Abstract
This paper examines in-depth the popular essays of American writer Joan Didion in the collections, "Slouching toward Bethlehem" and "The White Album." It describes that Didion's essays are always focused on her point of view, not just in what she sees, but also her opinion. The paper analyzes her writing style and illustrates that these essays are an excellent example of effective personal writing, which makes for interesting content.

Table of Contents:
Examples of the Essays of Joan Didion
The Writing Style of Joan Didion
The Value of Didion's Essays
Works Cited

From the Paper
"Joan Didion is a writer best known for her essays. These essays were collected in two volumes, Slouching toward Bethlehem (1968) and The White Album (1979). Both of these established Didion as a successful essayist. While she also wrote novels, fiction and screenplays, it was always her essays that remained most popular. To consider this further, the essays of Didion will now be analyzed. This will begin with a look at several examples. Her writing style will then be considered. Finally, this will be concluded with a look at why her work is worth reading."

Tags:personal, writing, opinion, style, white, album, bethlehem

Abstract
This paper analyzes Joan Didion's essay, "The White Album", emphasizing that her use of cinematic imagery ties in with her scenic storyline and her narrative style to help piece together the meaning of seemingly unrelated events that occurred in the late sixties and early seventies. The paper suggests that this style was an important aspect of Didion's journalistic endeavor during those chaotic years. The paper goes on to provide examples of this use of the visual in "The White Album" and concludes that it clearly helps the reader to understand the action in her essay.

From the Paper
"Didion uses the style of pictures to describe how these events in the essay relate to her. Why does she use vision oriented pictures? Pictures are powerful tools when telling stories. They can be interpreted differently from one person to another, or they can also be powerful markers to the person seeing them, visual bookmarks to highlight certain points in a story. Her first "Flash Cut" is the description of her medical report given by her doctor about her mental condition. All of the tests were negative, however, she still was described as having something wrong with her medically, such as obsessive compulsive disorder, etc (Didion 423). The significance of this picture in her story is to help set the mood for the time period she was living. During this era there was a tension that rippled throughout the country. There were things happening during this time that were culturally significant. The Black Panther movement, the Doors, the Manson murders, etc. all happened in the mid-sixties to the early seventies. "

Tags:Janis, Joplin, Huey, Lewis, Black, Panther, Doors

Abstract
The paper highlights how E.B. White and Joan Didion discuss their respective returns to memorable places of their childhood: for White it is the place of his summer vacations; for Didion, it is the summer home of her parents. The paper discusses how the referencing of the male reproductive zone - the groin - by White is intended to show the cycle of life and how humanity begets life and then falls prey to death. The paper further discusses how for Joan Didion, returning home means discovering that family life is not a pastoral thing but can be a very grim thing. The paper concludes that both stories are tales of how places that bear the imprint of yesteryear cause memories to be stirred and, in the case of White, unspoken warnings to be issued.

From the Paper
"The following paper will highlight how E.B. White and Joan Didion discuss their respective returns to memorable places of their childhood: for White it is the place of his summer vacations; for Didion, it is the summer home of her parents. Ultimately, the referencing of the male reproductive zone - the groin - by White is intended to show the cycle of life and how humanity begets life and then falls prey to death. As for Joan Didion,..."

Tags:didion, white, stories

Abstract
This paper analyzes Joan Didion's 1970 novel "Play as it Lays"from the point of view of the Los Angeles/Hollywood entertainment industry lifestyle. It looks at the emptiness of the life of major character, Maria and the nihilism and narcissism of the lifestyle.

From the Paper
"The culture of Los Angeles and Hollywood in particular may be seen as a major character in Joan Didion's novel "Play It As It Lays". For many Americans, California and Hollywood represent a golden dream but that dream has become tarnished and life-destroying ..."

Tags:Didion, Novel, Los, Angeles, Lifestyle, Hollywood, Nihilism

Abstract
This paper introduces, discusses and analyzes the essay "On Keeping a Notebook," written by Joan Didion. Specifically, it discusses cause and effect reflected in the essay. The paper describes the writing of Didion and the memories that she records in her notebook. It then discusses how these entries illustrate the concept of cause and effect.

From the Paper
"Another cause and effect of Didion's notebook are the memories she chooses to record there. Often, she makes them up, rather than basing them in reality, and they change her memories of events and family get-togethers. She notes the often say, "'That's simply not true,' the members of my family frequently tell me when they come up against my memory of a shared event" (Didion). Her mind does not record events the way they happened, it records events as she would like to see them happen, and this is very distressing to many of the people around her. So, her notebook causes her to change or bend her own reality into something more pleasing or more memorable. The cause and effect is that it causes others to question her memories, but it adds details and interest to her writings when she incorporates these unreal memories. "Similarly, perhaps it never did snow that August in Vermont; perhaps there never were flurries in the night wind, and maybe no one else felt the ground hardening and summer already dead even as we pretended to bask in it, but that was how it felt to me" (Didion). She indicates that reality is not nearly as important to her as the ideas and memories she has created in her notebook, and she does not understand why others are so bound to what "really" happened."

Tags:memories, characters, writing

Abstract
This paper focuses on Joan Didion?s most intriguing book, "Slouching Towards Bethlehem." The essays in the novel present a somber tone and, thus, meet cliches such as "don?t judge the book by its cover" and "what meets the eye is not always true". This paper also discusses the themes of Didion?s essays.

From the Paper
"Joan Didion's "Slouching Towards Bethlehem" provides its readers with archetypal examples of the social criticism permeating through new Journalism. This book is Joan Didion's second novel, which immediately established the young writer as one the best essayists of a stellar generation. Didion was restrained, classical, with emotions only hinted at; her effects depended less on obvious narrative experiment or hilarious excess than on the exact balance of a sentence and the careful placement of a clause or adjective, and on a pervasive sense of melancholy. Nearly all her longer essays might bear the classical epigraph Sunt lacrimae rerum -- There are tears in things (Michael Dirda, The Washington Post Book Club; Slouching Towards Bethlehem)."

Tags:literature, english, writing

Abstract
This paper discusses the concept of human development through different life stages. The paper focuses on the views of psychotherapists, Erik Erikson and Roger Gould, who discuss these changes. It describes Erickson's last three "ages of man" and Gould's recognition that individuals in their middle-age years must cope with major transitions. It then discusses Joan Didion's experience in this area, as described in her book "The Year of Magical Thinking."

From the Paper
"The changes that middle age can bring, can vary widely: From a loss of a job for a short period of time, to a major illness and recovery, to a divorce, to a death of a parent or worse to the death of a husband or child. For Joan Didion, the loss was monumental--her husband dies in a matter of seconds when her daughter was unconscious in the hospital. Through all their middle ages, Didion and her husband were a true couple. Both writers, they worked at home, spent all their time together, read each other's work, completed each other's thoughts, and carried on a continuous conversation as one person would. Then, Quintana, her daughter, dies, as well. Some people, like Didion (in her early 70s), somehow find the strength to cope--albeit with much agony and despair. Others do not. In an interview, Didion states, "I didn't die. My life has to continue. I don't have an option," (Grossman, 2005, 56). Yet, she did."

Tags:isolation, childhood, loss

Abstract
This paper reviews the conception of innate human nature in several authors. To Emerson, innate human nature implied being an individual, free from imitation of society. Joyce searched for meaning in the face of disillusionment and disappointment, where there was incongruity between the real and the ideal. Didion sought self-respect in the light of her experiences. Hobbes saw self-interest and selfishness as innate human nature. Camus saw life as absurd. None of them understood human nature in the light of God.

Abstract
This paper is based on Joan Didion's essay "Sentimental Journeys." The essay deals with the sorrows of hate crimes and its epitome - "rape." This essay is about New York after the horrifying tragedy of 9/11. The paper in short deals with crimes against women, especially the ones that take place in Central Park.

From the Paper
"In her essay we learn about the atrocity and inhuman acts that are performed in a rape and other crimes. There are certain characteristics that are involved in all types of rapes irrespective of the setting or location. According to statistics there are mostly gang rapes, which involve the participation of other men who may not, really personally assault the victim. There are also many victims who are made to bear the torture over and over again because of fear or threats.

Many rape cases also involve sexual torture where victims are sexually abused with guns or broken glass bottles and even truncheons. After the rape, men enjoy doing worse acts like cutting or literally "chopping off" a woman's breasts or cutting open their stomach."

Tags:rape, hate, crime

Abstract
This paper uses the works of eight authors to discuss Los Angeles' sense of place. It looks at how the combination of geography, history, art and the demographics influence people who live in L.A. and how they interact within that space. Authors referred to include Mona Simpson, Joan Didion, Marc Norman and Chester Hines among others.

From the Paper
" Los Angeles is sometimes known as the City of Angels or even the City of Lost Angels but in many ways it is the City of Dreams. Sometimes it is the City of Dreams Come True while other times it is the city where dreams go to die. Then there are ..."

Tags:Los Angeles, Sense of Place