Joan Didion Analysis Essay

In Joan Didions memoir, she outlines the events of a painfully tragic inhabit in her life. She takes the reader with her dismal attitudes of embarrassment, uneasiness, and eventual heaven. Didion explains how her distorted compute on vanity from her childhood is morphed into lifes reality when she is not accepted into Phi Beta Kappa. Strong comparisons and distinct diction engulfs the reader and leads them through a journey in Didions life. The text begins with Didion scribbling in her diary, presumptively in an upset mood judging by the sizeable ingrain she used to create a dramatic effect.I wrote in big(a) letters across two pages of a notebook that innocence ends when virtuoso is stripped of the delusion that one likes oneself. This dramatic statement immediately maulers the reader, causing them to wonder what horrific event resulted in Didions explicit state of agitation. A shift occurs as Didion begins to rec tout ensemble, some years later, on her foolish and naive t hought process. Didion expresses her chagrin feeling as she claims, I recall with embarrassing clarity the flavor of those particular ashes.It was a involvement of misplaced self-respect. In this statement Didion refers to her documentations in her diary as ashes signifying the pretermit of reality they held. Due to Didions crooked view on self-respect she is stripped of her ability to pledge in Phi Beta Kappa. In the pursuit paragraph Didion explains that it was quite obvious why she did not bestow choose into Phi Beta Kappa. She was not the academic Raskolnikov she had dreamt herself to be she simply did not shit the grades.But this still left her unsettled. Although not getting into Phi Beta Kappa was hardly a tragedy, it was still the end of something for Didion and she states The daylight I did not get into Phi Beta Kappa nonetheless marked the end of something and innocence may swell be the word for it. Didion then comes to numerous realizations due to the mendacio us realities her childhood consisted of. For example, she loses the firm belief that lights would always turn green meaning she forget no longer always get her way.The idea that the virtues instilled from her upbringing could impart her not only Phi Beta Kappa Keys but happiness, honor, and the love of a approximate man was no longer practical. And she began to realize that the social standards of good manners, salvage hair, and proven competence on the Stanford-Binet scale, which her self-respect reflected upon, were not all that mattered. In the concluding sentence to this paragraph Didion states, I faced myself that day with the nonplussed apprehension of someone who has come across a vampire and has no crucifix in hand. This represents the feeling of uneasiness Didion portrays as she realizes she is defenselessly against the fact that her innocence could no longer learn her through life. In the final paragraph Didion admits that To be driven back upon oneself is uneasy bu t It is the one condition necessary to the new beginnings of self-respect. This statement exemplifies the attitude of enlightenment Didion began to feel. It shows that coming to terms with the person you really are is difficult, but it is all-important(a) when trying to obtain true self-respect.In conclusion, Didion realizes that her marked cards cannot carry her though life. Didion is reviewing the actions in her past that were reflections of her misplaced self-respect. She cannot carry around her false credentials in hope to gain respect from others. After looking back on the falsely identified tragedy that changed her life, Didion understands that self-respect has nothing to do with the people you surround yourself with. Who you are does not reflect upon your past, or your reputation, but upon your present self. And the courage you project.