28 pages • 56 minutes read
Annie DillardTotal Eclipse
Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1982A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Key Figures
Annie Dillard
Annie Dillard is an American author who was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction in 1975 for Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (1974). She is known for her lyrical prose, philosophical reflections, and observations of the natural world. Born in 1945, she has explored diverse literary genres, including nonfiction, poetry, essays, and literary criticism. Her writings often explore themes related to nature and the human experience. By employing a contemplative and poetic style, she bridges the gap between observation and contemplation. Dillard’s literary style is characterized by her capacity to notice the world and then translate those observations into contemplations on human existence and humans’ relation to nature and spirituality.
“Total Eclipse” is one of the pieces in Dillard’s Teaching a Stone to Talk (1982), a collection of short essays in which she explores the relationship between the natural world and humankind. Her description of the total eclipse exemplifies her depictions of natural phenomena coupled with philosophical reflections. The essay demonstrates her ability to find the profound in the everyday and to write about experiences that are both deeply personal and more broadly resonant. Dillard’s prose beckons readers to consider their role in the universe and recognize the profound within the simplicity of nature. Through Dillard’s personal lens, readers confront the simultaneous beauty and terror of the eclipse. The singularity of her narrative voice in “Total Eclipse” serves as a reminder of the potency of individual perception in shaping and defining one’s comprehension of the world.
Gary
Although the presence of Dillard’s husband, Gary, is secondary, he enriches the essay’s depth and resonance. He is presented as her adventure companion and offers a contrasting perspective on the eclipse, juxtaposed against Dillard’s emotional reactions. While Dillard is deeply engrossed in the metaphysical implications of the eclipse, Gary’s responses provide a grounded and rational perspective, illustrating the diverse ways individuals process and interpret such extraordinary experiences. Therefore, Gary is a pivotal figure in Dillard’s narrative. Their shared experience serves as a symbol of human companionship in the face of the vast and uncontrollable universe. Throughout the essay, Gary acts as a touchstone of familiarity and comfort amidst an event that Dillard finds surreal and unsettling. The cosmic and intimate, between profound introspection and shared human experience, are offered a balance by Dillard’s husband’s presence in the narrative.
Other Eclipse-Watchers
Dillard refers to herself, her husband, and the other eclipse-watchers in the hills collectively, particularly during the climax of the eclipse. As Dillard and Gary reach the hills of the Yakima Valley, Dillard notes the “clumps” of other eclipse viewers climbing the hills around them, setting up cameras and telescopes to capture the event. Prior to the eclipse, Dillard establishes herself as part of a collective with the other observers as she imagines them gathering to “pray for the world on its last day” (17), or to “sacrifice virgins, make rain, set stone stelae in a ring” (17).
Dillard’s account further emphasizes the collective experience of the spectators. There’s a shared sense of anticipation, awe, and even dread as they watch the eclipse, and some viewers scream: “That’s when the screams began. All at once this disk of sky slid over the sun like a lid” (19). She thus highlights a collective sense of disorientation and terror, which she later juxtaposes with a sense of aloneness among the same people: “We had all died in our boots on the hilltops of Yakima, and were alone in eternity” (22).
In Part 4, Dillard describes a college student at the restaurant who “knocked [her] for a loop” (23), as he states that the eclipse resembled a “Life Saver”—the boy’s access to words that recount the experience has a grounding effect on Dillard, as she characterizes him as an “alarm clock” capable of waking her from her disoriented state. In this way, the experiences of other eclipse viewers serve dual roles, as they both dwell with Dillard in the disorienting state of the unknown but also tether her to the present.
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By Annie Dillard
