Dillard's Partial Eclipse Summary

Observing the sunset, and the yellow ball of fire changed to hues of orange, and then almost tangerine. It merged with the sky, like juice-mix dissolving in a glass of water. The clouds were cotton-candy, as though they blushed at the warm touch of the sun. Silhouettes of birds flew home across a sky that was now magenta. The city line, towering buildings, and beautiful lakes with the reflections of emerald green trees were clearer than ever in that split second before the first drop your anxious body would experience.

• Reported about the greatest eclipse of the sun when it became night at noon in A.D.33. Pg. 85

“For the first time on the expedition the vista was primarily sky rather than earth. Herds of puffy cumulus raced beneath the sun, imprinting the landscape with a shifting matrix of shadow and blinding light.”

The author uses the idea of the solar eclipse to demonstrate the prevailing nature of the conflicts that existed in the historical America at the time, including the anxiety between oppression and liberty, the light and the dark, the introduction and use of machineries

Annie Dillard's "Seeing" demonstrates the intricacies of Dillard's relationship between the true place of matter in our world and how expectations and preconceptions shape how that matter is defined.

In the Los Angeles Times 2012 article “Let There Be Dark”, author Paul Bogard’s main purpose is to persuade his audience that natural darkness should be preserved. Paul Bogard describes the “smoky trails” left by meteors in the Minnesota summer night skies and the problem of light pollution diminishing the “irreplaceable value” of our natural darkness.

I believe that Dillard had a moment of isolation. She felt lonely, and wanted to experience this act of Mother Nature with others. Additionally, all of her husband’s pictures came out looking black and white and in a grayscale. She then stated that her hands were silver and the sky was a dark navy blue. She wanted to celebrate her first eclipse adventure with others. She also would have liked more man made lighting to get better

In the story of “Total Eclipse”, the spectacular total solar eclipse is one of the most wonderful phenomena in nature, revealing the serenity of nature. When the total eclipse is occurring, the sun is entirely covered by the moon, then the world turns to dark and silent in front of Dillard. She wrote, “You see the wide world swaddled in darkness; you see a vast breadth of hilly land, and an enormous, distant, blackened valley” (20). By describing the sudden darkness, Dillard tries to express her unexpected feelings to the nature and to the world. The world is unfamiliar to

Instead of writing one complete novel, Dillard writes many small short stories recounting various personal narratives. It is called “Total Eclipse” and it is about a couple that go to see a total eclipse 5 hours from the Washington coast. The way Dillard compares something as simple as crossing the mountains in their car to the death of someone. Also her use of imagery allows me to have an accurate picture of the hotel room and the painting of the clown. Throughout the first story the theme seemed to be about experiencing a moment. Dillard used the eclipse to illustrate this perfectly. The speaker had seen eclipses before but never in person. Almost 3-4 pages are devoted to explaining and describing the event. During the eclipse the speaker gives the reader information surrounding it. I personally enjoyed the comparison between the relationship between a partial and total eclipse to the relationship of kissing and marrying a man.“‘It can never be satisfied, the mind, never’”(24) I particularly enjoyed this quote because of how true it is. The mind has a thirst for knowledge that can never be quenched always wanting to dive deeper, climb higher and know more. The second is called “An Expedition to the Pole”, the first half of it is split between two seemingly unrelated stories. One about the north and south poles while the other talks about someone who points out the problems with the catholic beliefs. Later a third section is brought in

Analysis of Seeing In her essay, “Seeing,” Annie Dillard describes the act of seeing in two different perspectives: natural obvious and artificial obvious. She describes that someone who is an expert, is someone who is capable of seeing the artificial obvious, meaning they can see things that are typically unseen by someone who doesn’t know what they are looking for. Throughout her essay, Dillard experiences many moments in which she is looking for something, such as a muskrat at Tinker creek, but is not seeing. She asks herself why she cannot see what the lover sees.

This piece of writing was enjoyable to read. Annie Dillard does a magnificent job on getting this idea about sight across to the reader with her descriptive writing and personal anecdotes. She uses images of nature to show how people see the world and perceive things differently. The beauty in Dillard’s view of nature is created through her meticulous perception and she points out simple aspects of the world that most people usually take for granted in their every day lives such as being able to see the flying insects in the air. In reading Annie Dillard’s essay on seeing, I learned two important concepts. First of all, slowing down for a moment to consider the world that surrounds us, and having a greater appreciation in the small things in

What I believe it means is that all the things listed (“everything under the sun”) are invaluably important things that make us who we are, but in the gravity of huge situations nothing matters for a while except what is going on at that moment (such is the case in an actual eclipse). I have chosen this for my senior theme song because school has led to everything important in my life until this point, and everything that I have experienced throughout these years are going to be “eclipsed” by Graduation Day. As much as I hate getting ahead of myself, I have been able to answer every question I have posed to myself this year with: “What’s it matter? I’ll be gone after Graduation anyway.”

Dillard states that it is a common reaction to scream when witnessing the total eclipse. When the moon detaches from the sky and rolls over to cover the sun, there was “something else was happening at that same instant, and it was this, I believe, which made us scream” (Dillard 14). The eclipse knocked the audience out and astonished them. The part where it was most frightening to me was when Dillard started describing the total eclipse. She describes it as “the sky snapped over the sun like a lens cover” (Dillard 8). Then, she goes on explaining how there was nothing in the world and that we were the world’s dead people rotating and orbiting around. It frightens me to think that the bright and vivid world we live in becomes an empty darkness

Lighting flashed across the sky, interrupting my train of thought, and dark clouds have since covered the moon I had been

I concluded that the character “Brother Arrazola “ in the short story “The Eclipse “ underestimated the Indians which ultimately caused his death. I gathered that because he had prior knowledge of Aristiotle’s teachimgs, he felt smarter than the Indians. The main character seemed to perceive that they had a lack of astrological knowledge because of their living conditions in the Gautemalan forest. “Brother Arrazola” found out with his last breathe that the Indians were in fact more knowledgeable due to their teachings from the Mayan Empire. “Brother Arrazola’s “ demise was guaranteed when he tried to use trickery against the Indians, by the statement, “I can make the sun darken on high.”