Complexity

"Early the next morning we checked out. It was February 26, 1979, a Monday morning. We would drive out of town, find a hilltop, watch the eclipse, and then drive back over the mountains and home to the coast. How familiar things are here; how adept we are; how smoothly and professionally we check out! I had forgotten the clown's smiling head and the hotel lobby as if they had never existed. Gary put the car in gear and off we went, as off we have gone to a hundred other adventures."-Annie Dillard, Total Eclipse

This passage in the story stands out to me due to its complexity in meaning. When I first read this passage I thought  it was just another simple part of the story but when I reread it I realized that the passage's simplicity hides its sophisticated meaning. At first I thought it was just a passage that was stating when this event took place and a brief explanation of what happened prior to the main event. However I was wrong. Dillard briefly described the rising actions to the story for a reason. Her lack of detail was intentional because she wanted this passage to stick out against the rest of her story. She's trying to say that no matter how important we think the small things, like the creepy clown and checking out of a hotel, are they don't matter, it is all a part of a routine. I kind of like this idea that the small things don't really impact the main event but at the same time I don't like this idea of forgetting a face, the clown's face. The clown picture is like a person and Dillard is basically saying that in life we meet people and they affect us for a short time and when we move onto a new journey we forget these faces. I don't like this idea of continually forgetting people just because they are not currently apart of my life and that they don't matter because they were a part of my past. She is trying to justify forgetting someone from my past as a part of human nature and I don't think that it is acceptable to forget someone just because they are not currently apart of my life. I also do not like how this passage fits into the story.

The use of this passage in Dillard's story is contradicting to the story as a whole. By referring the loose of memory of the clown's image and the hotel lobby he 'forgets' part of the rising action. She acts as if this part of the story's rising action is irrelevant. This contradicts her whole story because in the beginning she describes brief parts of her journey like the avalanche and the "clumps of bundled people on the hillside". Why would she describe the rising action but then brush it off and basically say that its not important. If she truly thought it wasn't important she should have started her story off at the climax where she is on top of the mountain and watching the eclipse.

(10/05/14 3:02pm)