TOW #25- After Life by Joan Didion (written text)

Joan Didion’s heartwrenching essay, “After Life,” clearly portrays her experience of life after her husband died. Cleverly titled “After Life,” Didion’s play on words contributes to her explanation of her own experiences of life without her husband, while at the same time demonstrating the idea of death (which is usually the connotation of “afterlife” spelled as one word). Didion’s essay is organized into five parts, like mini chapters. This helps to break up the essay and keep it engaging, as opposed to creating a ranting-like organization that seems to simply drone on. Didion’s hook is also very effective. She begins with a short poem-like collection of words that she had originally written after her husband’s death. What made these words significant was that Didion had previously been a writer (and her husband had been a writer as well) and these were the first words she had written after his death. These words follow a simple sentence structure, and although they are also simple words, when strung together, they have a deep meaning that connects to every possible audience member (because life can change at an instant for anybody). This deep meaning draws the audience in because they want to read an explanation of what these words mean and why she wrote them. The audience is the general public, however, geared more specifically towards adults who more frequently face similar instances of experiencing great losses in an instant, although it can be written for anybody since anybody can be affected by an instantaneous loss.  Additionally, Didion alludes to the events of 9/11, among other events, in an attempt to portray how losses like she faced are instantaneous and occur at the most “ordinary” of moments. The purpose of Didion’s essay is to explain a time in her life where she experienced this instantaneous loss, and through a well-organized essay and a compelling story of her experiences, Didion is able to connect to others who may have experienced a similar loss, or prepare others who are yet to experience a loss.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/25/magazine/25didion.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0