total Eclipse” is “It had been like dying, that sliding down the mountain pass” (477). Annie Dillard is describing traveling through the mountains and down into the Yakima Valley and how she feels this place is so strange because it is all new to her. This gives you an idea of Annie Dillard’s ability to describe everything in sight and also what she is feeling and her anticipation about seeing the total eclipse. Annie Dillard describes the scenery of the Yakima valley the morning her and her husband depart from their hotel on their way to an unknown hill to watch the eclipse. She goes into detail about everything she can see: “This was the Yakima valley […] It is justly famous for its beauty, like every planted valley. All its hundreds of low, golden slopes bore orchards. Among the orchards were towns, and roads, and plowed and fallow fields” (479). The way Dillard describes the terrain in the Yakima valley makes it seem like it would be a nice place to visit even without there being a total eclipse, how there are grassy hills everywhere you look lots of orchards and a beautiful river that runs through the valley. It shows you that traveling to see an eclipse can also turn into a great time to see more then just the city you live in; it can broaden your horizon. She then later ... ... middle of paper ... ...e eclipse to dieing now that the sun had appeared again she feels like she was re-born or brought back to life just like everything around them went from black and gray to green, blue, and yellow they way they were before the eclipse commenced. It demonstrates that the eclipse can almost give oneself a new way to look at life. It can give you a new thought process on ones outlook. In whole I believe Annie Dillard’s essay “Total Eclipse” serves to encourage her readers to witness a total eclipse themselves. She shows us that this isn’t just an event you will witness then forget about soon afterwards. It is something that stays with you throughout your life because of the impact it has on you. It can also bring to the table a new way to look at the world around you by almost showing you the opposite of what you know a parallel world for the duration of the eclipse.
In conclusion, the story describes that life changes, and nothing stays the same throughout it. It is in the hands of the people to decide that how they want their life to be. They can make it as beautiful as they want to and they can also make it worse than it has ever been
In Annie Dillard’s, “Water of Separation” a chapter from her book Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, the chapter marks a year since Annie Dillard began living at Tinker Creek. By utilizing personal anecdotes and allusions, she reveals her reflection of the past year at Tinker Creak. The personal anecdotes and allusions give the entire chapter a tone of candid.
In nature things often occur that parallel our way way of being. In this short excerpt, Annie Dillard portrays the amount of determination and stubbornness in weasels, which is much like our own. At the beginning Ms. Dillard reflects on the characteristics that make a weasel wild. She writes that the weasel “…[kills] more bodies than he can eat warm, and often dragging the carcasses home” (Dillard 1). She then moves on to the weasels instinct,and stubbornness, through an anecdote in which a naturalist found himself with a weasel stuck to his arm with one bite, and try as he might her could not “pry the tiny weasel” (Dillard 1) off his arm. The only way he was able to release himself was to “soak him[the weasel] off like a stubborn label”(Dillard
Throughout this essay Annie Dillard uses many similes to give readers a more precise mental image of what the airplane looked like as it was flying through sky. In the essay Dillard describes, “The plane looped the loop, seeming to arch its back like a gymnast.” In this simile, Dillard compare the airplane to a gymnast. This affects the essay because readers think of a gymnast, spinning and moving in ways human should not be able to move, just as the plane was spinning in a way planes do not normally move. Dillard also explains, “The other pilots could do these stunts too... But Rahm used the plane inexhaustibly, like a brush marking thin air.” In this quote, Dillard is explain how other pilots can fly too, but Rahm makes flying an art. This
The sun has been an endless source of inspiration, both physical and spiritual, throughout the ages. For its light, warmth, and the essential role it has played in the maintenance of the fragile balance of life on earth, the sun has been honored and celebrated in most of the world's religions. While the regeneration of light is constant, the relative length of time between the rising and setting of the sun is affected by the changing of the seasons. Hippocrates postulated centuries ago that these changing patterns of light and dark might cause mood changes (9). Seasonal downward mood changes of late fall and winter have been the subject of many sorrowful turn-of-the-century poems of lost love and empty souls. For some, however, “the relationship between darkness and despair is more than metaphoric (6).
We were now at the bus stop. The sun had replenished and the sky full of glee. There was trail next to the bus stop, she started walking through it. The trees intertwined like arches and the shadows created an ominous feeling. As she walked through the forest, her whole body had a calm aura.
The story "The Sky Is Gray" by Ernest Gaines is about a day in the life of a mother and son. The family is portrayed as being poor, as were most blacks in those days, and the father was recruited by the army, leaving the mother to be the sole provider for the family. On this day, James, the son, is taken to the dentist by his "mama", because he has a painful tooth. From this story, James learned three major lessons from the incidents that he witnessed that day which are; standing up for his beliefs, working hard for what he wants, and having compassion for others.
...again renewed. This passage illustrates how she has come to terms with the fact that one-day her mortal life with end and the earth will indeed keep revolving without her on it.
Light in August, a novel written by the well-known author, William Faulkner, can definitely be interpreted in many ways. However, one fairly obvious prospective is through a religious standpoint. It is difficult, nearly impossible, to construe Light in August without noting the Christian parallels. Faulkner gives us proof that a Christian symbolic interpretation is valid. Certain facts of these parallels are inescapable and there are many guideposts to this idea.
It's about sunlight. It's about the special way that dawn spreads out on a river when you know you must cross the river and march into the mountains and do things you are afraid to do. It's about love and memory. It's about sorrow. It's about sisters who never write back and people who never listen.” -pg. 85
One of Emily Dickinson’s greatest skills is taking the familiar and making it unfamiliar. In this sense, she reshapes how her readers view her subjects and the meaning that they have in the world. She also has the ability to assign a word to abstractness, making her poems seemingly vague and unclear on the surface. Her poems are so carefully crafted that each word can be dissected and the reader is able to uncover intense meanings and images. Often focusing on more gothic themes, Dickinson shows an appreciation for the natural world in a handful of poems. Although Dickinson’s poem #1489 seems disoriented, it produces a parallelism of experience between the speaker and the audience that encompasses the abstractness and unexpectedness of an event.
This book actually impacted my view on life a bit. Life is a fragile gift and this book made me wonder if I am using my time in all the wrong ways. We should all work to be using our days as best we can and try to be happy regardless of our sadness. As we all know that’s not as simple as it sounds, which makes the strength of Hazel and Augustus extremely inspiring and even eye-opening. When I compare myself to these two characters I hope I can be more like them.
Emily Dickinson, a renowned American poet from the romantic era, wrote numerous lyrical poems that reflect the theme of despair as seen in “There’s a Certain Slant of Light.”
It was a dark, cold, cloudy day. The clouds covered the sky like a big black sheet, nothing to be seen except darkness that seemed to go on forever. This was the third day in a row that there had been complete darkness, there was no getting rid of it. This was because of ‘the meteorite.’
I stepped into the middle of the road and just stood there, the lights stretching in either direction, glowing in the deep chilly air. I could see my own breath, could feel my own warmth as it formed right there in front of me. Behind me, our house looked dark, faint lingering of I'd walk a million miles, and I wasn't even sure if it was really playing or if I was imagining the familiar, the same way a bright light remain when you close your eyelids, the way I imagine that the sight of an eclipse would burn its image into your eyes forever(pg.75).