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Personal notes of joan didion
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In both the short essay, “Goodbye to All That,” and the well-written memoir, The Year of Magical Thinking, Didion emphasizes New York City’s amusingly sentimental and lively nature and describes the activities and different auras she remembers from living there; these same activities and auras also cause Didion remarkable feelings of grief and nostalgia due to the fact that she is reminded her of her inability to appreciate New York, after moving back to a seemingly deathly Los Angeles, and the sudden deaths of her husband and daughter whom happens to go through a coma all within the same time frame. In “Goodbye to All That,” author Joan Didion illuminates New York City’s sentimental and lively nature by talking about spending more time in …show more content…
To Didion,“Imprecise expression was not just sloppy; it was harmful” (Daugherty, 443). This thorough and emotional expression throughout the text leaves the impression that all the memories she makes caused her nostalgia. For example, in the well-written essay “Goodbye to All That,” Didion mainly focuses on place and setting, particularly shedding some light on her experiences and feelings in both New York City and Los Angeles. She exposes the reader to the aspects of New York City that she misses, aspects which made her think twice about living in California afterwards. Specifically, things as small as specific smells, the foods, the random encounters with strange people, and the “young and fresh feeling” of everyday life in New York City, are what made her reminisce on her time there. Traces of different perfumes she smelled in New York brought her all the way back. Didion explains, “For a lot of the time I was in New York I used a perfume called Fleurs de Rocaille, and then L’Air du Temps, and now the slightest trace of either can short-circuit my connections for the rest of the day” (4). Even the mixture of spices which was used for boiling crabs in New York City stuck with her mind. Then, Didion gives a detailed description of the wild parties that took place on Saturday
In the passage from the novel LUCY, author Jamaica Kincaid dramatizes the forces of self and environment, through her character whose identity is challenged with a move. The new home provided all she needed, but it was all so many changes, she “didn’t want to take in anything else” (15-16). Her old “familiar and predictable past”(40) stayed behind her, and she now had to find who she was in her new life. Kincaid uses detail, metaphor, and tone in the passage to show her character’s internal struggle.
Joan Didion, the author of On Self Respect, claims that self-respect demonstrates a display once called character; she also argues that the ability to sleep well at night depends on self-respect. Namely, one who realizes that the choices and the actions he/she had made have brought his/her today, has self-respect. Considering Didion’s arguments and personal, real-life examples, self-respect must have at least some influences on physical behaviors.
1991 and “Goodbye To All That” written in 1968, the idea that New York is a trap that will lure people in with false promises of an easy life, and once their here, miserable or
Joyce Carol Oates intrigues readers in her fictional piece “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been” by examining the life of a fifteen year old girl. She is beautiful, and her name is Connie. Oates lets the reader know that “everything about her [Connie] had two sides to it, one for home, and one for anywhere but home (27). When Connie goes out, she acts and dresses more mature than she probably should. However, when she is at home, she spends the majority of her time absorbed with daydreams “about the boys she met”(28). This daydreaming behavior is observable to the reader throughout the story. From theories about dreams, theories about subconscious thought, and the clues that Oates provides, the reader is lead to believe that Connie’s experience with Arnold Friend is a nightmare used to awaken her to the consequences that her behavior could result in.
For some people, the meaning of life is to be a good parent. When a parent loses a child for a moment or a lifetime, the pain that comes with is unbearable. Some people lose control of his or her entire life due to the loss of loved ones. The ability to gain control over life is tough because of the emotional and sometimes physical obstacles. While there is a meaning to life for some people, others feel as if there is no hope to live after losing a child. In Joan Didion’s novel, Play It as It Lays, Maria exhibits a lack of identity and the struggle to regain control over her life is shown through her journey to be with her daughter Kate.
“Before I Came to Paris”, is the first chapter of Gertrude Stein’s novel, The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, in which Alice B. Toklas narrates a basic history of her life and the events leading to her departure for Paris. Alice was born in San Francisco, California where her grandfather, a pioneer, had moved to in 1849 and married her grandmother, a music lover. Men of the family participated in Paris battles leaving behind the family for some time, eventually returning as land owners. Alice was not a fan of the violence that her family participated in but rather had hobbies in needlework and gardening. She was also interested in paintings, furniture, tapestry, houses, flowers, vegetables and a view that was not looked at. Alice was the
The trip to Brooklyn didn’t turn out the way I expected this morning. I went back to Brooklyn looking for the life I had left when I went to college. My father, the Judge Albert Cohn of the New York State Supreme Court always wanted me to go away and find a life outside of Brooklyn. It meant a lot to him to have his only child to go out of Brooklyn and continue what he called his judge’s legacy. However, I always miss what I had left. Life for me has been a struggle since I became an aide for Senator Joseph McCarthy. I’m an American patriot and my job those days was to prove to the country that the State Department was full of communist infiltrators, but the Senator and I had become what the Communists and Liberals call "discredited." The Senator influence in the country’s politics had decline but my influence is still strong. I didn’t fade away as he did. I always wanted to walk the streets that I walked when I was a child one more time to reassure myself that the struggle had been worth it. I yearn when I’m alone to feel again the joy I felt when I walked by the big houses of Rugby Road on my way home after school. Walking those streets one more time, I wanted to feel Brooklyn the way it felt to me then. Like a magical kingdom. Like the Jews in the promise land after wandering in the desert for forty years. Time seems to stretch endlessly on those days; ten minutes felt more as an hour and summer felt like the whole year. Nevertheless, this time, it hadn’t worked out that way to me. The magic feeling that felt as a boy looking at those houses from the sidewalk was no longer there. It seems that my clock had stared working right again. A minute was a minute and an hour was sixty minutes as it was everywhere else. Tick, tick, tick... tick. I couldn’t stretch time again or at least not today.
Just look at the quote I gave you earlier: “Brooklyn, New York, as the undefined, hard-to–remember the shape of a stain.” He sees it as nothing but a stain on the map. He goes on to talk about “…the sludge at the bottom of the canal causes it to bubble.” Giving us something we can see, something we can hear because you can just imagine being near the canal and hearing the sludge bubble make their popping noises as the gas is released. He “The train sounds different – lighter, quieter—in the open air,” when it comes from underground and the sight he sees on the rooftops. Although some are negative, such as the sagging of roofs and graffiti, his tone towards the moment seems to be admiration. In the second section, he talks about the smells of Brooklyn and the taste of food. He’d talk about how his daughter compares the tastes of pizzas with her “…stern judgments of pizza. Low end… New Hampshire pizza. … In the middle… zoo pizza. …very top… two blocks from our house,” and different it was where he’d grown up. He talks about the immense amount of “smells in Brooklyn: Coffee, fingernail polish, eucalyptus…” and how other might hate it, but he enjoys it. In the same section, he describes how he enjoys the Brooklyn accent and the noise and smells that other people make on the streets and at the park across from his house. “Charcoal smoke drifts into the
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.
Derricotte’s conclusive paragraph begins with, “My mother helps me. She sends me signs: her African violet bloomed for the first time on my windowsill three years after her death, on the first day of her death month…I love my mother now in ways I could not have loved her when she was alive, fierce, terrifying, unpredictable, mad, shame-inducing, self-involved, relentless, and determined by any means necessary” (53). The timing of her love for her mother became insignificant. It wasn’t about when she finally reached the point of loving her mother but the mere fact that she loved her. The utilization of descriptive writing and the emotional implementation in “Beginning Dialogues” are a couple of ways Derricotte enraptures her readers in this short story. Regardless of a painful past or a traumatic childhood she allows herself to see that love truly conquers
In the articles “Springing Forward” by Barbara Kingsolver and “Are Engineered Foods Evil?” by David H. Freedman, the main topic of discussion is about genetically modified foods. When reading the two articles there is are some similarities and differences between them. The two authors have different views on genetically modified foods.
“Goodbye to all that” is a captivating story of young women and the journey she takes to identify who she is. Through the expressive writing by Joan Didion, the emotions in this text are truly tangible. Didion writes from her own experience as a young writer living her dream of being in New York City. Throughout her story there is miscommunication and through each obstacle, she grows as a person, learns what priorities are important, and overall she finds herself. I find this very appealing because everyone can relate to a life changing experience and reflect on how it changed you.
In “Brooklyn Bridge,” an account of a man on the bridge describes him in his “magic spot” or his personal area where two years ago he decided that New York wouldn 't break him. This suggests the essence of New York is tied to these “magic spots”. By magic spots I mean the places around the city where individuals decided to change their lives , something out of the ordinary happened to them, or just a place they feel serene. In the Library of Congress this work of nonfiction can be found under homes and haunts, a “ Magic Spot” is incredibly similar to a home. What makes a place a person’s home is the memories and experience they felt there. Even though New Yorkers begrudgingly accept all this change surrounding New York that Whitehead describes, they also thrive on it. By remembering the past in terms of their New York,their present is enhanced because the feeling of history contributes to a greater feeling of home because again the feeling of home is based on the memories. The only difference here is that instead of calling home a building or a house, the whole city acts as your home and like a tour guide Whitehead is giving his reader an insider’s account of his home. The essence of New York is this sense of home that you can find seemingly anywhere. People are drawn here based on that desire to feel comfortable and
In Joyce Carol Oates’ short story, “Where Have You Been, Where are[a] You Going?,” Oates employs motifs, symbolism, and allegories to convey her holistic tone of disapproval towards the actions and outlook of the main character, Connie. Motifs are seen primarily in the references to music that channel Connie’s escape out of reality. Symbolism is also evident in the piece through the setting of Connie’s home which represents her only source of protection. The overall allegorical nature of the piece accentuates the ominous relationship between Connie and Arnold and foreshadows the ending. Through analyzing the active usage of motifs, symbolism, and allegory throughout the work, one can gain a clearer understanding of how these elements of fiction function together to produce Oates’ tone of dissatisfaction towards Connie.
Mrs. Mallard’s repressed married life is a secret that she keeps to herself. She is not open and honest with her sister Josephine who has shown nothing but concern. This is clearly evident in the great care that her sister and husband’s friend Richard show to break the news of her husband’s tragic death as gently as they can. They think that she is so much in love with him that hearing the news of his death would aggravate her poor heart condition and lead to death. Little do they know that she did not love him dearly at all and in fact took the news in a very positive way, opening her arms to welcome a new life without her husband. This can be seen in the fact that when she storms into her room and her focus shifts drastically from that of her husband’s death to nature that is symbolic of new life and possibilities awaiting her. Her senses came to life; they come alive to the beauty in the nature. Her eyes could reach the vastness of the sky; she could smell the delicious breath of rain in the air; and ears became attentive to a song f...