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From Solar Eclipse to Total Eclipse of the Mind and Back By Tom Mitchell In Annie Dillard's Total Eclipse essay she uses different literary techniques of self acknowledgment, repetition and word choices to depict the process of losing her mind, which causes the readers to feel disoriented. This takes place during a trip to Yakima, WA to watch a solar eclipse with her husband. They arrive the night before and stayed overnight at a Yakima hotel before embarking to the foothills to view the eclipse. During the eclipse Dillard loses her mind when the moon's shadow hits her and everyone else on the hill. A short time later she regains identity with her mind at a nearby restaurant while having some eggs before heading home to the coast. Dillard tries to convey that the mind, while it is complex in its functioning, is also frail and a person can lose our state of mental consciousness at any time. She does this in one sentence by writing Further: while the mind reels in deep space, while the mind grieves, fears, or exults, the workday senses, ignorance or idiocy, like so many computer terminals printing out market prices while the world blows up, still transcribe their little data and transmit them to the warehouse in the skull (34). Dillard is trying to convey that the mind is a complex yet frail entity. Any human brain is capable of losing the identity with who they are, whether in a conscious or subconscious state of mind. Losing ones mind mean losing ones identity with life. This can happen under any circumstances and a wide range of emotions. Even in deterioration, the mind can still function by remitting data that controls a persons bodily functions and senses. Breaking down Dillards quote she duplicates the phrase while the mindunder two different contexts. In referring it with deep space she is talking about losing ones mind. The second

time using the phrase while the mind she relates to the other exterior circumstances that happen to us on a daily basis. A person can lose their mind and are still capable of processing emotions at the same time and not know the difference between good or evil, reality or delusion. The last part of the quote is referencing to the computer data being transmitted regardless of what is going on the mind. Even in the minds simple state of function, the mind processes over a million bits of data per second regardless if a person is awake or sleeping. This includes ones current emotional or mental state of mind. Dillard acknowledges this was happening to her several times during the eclipse. She first references the loss of sanity by exclaiming, 'Look at Mount Adams,' I said, and that was the last sane moment I remember (29). She said this after seeing the reddish hue, otherwise known as Alpenglow on Mount Adams. Immediately after this she speaks of how the world was wrong as the colors changed to metallic colors and she spirals through time grasping the bits and pieces of history. The metallic or darker colors and shadows remind her of how photos from the 19th Century looked like or of the faded colors of movies set in the Middle Ages. Immediately after these darker images she stated My mind is going out; my eyes were receding the way galaxies recede to the rim of space (30). This was an intense moment. As her conscious mind starts deteriorating, she knew it was happening and had little power over it. She also uses the word galaxies and space which are infinite objects with no charted ends. The mind itself is deep with complexities which science cannot chart. Therefore the mind can be depicted as having infinite similarities to space. Her purpose was to use celestial terminology as a cross reference to losing her mind. She ties in astronomy and the loss of her mental faculties in a fashion to make the reader feel disoriented yet some understand they have one in the same meaning.

Dillard uses repetition of word choices to give the readers a disoriented feeling on a literal level. By using the repetition of words (sometimes in the same paragraph or several paragraphs later) and sudden subject change, she conveys to the readers the process of losing her mind. She combines the astronomical terms with her frequent use of deep in several different passages to depict the vastness each is noted for. Dillard uses deep is to describe a place, emotion or in the mind. In one paragraph it references deep space as in the quote mentioned earlier in this essay. Dillard refers to deep in another paragraph of her essay as a warning about our psyche, In the deeps are the violence and terror of which psychology has warned us (32). Dillard identifies the mind is capable of violent and terrible thoughts and uses an academic term to acknowledge it has been researched. Psychology is the science of the mind or of mental states and processes ( Yourdictionary.com. 2010). This definition shows the mind has processes regarding its mental state. The mind can go into deep recesses for which there is no scientific name or location. Places so deep she refers to them as the entrance to deep space and ether. Ether is a known gas but also has a second meaning as the regions of space beyond atmosphere of the earth. All three of these words can be described as deep places of which there is yet much to explore and the same holds true for the mind. Dillard does not let the readers know until later in her essay that it is a result of the shadow from an eclipse that engulfs everyone on the hill side where she stood which adds to the feeling of disorientation. She turns her short time of loss of mind and reality into an eternity. One of the parts Dillard talks about in losing the mind is unreliable memory. She uses her memory or memory loss in several different paragraphs in her essay to give a feeling of disorientation. It becomes useless and she has problems recalling faces. She notes this in her earlier ramblings of her essay as she had problems recalling her husband: 'When I was at home'

said __________, 'I was in a better place' (26). At this point she was in the hotel room and the alarm was set for six. The only other person in the room was her husband. This quote was not a reference to her because it lacks a pronoun before the word said. On the other hand she does recall things from her memory; however, it is not a total recall. Dillard establishes both recalling old memory and loss of memory. The early process for her was recalling the metallic shades of old photos or movies and the river. The river, of course, she did identify later on by saying that she was dumbstruck on the Euphrates River (33). Dillards intent of using an unreliable memory of obscure or not so obscure things in her writing aids her objective to make her audience feel disoriented or confused or to say she is crazy. The solar eclipse was a dramatic event and left her in a state of shock or a black out. Dillard acknowledges: I did not know how we got to the restaurant (33). In order for her to get to the restaurant she had to climb down the hill she and her husband were on and drive to it. For a period of time she did not know where she was yet her body still functioned while her consciousness was gone. Noting back to the quote above in this essay on Deep Space, it mentions transcribing and transmitting data. Her body was still functioning and did not require medical assistance. The brain was not conscious of her identity yet it was cognizant of her body and what it must do to keep functioning. While the mind does not recall, the body still does even the most basic functions like breathing and walking. In a different context recalling certain words can also bring one back to a normal state of consciousness. While it took less than two minutes for Dillard to lose her mind from the powerful eclipse, it took only seconds to regain her mind when a college students words brought her back to reality, Did you see that little white ring? It looked like a Life-saver. It looked like a Life-saver up in the sky(33). While the college student perhaps thought the eclipse

looked like a Lifesaver candy. Dillard writes it as Life-saver, which has a totally different meaning as someone or something that saves lives. The college student was her life-saver, like a life guard saving a drowning victim from the depths of the ocean or a circular lifebuoy thrown to a person fallen overboard on a ship. His words brought her from the depths of her mind and back into reality. Dillard made some great literary decisions in her writing to give the audience a feeling of disorientation to convey that she had lost her mind. Close examination shows some of the processes of losing her mind with the use of self acknowledgments, repetition word choices and unreliable memory. Dillard acknowledges that she is aware of losing her mind by direct references to her last sane moment just before being hit by the moons shadow and again when her mind was going out after the darker analogies. To further enhance disorientation she uses the word choice of deep or astronomical terms to depict the magnitude of the process of losing her mind. The final part of losing her mind is an unreliable memory. While she was able to recall some obscure memories such as the metallic colors of old photos or movies set, she could not recall her husbands face from the eve before the eclipse. In a quick turn of events and a simple words like Life-saver she regains identity with herself. In the end Dillard warns her readers that the mind is infinitely deep and unexplored as space or the ocean and a person can be lost in the vastness.

Works Sited Dillard, Anne. Total Eclipse. First Year Composition Reader. New York: Pearson Custom Publishing, 2009. 25-36. Print.

Psychology. Yourdictionary.com. Lovetoknow Corp. 2009. Web. 25 March 2010