One of Annie Dillard’s goal with “Total Eclipse” is to give the reader a sense of utter disorientation. In the very first paragraph, this theme of disorientation is already strong and present because she begins by describing an experience that was traumatizing and remains unidentified. However, she repeats “sliding down the mountain pass” (97) twice. By reiterating expressions that describe experiences which the reader can only relate to emotionally and not with a visualization and actual identification, Dillard exaggerates a lacking of sense of place. In this same paragraph, she provides clear and direct narrative as well, though. She describes their movement from one place to another, giving specific names and a timeline: “the eclipse … would occur early the next morning” (97). She carries this identifiable and clear narrative into the beginning of the second paragraph, but then shifts to the very disconcerting image of the clown. On the next page, she uses the same device of clear narrative blending into and out of disorienting images. She adds more and more strange elements that don’t seem to fit together (or at least slightly surreal) until she reaches the climax of the audible words “Number six!” coming from the television. These words have no context and can do nothing except disorient the reader.
One way that Annie Dillard successfully grounds the reader in such a disorienting piece is her use of well-known symbols or cultural references. For example, when talking about how the eclipse began on page 100, she says that there was “no starting gun, no overture, no introductory speaker.” The reader can relate to all of these things instantly as openers for an important event, things that signal a beginning. Another example of the same technique can be found on page 108. She is trying to gather her wits, and she says “something more ordinary, came back to me along about the third cup of coffee.” Modern readers associate drinking multiple cups of coffee with waking up, finding your mental balance, becoming more aware of what’s going on. After doing her best to make the reader feel the same overwhelming disorientation that she felt during the eclipse, she brings us back to reality with the third cup of coffee.
The breakfast of the morning after also is a good example of how Dillard is bringing us with her in all the various steps and stages of her ecliptic mind-fuck. After struggling for pages and pages to describe the experience (not that I blame her), during the breakfast section she includes many spot-on analogies/metaphors. Although they are not entirely hers, such as the Life Saver that saved her life, they are all included in one section. Furthermore, that she included a simile such as life saver = eclipse that somebody else offered, it also helps build her theme of togetherness vs. isolation because we are not exclusively in her mind and her struggle: she includes others as well.
Me, as Annie Dillard, for a paragraph (if you ever read this Annie, I’m sorry):
It’s like being blind. The windows are unobstructed and everything comes through. Every morning everything comes through and it robs you of your senses. Pain in your eyes. Your muscles ache and you wonder how you’ll force yourself to move. Eventually I make it out of bed each day. I wake up and go to the dining hall and get myself a bowl of Honey-nut Cheerios. That is how the day begins before it progresses in earnest.
