Friday, July 20, 2012
Total Eclipse
The essay "Total Eclipse" by Annie Dillard seemed a tad odd to me. I found Dillard to be a bit overly dramatic about a natural occurrence. Throughout the essay she acts as if the world was ending, but it was only a total eclipse. Besides that point I thought it was a fantastically interesting essay to read, because I most likely will never be able to view a total eclipse. The descriptions were really interesting to imagine especially when she starts talking about things starting to look like a movie filmed in the Middle Ages (although there were no cameras whatsoever in those times). The quote: "The hillside was a nineteenth-century tinted photograph from which the tints had faded" really allows the reader to understand what it was like to be in that moment. While reading the essay I kept questioning if Dillard was the only one who was feeling this way, or if everyone thought that this occurrence was awful? Personally I believe if I had the chance to view a total eclipse I would be more happy than distressed. Science interests me and I think it scares Dillard for the most part. I was also wondering what her husband thought the whole time and after. Did he feel the same way, or did he think it was the coolest thing he had ever seen? Overall I really enjoyed the essay and I liked how I could almost picture what it was like to be viewing the total eclipse in 1979.
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I had the same questions as you Kate. Was she the only one who felt this way? Dillard made it off as though everyone else was feeling the same way, but was that just to make herself feel more secure about what she thought she saw?
ReplyDeleteBeing a witness to a total eclipse must be an amazing experience. Personally, I don't think her article did it much justice.
Kate, I felt similar to you about this writing. I never thought that seeing something amazing like an eclipse would be so distressed. She seemed to have a very active imagination as she described the things that she was comparing to the eclipse. Her descriptions were so detailed, you could tell she was passionate about the eclipse. She seemed more afraid than anything though, which puzzled me because I would think that it would be a much m ore pleasant experience. Guess we won't know until we see it for ourselves!
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