Need help with Annie Dillard essay

[Ezekiel]

Would anyone be kind enough to share their interpretation of Annie Dillard's essay titled, "Total Eclipse" from the book, Teaching A Stone To Talk. It's too abstract for my simple mind. Help!

Thank you.

[amuse]

ig, i remember that essay, i think; is it the one where she's living in washington or someplace or other and goes into throes when the eclipse happens, this whirring of sound like her lights in her body go out and it leaves you feeling like she writes of a bunch of highfalutin' hogwash?

if you can scan it and e-mail it to me i'll be able to respond, had to read it 3 years ago.

[metaxy99]

i can't write your essay for you (well, i could, but it would probably cost too much ;) but i would probably title a paper on this 'moments of totality', picking up on a phrase she uses near the end of the essay.

some things you might want to think about - i have no sense of your age, sophistication as a reader, experience with dillard, etc, so what i say may seem alternately banal and abstract or pedantic - pick and choose what you find useful, and by all means feel free to discuss any ideas further.

dillard is charting an experience of the sublime in nature. a central theme seems to be the ultimate 'privacy' of that kind of experience, or inaccessibility of that experience to public consciousness, how that experience resists expression in language, resists communication at all.
how does she feel about that? do her feelings change?

you might pick up on this with her metaphors of depth - mines, oceans, etc. if the experience has led her to depths, then the 'life saver' reference from the boy in the diner is fitting. she says that he is a "walking alarm clock."
is surface/depth analagous to waking/sleeping?

you might (in other words, i would) throw in something from emerson's essay 'experience' for good measure here, if that is accessible to you. in that essay, emerson writes of how we never have a firm grasp on our experience of important things/events - that these things 'slip away' from our us. you might relate dillard's experience of the sublime to emerson's experience of grief. ultimately, they are both somewhat disappointed that they are not more moved, more deeply and permanently impacted, by their experience.

why is the clown important? is he mocking her? if so, why is it an appropriate image? what does it represent? what about the fact that the clown is made up of vegetables (ie, organic matter) - "you might wake up dead in a small hotel, a cabbage head watching tv.."?
is the clown - as organic matter (but also as publicly available meanings, as commerce, as entertainment) supposed to be, in part at least, the mocking body, the "simple spaniel that can lure the mind to its dish"?
if the clown represents more than just the body, then is it more than the body that is ultimately responsible for the mind sitting down to its dish?

the opening with everyone gathered on the hills suggests ritual. how is the experience of the eclipse like a rite? what structural similarities does it have in common with ritual as such? if it is (or is supposed to be) ritual - is there something flawed about it?

what do you think of dillards's description of the eclipse? at first, she relates the experience to being in a movie. is that adequate? is her description objective or subjective? if you think that it is subjective - ie as much about her psychological response to the thing as about the thing itself - how might that be appropriate?

do you think her tone remains constant?
in the middle:
"the dear stupid body is as easily satisfied as a spaniel"

at the end:
"apparently people share a sense of these hazards..."
"...we bounce back and hurry for the latitudes of home"

is she ultimately disappointed, even bitter? do you think that she has worked something out and reconciled herself?

[Ezekiel]

Thank you, Metaxy99. Your insight is very helpful (... like a life saver).

[metaxy99]

glad i could help.