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Joan Didion Goodbye To All That Summary

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True happiness comes when one feels proud and accomplished. In the essay “Goodbye to All That”, Joan Didion arrives in New York. Without a purpose in life her six-month stay quickly turns into an eight year stay. Her contentment with being in New York rather than living in it results in a bout of depression and will hinder her attempts to find true happiness in Los Angeles. When the author arrives in New York, she is entranced by the city. The author’s love of New York is so deep that she cannot establish the years during which many of her early memories took place. Instead of being distinct, the memories are a mass jumble of imagery that captures her favourite aspects of the city. One night, Didion was running late to meet someone. Despite her rush, she stopped at Lexington Avenue, bought a peach, and ate it …show more content…

People in New York can no longer interest her; the characters have become the same. Similarly, Didion now avoids certain parts of New York because they offer a glimpse of what could have been. For instance, Madison Avenue, the centre of American advertising, contains too many women walking Yorkshire terriers, reminding Didion of how she has made little progress in her career since arriving at New York. Irritated and disappointed with herself, she begins to cut herself off from her friends: “[She] hurt the people [she] cared about, and insulted those [she] did not.” Didion initially feels better about herself after marrying, but she becomes so depressed that she is unable to leave her apartment. Within a few months, she and her husband move to Los Angeles to try for a fresh start. For Didion, however, the move itself will fail to bring her true happiness. Her depression resulted from herself, not the environment. Unless Didion can once again find her sense of self and recreate the structured, goal-driven lifestyle that she needs to survive, Los Angeles will be no different from New

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