Annie Dillard's Interior Life

159 Words1 Page
bulb-icon

Recommended: Imagination in literature

In the “Interior Life”, Annie Dillard discusses the minds process of realizing the difference between imagination and reality. Dillard begins her narrative by recounting the childhood memory of an oblong shaped light that invaded her room every night, terrorizing her with the possibility of death. Beginning at the door of her bedroom this “oblong light” quickly slid across the wall, continued to the headboard of her little sister Amy’s bed and suddenly disappeared with a loud roar. Oftentimes it returned, noisily fading away just before seizing her, meanwhile Amy slept, blissfully unaware. Continuing on, Dillard describes the unforgettable discovery of the connection between the noise the oblong light made and the sound of the passing cars

Show More
Related

  • Fun Home Alison Bechdel Analysis

    1389 Words  | 3 Pages

    She brings light to an issue that divided her family from her father, his “obsession” with fixing up the house. She states, "I grew to resent the way my father treated his furniture like children, and his children like furniture" (14). She believes her father was detached, living his life through restoring old furniture and fixing up the family home, leaving little attention for the family that lived there. She was suspicious of her father’s décor saying, “they were lies” (14). This left much to be desired, often leading her to question whether her father even liked having a family. This feeling is expressed when she says, "Sometimes, when things were going well, I think my father actually enjoyed having a family. Or at least, the air of authenticity we lent to his exhibit. A sort of still life with children" (13). He occupied his life with fixing up his home almost as if he was trying to cover up the problems going on inside himself. Bechdel suggests that the antique mirrors decorating the home were meant to distract visitors from his personal shame. She says, "His shame inhabited our house as pervasively and invisibly as the aromatic musk of aging mahogany" (20). She states that this shame stemmed from her father’s closeted sexual preferences. This would later connect them in a very powerful

    Read More

  • An Analysis Of Annie Dillard

    1069 Words  | 3 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • Marilynne Robinson’s Housekeeping - Beyond Reason

    955 Words  | 2 Pages

    Marilynne Robinson gives voice to a realm of consciousness beyond the bounds of reason in her novel Housekeeping. Possibly concealed by the melancholy but gently methodical tone, boundaries and limits of perception are constantly redefined, rediscovered, and reevaluated. Ruth, as the narrator, leads the reader through the sorrowful events and the mundane details of her childhood and adolescence. She attempts to reconcile her experiences, fragmented and unified, past, present, and future, in order to better understand or substantiate the transient life she leads with her aunt Sylvie. Rather than the wooden structure built by Edmund Foster, the house Ruth eventually comes to inhabit with Sylvie and learn to "keep" is metaphoric. "...it seemed something I had lost might be found in Sylvie's house" (124). The very act of housekeeping invites a radical revision of fundamental concepts like time, memory, and meaning.

    Read More

  • The Yellow Wallpaper and A Doll’s House

    916 Words  | 2 Pages

    The central characters in both “The Yellow Wallpaper” and A Doll’s House are fully aware of their niche in society. In “The Yellow Wallpaper”, the narrator’s husband believes her illness to be a slight depression, and although she states "personally, I disagree with their ideas,” she knows she must acquiesce their requests anyway (Gilman 1). She says, “What is one to do?” (Gilman 1) The narrator continues to follow her husband’s ideals, although she knows them to be incorrect. She feels trapped in her relationship with her husband, as she has no free will and must stay in the nursery all day. She projects these feelings of entrapment onto the yellow wallpaper. She sees a complex and frustrating pattern, and hidden in the pattern are herself and othe...

    Read More

  • The Yellow Wallpaper

    713 Words  | 2 Pages

    The story begins with the narrator’s description of the physically confining elements surrounding her. The setting is cast in an isolated colonial mansion, set back from the road and three miles from the village (674). The property contains hedges that surround the garden, walls that surround the mansion, and locked gates that guarantee seclusion. Even the connected garden represents confinement, with box-bordered paths and grape covered arbors. This image of isolation continues in the mansion. Although she prefers the downstairs room with roses all over the windows that opened on the piazza the narrator finds herself consigned to an out of the way dungeon-like nursery on the second floor. "The windows in the nursery provide views of the garden, arbors, bushes, and trees”(674). These views reinforce isolationism since, the beauty can be seen from the room but not touched or experienced. There is a gate at the head of the stairs, presumably to keep children contained in their play area of the upstairs with the nursery. Additionally, the bed is immoveable " I lie here on this great immovable bed- it is nailed down, I believe-and follow that pattern about by the hour" (678). It is here in this position of physical confinement that the narrator secretly describes her descent into madness.

    Read More

  • Annie Dillard Living Like Weasels

    764 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Essay “Living Like Weasels” is an excellent example of an effective essay. The author Annie Dillard used her experiences about nature and the animals that live in it. The main animal that Dillard uses to build on her argument is the weasel. The weasel is an animal that is “Obedient to instinct” and lives for necessity unlike humans. Dillard's creates an effective essay through the uses of methods of development, rhetorical devices, and relating each paragraph argument to support her thesis.

    Read More

  • Summary Of Miss Columbia School House

    255 Words  | 1 Pages

    The first document is a political cartoon showing Miss Columbia’s School House from 1894. This cartoon is a reflects the perception of others attending Miss Columbia’s School House because inside the school everyone is misbehaving and running around. Many believe that if one country is governed by another, it is an uncivilized nation. In the cartoon there a female and a male standing outside asking can they come in. the female represents Canada and the male represents Hawaii. The male figure is holding a British flag, imply that Britain once ruled Hawaii. The female teacher who’s supposed to be taking care of the children is a representation of America. The author is portraying America as a skilled and civilized country.

    Read More

  • Richtariks Haunted Tale

    1798 Words  | 4 Pages

    The wife could see Gary’s truck lights return in the dim light as his truck crawled up the hill. The wife wondered if she should run or stand. She wondered if her husband always drove so slowly or if the luminous beings slowed him down. An eerie fog was creeping in. The fog seemed unnatural for the time of year. It was too dry to have a fog. The wife wondered if she was loosing her mind. Gary finally was turning into the meadow. The luminous shapes were between her and the truck. The wife stood still.

    Read More

  • Anne Quarles: A Study of Homelessness

    1042 Words  | 3 Pages

    When it’s hot, the pedestrians are eager to go back to their air conditioned homes. When it’s cold, they bustle by just to grab a coffee. If it’s raining, they hurry home to stay dry. Anne, however, is subject to whatever the world brings her way. Hot, cold, or raining, Anne watches the mirage of people pass by.

    Read More

  • All The Light We Cannot See: Radio

    655 Words  | 2 Pages

    These thoughts communicate across all borders, audibly stringing together mind and rebellious ingenuity. In the novel “All The Light We Cannot See” these thoughts manifest a symbol of opportunity and hope among the Parisians and Germans during times of repression. The radio builds a world of curiosity and escape through-out the novel, revealing quiet talents and perceptive life within its characters. In “All The Light We Cannot See” the importance

    Read More

  • Annie Dillard's Essay 'Living Like Weasels'

    677 Words  | 2 Pages

    In Annie Dillard’s essay “Living Like Weasels” she tells us about an encounter she had with a weasel. When meeting the weasel, she begins to appreciate and admire their way of life, and how different it is from ours, how they live purely out of necessity, while we live by choice, bias, and/or motive. She questions the way we live our lives and makes us consider how different our lives could be if we only had one thing we live for, or in her words, “...stalk your calling in a certain skilled and supple way, to locate the most tender and live spot and plug into that pulse” (98). I personally do not believe that living like a weasel is the best way for a human to lead their lives for it is too restricting and does not sound as liberating as Dillard

    Read More

  • book

    1229 Words  | 3 Pages

    Flashes of bright lights were all that Sarah could see. Some green, some white, some blue, and some red. A collide a scope of colors. ‘I must be dead.’ She thought. She couldn’t feel her body or see anything but the flashes of light. She couldn’t do anything. She could barely think. She could almost hear noises somewhere far away, but that was all. ‘Maybe, I’m in heaven.’ She thought to herself. She drifted in the color swirl forever, it seemed until she finally heard someone far off call her name “Sarah Carter.” She wondered if it was time for her judgment and if she would pass the test. She wanted to answer but couldn’t. Then she became aware of the pain. The pain seemed to take over her whole body like a thousand knives attacking her. ‘Maybe I’m in hell.’ She thought to herself. She struggled to open her eyes to see something other than the hippie induced collide a scope of colors.

    Read More

  • Imagination In The Heart Of Realization By James Hillman

    1649 Words  | 4 Pages

    Imagination has been a topic of great inquiry within the therapeutic fields, and has been a crucial part of the relationship between society and healing. It has existed in many ways throughout theories and practices, while having various transformations back and forth between being seen as an effective path of therapy. This thesis emerged as a demanding question into what the imagination truly is.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Annie Hall

    1200 Words  | 3 Pages

    This film presents multiple fundamentals of visual development that supports the plot’s main idea that art can create life into something more pleasant and sustaining. In addition, Alvy narrates throughout the film to review the specific moments of his life that seems acceptable of his desires in the film. In particular, this film has a philosophical movement that develops through a guidance of the genuine of mortal obsessions as the theme of humor. This film also has a meaning in life, in the lack of steadiness in ethical and scriptural meaning, the unpredicted quality and involvement of change sometimes of unpredictability in relational relationships are just some of the stakes that this film was built on. Annie Hall film focuses on the observation

    Read More

  • An Analysis of No Angel

    723 Words  | 2 Pages

    Two weeks after her father’s funeral, our protagonist Annie sees his ghost in her bathroom. Knowing he is dead, they small talk about her boyfriend, their farm, their deceased family etc. until he suddenly vanishes. Her father makes occasional appearances after that. They keep talking about everyday life until one night at the Opera House, where she not only sees her father, but her brother and mother as well. Knowing where to find them, she takes her goodbye with her dead family.

    Read More

More about Annie Dillard's Interior Life

Open Document