Analysis Of Joan Didion's The Year Of Magical Thinking

In Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking, the author exemplifies the anthropological ideology of free-will having the ultimate power to dictate the events of one's life as illustrated by Didion’s use of the term “Magical Thinking” in the title of her memoir. Magical Thinking is the ideology of one’s cause and effect – every event of one’s life is caused by a previous action, choice, or lack thereof. Only in the end does Didion realize the deterministic factors behind her husband’s death – with it, the realization that there was nothing that Didion could have ever done to save her husband’s life. Joan Didion, throughout her memoir, experiences a character evolution in which she attempts to figure out how to cope with her husband’s death,

Halfway through her memoir, Didion realizes: “Not only did I not believe that ‘bad luck’ had killed John and struck Quintana but in fact I believed precisely the opposite: I believed that I should have been able to prevent whatever happened” (Didion 173). As Didion mentally recovers from the trauma involving John and Quintana – John and Joan’s adopted daughter, Didion gains increasing rationalization regarding her newfound psychological characteristics. Didion finds herself believing that free- will – the idea that one’s life is dictated by his or her own actions – is dominant over the idea of determinism – the idea that some to all of the events of one’s life is entirely random. Didion illustrates: “I was thinking as small children think, as if my thoughts or wishes had the power to reverse the narrative, change the outcome” (Didion 35). Although she fails to act upon it, Didion utilizes self-realization in the fact that she subconsciously realizes that she has little-to-no control over some events. Despite realizing her actions, Didion struggles to overcome her ideaology. In regards to the power of free-will, Didion states: “As I recall this I realize how open we are to the persistent message that we can avert death. And to its punitive correlative, the message that if death catches us we have only ourselves to blame” (Didion

In regards to the death of John, Didion remembers: “I now know how I’m going to die, he had said in 1987 after the left anterior descending artery had been opened by angioplasty” (Didion 203). Didion is illustrating John’s awareness of his imminent fate. John goes on to show a premonition-like awareness of his future by coming to his conclusion after a meeting with his cardiologist. Didion comes to this conclusion much later by saying: “Only after I read the autopsy report did I begin to believe what I had been repeatedly told: nothing he or I had done or not done had either caused or could have prevented his death” (Didion 206). Didion’s realization hof the imminent fate of her husband serves the purpose of illustrating a major logical shift in her own character. Didion is now realizing that she cannot control everything. More importantly, Didion is realizing that nothing she has ever done could have changed the events of her life in a matter in which John Gregory Dunne would still be alive. In the end, Didion concludes: “He had inherited a bad heart. It would eventually kill him. The date on which it would kill him had already been, by many medical interventions, postponed” (Didion 206). John’s biology is what killed him. He has been aware of this fact ever since he had a pacemaker put into his body. He was on borrowed time.