Name: Fabien Calloud

Annie Dillard’s “Total Eclipse”

Provide short paragraph responses (neatly handwritten or typed) to the following:

1 How does the clown at the beginning (10) connect to Dillard’s later reflections (27)? How
does it connect to the essay?

There are similar connections that can be seen in her later reflections such as the clown
and the old men in the hotel. This is connected to the essay because of the surrounding
between the objects we can see and the people she talks about.

2 *** What emotional effect does the eclipse have on the viewers? On Annie?
(Give examples & cite page numbers)

The emotional effect that the eclipse has on its viewers is that she sees everything in a
different way. She describes how everything changed, “The grasses were wrong; they were
platinum.” (pg.16) She also describes how she has never seen something like this and that it
was a completely different emotion she felt compared to a partial eclipse that she had seen
before.

3 Dillard refers to “waking” (22-23). How does it connect to the essay?

When Dillard refers to “waking” on page 22 I think she is talking about how one day we
wake up and we are all mature and becoming adults, and how the transition on becoming
adults was self-taught, “We have so mastered the transition we have forgotten we ever
learned it” (pg. 22) It connects to the essay by showing how life goes on and how we became
adults one day not fully knowing how. “waking” refers to the transition on becoming an
adult.

4 Annie Dillard refers to “the Euphrates” (17, 23). Why is that river historically significant?
How might that connect to Dillard’s eclipse experience?

When Dillard refers to “the Euphrates” she is taking about how Gary and her harvested the
grass and then used the grass that they found on the hillsides and then built a shelter near
the grass. This makes it think that Dillard lived near the Euphrates valley for quite a while,
which made her reflect on her life. That might connect to Dillard’s eclipse experience
because she may have saw the eclipse from the Euphrates valley.

5 What effect might eclipses have had on people 2000-3000 years ago?

In my opinion the eclipses had a much more meaningful effect 2000- 3000 years ago. I think
that seeing an eclipse could’ve meant something religious or sacred for the ancient people at
that time. At that time an eclipse could’ve meant a sign from the gods, or a symbol for the
people. I would say that a few thousand years ago an eclipse is something symbolic, today
an eclipse is special, and it is not something religious or sacred even though there may be
some people who may think that an eclipse is a sign.

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 Name: Fabien Calloud
Annie Dillard’s “Total Eclipse”
6 *** Choose two separate descriptive sentences from pages 16-18 or 25-28 (quote them
and give page numbers). What about them caught your eye?

“It was a loosened circle of evening sky, suddenly lighted from the back” (pg. 17) This
descriptive sentence caught my eye because she describes the sky as if it just appeared out
of nowhere. This descriptive sentence, which is short, but it brings a very accurate
description of what is happening at that moment.
“This was the universe about which we have read so much and never before felt: the
universe as a clockwork of loose spheres flung at stupefying, unauthorized speeds.” (pg. 25-
26) This second descriptive sentence caught my eye because of how she describes the
universe in a way that I would never imagine. Also, in this sentence we can imagine how fast
the universe works and how we can imagine the universe changing every time.

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