learning journal 18: annie dillard's "total eclipse"

Recently, I read an essay entitled "Total Eclipse" by Annie Dillard, which is anthologized in the Next American Essay by John D'Agata. Using some of the essay theory I've read for this and other classes, I would like to do a mini-analysis of Dillard's essay by looking at how her essay aligns with the theory of the classical essay. Annie Dillard is one of the essayists on my list of sources, so reading this additional essay by her allowed me to expand my knowledge of her writing.

The essayist needs form only as lived experience and he needs only its life, only the living soul-reality it contains. But this reality is to be found in every immediate sensual expression of life, it can be read out of and read into every such experience; life itself can be lived and given form through such a scheme of lived experience. (Lukacs)  

If Lukacs’ above statement is correct, essayists carry the responsibility of giving form to life through living life—through the “scheme of lived experience.” From an essayist’s perspective, “giving form to life” means that an essayist does not merely regurgitate a narrative of life; an essayist, rather, meditates on the meaning of life’s experiences and attempts to find connections and conclusions in reality. The very definition of the word essay suggests its connection with life’s experiences; as Lopate says, ““to essay is to attempt, to test, to make a run at something without knowing whether you are going to succeed." In Annie Dillard’s essay, “Total Eclipse,” she succeeds in fulfilling the responsibilities of an essayist because she moves beyond the narrative into greater truths; because of this, Dillard’s essay is easily identifiable as such, and in her essay the reader can find meaning beyond the experience.

In his introduction to Art of the Personal Essay, Phillip Lopate explains that one common trait of personal essays is the essayist’s desire to discover truth beyond the words on the page. Lopate writes that the essay is “a mode of inquiry, another way of getting at the truth." Dillard exemplifies this trait as she meditates on her inability to adequately describe her experience with the solar eclipse: “The mind—the culture—has two little tools, grammar and lexicon: a decorated sand bucket and a matching shovel. With these we bluster about the continents and do all the world’s work. With these we try to save our very lives” (107). Instead of restricting her prose to a mere description of the eclipse, Dillard allows the reader to glimpse into her thoughts, into the meaning that she attaches to the experience. Dillard uses the experience to get at the truth, to explain that despite the fact that all we can do is “bluster about” with the language we have, it is the tool we desperately need to “save our very lives.” Dillard simultaneously meditates on humanity’s dependence on language and attempts to use that language to describe her own experience.

As essayists attempt to gain and interpret life’s experiences, they demonstrate their own ignorance of the world; yet, despite their ignorance, they also demonstrate their never-ending curiosity of the world. Dillard admits in her essay that the concept of an eclipse is at times difficult to grasp “for those of us whose grasp of astronomy is so frail that, given a flashlight, a grapefruit, two oranges, and fifteen years, we still could not figure out which way to set the clocks for Daylight Savings Time” (101). This light-hearted transparency allows Dillard to admit her lack of knowledge while at the same time showing the reader that a partial understanding won’t stop her from benefiting from her experience. It is her inexperience, perhaps, that helps her relate to her readers. In “On the Writing of Essays,” Alexander Smith, quoting Montaigne, says that when writing essays, “I do not understand; I pause; I examine.” The essay, then, is not a demonstration of knowledge as much as an examination, an attempt to enlighten and understand. Dillard’s meditations throughout her essay allows the readers to see her as student and explorer, a seeker of knowledge who is willing to share her findings with her readers.

I will close by discussing one last characteristic that Dillard exemplifies in her essay. Alexander Smith wrote that “The world is not so much in need of new thoughts as that when thought grows old and worn with usage it should, like current coin, be called in, and, from the mint of genius, reissued fresh and new.” As Dillard writes about the solar eclipse, she explores themes of death, the brevity of life, of the inadequacy of language, all of which are ideas explored more than once in the literary canon. However, because she relates these themes directly to her own experience, she begins to renew those themes; in other words, an essayist answers Smith’s call for renewing ideas and thoughts by connecting them to a personal life experience. Making connections where they aren’t readily apparent is an essayist’s trick, a way they can give form to life in a new way, which will awaken readers and ask them to see the world through the essayist’s eyes. 


I don't want it to seem like this is merely an analysis of an essay without having any relevancy to my project. This is the type of critical thinking and analyzing that I will have to be doing as I am in the field. I will have to take each essay and not only compare it to essay theory but compare it to British classical essays as a whole. This was good practice.