Total Eclipse by Annie Dillard

Dillard writes of the total eclipse of 1980.  This is a picture taken of that very eclipse Photo Credit

Total Eclipse, by Annie Dillard, is an essay in which Dillard discusses the importance of communication between people by sharing her personal experiences of a total eclipse she once saw.  Dillard’s essay is broken into 4 sections: arriving for the eclipse, the actual eclipse, the implications of the eclipse on Dillard, and going back to reality.  Dillard is writer in both fiction and nonfiction, and has won a Pulitzer Prize in 1975.  This essay first appeared in the literary journal Anteaus in 1982.  In Total Eclipse, Dillard argues that without a way to communicate experiences with other, those experiences are deemed worthless or valueless.  Dillard writes, “All those things for which we have no words are lost.  The mind – the culture – has two little tools, grammar and lexicon: a decorated sand bucket and a matching shovel” (Dillard 10). She claims that without the ability to communicate or pass down an idea, that idea will simply be lost and have no value in the world.  Dillard makes her argument by using rhetorical devices, including anecdotes and the description mode of writing (which go hand in hand).  Dillard establishes great ethos by explaining her experience with a total eclipse and how that experience is a metaphor for all experiences in life.  Dillard describes her own experience with incredible detail.  For example, she writes, “The hotel lobby was a dark, derelict room, narrow as a corridor, and seemingly without air.  We waited on a couch while the manager vanished upstairs to do something unknown to our room.  Beside us on an overstuffed chair, absolutely motionless, was a platinum-blond woman in her forties wearing a black silk dress and a strand of pearls.  Her long legs were crossed; she supported her head on her fist” (Dillard 2).  Dillard very comprehensively describes this setting, and in doing so creates a connection with the audience.  Her descriptions throughout the essay are very emotionally grasping, and pull the reader in to her world.  Because of this incredible description, I believe Dillard accomplished her purpose in writing this essay.