Analyzing Annie Dillard's Essay 'Seeing'
Essay Title: “Seeing”
Author: Annie Dillard
Analytical essay
Title: The sense of sight in our life.
The personal essay “Seeing”, written by Annie Dillard, indeed is a mystical literary work. Dillard uses magical and poetic language to describe her own experience of observation of the nature surrounding Tinker Creek. She introduces her subject with an anecdote about her childhood. When she was a little girl she hides her own pennies along the sidewalks of the streets. Afterward, she drew chalk arrows that helped any passer-by “regardless of merit” to find these secret places as “a free gift from the universe”. In her young age, Dillard played this game because she was interested to find out what gifts our world can hide. Many years later she starts to analyze and understand nature of these wonderful gifts. In this essay with the help of observation experience Dillard shows that the universe is full of wonderful gifts from nature and one should find these gifts in order to make their lives more colorful. …show more content…
Everyone gets wonderful ability to see from birth.
However, people usually do not use one hundred percent of this amazing ability in order to pay proper attention to beauties of the world. Consequently, they lose the chance to appreciate the most interesting moments of their lives, and as a result, live their lives at a full value. This fact and Dillard’s youthful habit to play games causes her to wonder about variety of beautiful gifts that our world hide. She writes:
It is still the first week in January and I've got great plans. I've been thinking about seeing”. There are lots of things to see, unwrapped gifts and free surprises. The world is fairly studded and strewn with pennies cast broadside from a generous hand
(693).
Dillard tells about pennies as a symbol of free gifts from the universe. Most adult people think they come to this world to do money. Therefore, they are not able to see the variety of free gifts in the world. Dillard makes a parallel between surprises in the world and pennies in order to exposes that the revelation of beautiful gifts from the universe no less important than making money. Now Dillard remembers that in her youth she watched the insects that flew in the air, but now she feels that she has lost her ability to catch the sight of inhabitants that are one of the most beautiful parts of nature and which are unjustifiably ignored. In order to recover her ability Dillard tries to observe nature closely. She discovered that the hundreds of beautiful birds were invisible among the branches of tree before she started really paying attention to them. At first sight, she could not see them. She saw just a green tree’s twigs with no birds among them. However, most people cannot see these birds behind of green leaves, because they do not actually look for them or probably just do not care. Some people can ask, Who cares about birds on the tree or caterpillars in the grass even if they are very beautiful? The human world is too big for small ants, butterflies or caterpillars. She writes a metaphoric sentence to show the importance of ability to see, “Can you find hidden in the leaves a duck, a house, a boy, a bucket a zebra, and a boot?”(694) It means that people not only are blind for the small insects, they even cannot catch sight to alive or big objects. People who cannot see butterflies on the flowers would not able to catch sight of different colors the sun’s rays, which are extremely amazing. Some people do not look and therefore do not see millions of stars in the night sky, and that is why they never think about how big these stars are in reality and that space is huge and endless. They never look deep into the water with the thought that there are million of other lives there. Unfortunately, nature never waits when people would be ready to open their eyes in order to see how wonderful the world could be.
Dillard recovered her ability to see beauties of the world. Now she is able to catch sight to “artificial obvious,” when ability to see incorporates with imagination and power of observation. She writes:
“A fog that won’t burn away drifts and flows across my field of vision. When you see fog move against a backdrop of deep pines, you don’t see the fog itself, but streaks of clearness floating across the air in dark shreds. So I see only tatters of clearness through a pervading obscurity. I can’t distinguish the fog from the overcast sky; I can’t be sure if the light is direct or reflected. Everywhere darkness and the presence of the unseen appalls.”(696)
Dillard understands the impossibility to see the fog on the dark background or identify it presence from the “overcast sky,” but Annie Dillard knows that it is there, because she is able to see “streaks of clearness”. It is difficult to distinguish anything in the darkness. Nevertheless, the dimness is a foundation to turn on the imagination and see, for instance, a “cloud in the sky suddenly lighted as if turned on by a switch”. The author writes about the interaction of dark and light, in order to show readers connection between two opposites. She also uses quotations of other writers in her essay. For example regarding the interplay of the dark and the light she makes the reference to Van Gogh letter, “If we are blinded by darkness, we are also blinded by light.” (698) This sentence is significant, because the dark cannot exist without the light. Everything is connected in this world. Therefore, if people would learn to see simple wonderful objects, they will get ability to see “artificial obvious.”
People should know about wonderful possibilities of their vision in order to see beautiful gifts form nature. Dillard uses quotations of Marius von Sender from his book “Space and Sight” in order to show that. In this book, people who have been blind from their birth are getting the ability to see after surgery operations. They have never seeing anything but the darkness and now they get a chance to investigate the world in new colors. Before they were able to feel the sun’s warm, but could not determine the colors of the sun’s rays. The author describes in detail the limitations that blind person feels, “Those who are blind from birth… have no real conception of height or distance.” (700)
After they got their vision most of “newly sighted people” were astonish by the variety of colors in the universe. One girl for example, “was dazzled by the world’s brightness and kept her eyes shut two weeks” (702). Another little girl visited a garden and stopped near the tree. She “stands speechless in front of the tree, which she only names on taking hold of it, and then as the tree with the lights in it.” (702) This book is a bright example that helps us to figure out the beauty of the world. Dillard “saw color-patches for weeks after” she read this wonderful book. In the essay she writes: “I live now in a world of shadows that shape and distance color, a world where space makes a kind of terrible sense.” (703)
Dillard leads readers through her essay “Seeing” to show that people only see what their eyes want to see. But in reality, people should be able to catch sight of not only visible and explicit things that happen around them but they also have to pay attention to something that could be hidden that is not easy to discover. Then probably people would be able to get beautiful gifts from universe. For example, Dillard finds the way to see the cedar tree with the light through the trunk. She writes, “It was less like seeing than like being for the first time seen, knocked breathless by a powerful glance.” (706) In conclusion I would like to emphasize that people are able to find a magic that life and nature present to us if they will try but it is also always possible to create this magic on your own too.
Author: Annie Dillard
Analytical essay
Title: The sense of sight in our life.
The personal essay “Seeing”, written by Annie Dillard, indeed is a mystical literary work. Dillard uses magical and poetic language to describe her own experience of observation of the nature surrounding Tinker Creek. She introduces her subject with an anecdote about her childhood. When she was a little girl she hides her own pennies along the sidewalks of the streets. Afterward, she drew chalk arrows that helped any passer-by “regardless of merit” to find these secret places as “a free gift from the universe”. In her young age, Dillard played this game because she was interested to find out what gifts our world can hide. Many years later she starts to analyze and understand nature of these wonderful gifts. In this essay with the help of observation experience Dillard shows that the universe is full of wonderful gifts from nature and one should find these gifts in order to make their lives more colorful. …show more content…
Everyone gets wonderful ability to see from birth.
However, people usually do not use one hundred percent of this amazing ability in order to pay proper attention to beauties of the world. Consequently, they lose the chance to appreciate the most interesting moments of their lives, and as a result, live their lives at a full value. This fact and Dillard’s youthful habit to play games causes her to wonder about variety of beautiful gifts that our world hide. She writes:
It is still the first week in January and I've got great plans. I've been thinking about seeing”. There are lots of things to see, unwrapped gifts and free surprises. The world is fairly studded and strewn with pennies cast broadside from a generous hand
(693).
Dillard tells about pennies as a symbol of free gifts from the universe. Most adult people think they come to this world to do money. Therefore, they are not able to see the variety of free gifts in the world. Dillard makes a parallel between surprises in the world and pennies in order to exposes that the revelation of beautiful gifts from the universe no less important than making money. Now Dillard remembers that in her youth she watched the insects that flew in the air, but now she feels that she has lost her ability to catch the sight of inhabitants that are one of the most beautiful parts of nature and which are unjustifiably ignored. In order to recover her ability Dillard tries to observe nature closely. She discovered that the hundreds of beautiful birds were invisible among the branches of tree before she started really paying attention to them. At first sight, she could not see them. She saw just a green tree’s twigs with no birds among them. However, most people cannot see these birds behind of green leaves, because they do not actually look for them or probably just do not care. Some people can ask, Who cares about birds on the tree or caterpillars in the grass even if they are very beautiful? The human world is too big for small ants, butterflies or caterpillars. She writes a metaphoric sentence to show the importance of ability to see, “Can you find hidden in the leaves a duck, a house, a boy, a bucket a zebra, and a boot?”(694) It means that people not only are blind for the small insects, they even cannot catch sight to alive or big objects. People who cannot see butterflies on the flowers would not able to catch sight of different colors the sun’s rays, which are extremely amazing. Some people do not look and therefore do not see millions of stars in the night sky, and that is why they never think about how big these stars are in reality and that space is huge and endless. They never look deep into the water with the thought that there are million of other lives there. Unfortunately, nature never waits when people would be ready to open their eyes in order to see how wonderful the world could be.
Dillard recovered her ability to see beauties of the world. Now she is able to catch sight to “artificial obvious,” when ability to see incorporates with imagination and power of observation. She writes:
“A fog that won’t burn away drifts and flows across my field of vision. When you see fog move against a backdrop of deep pines, you don’t see the fog itself, but streaks of clearness floating across the air in dark shreds. So I see only tatters of clearness through a pervading obscurity. I can’t distinguish the fog from the overcast sky; I can’t be sure if the light is direct or reflected. Everywhere darkness and the presence of the unseen appalls.”(696)
Dillard understands the impossibility to see the fog on the dark background or identify it presence from the “overcast sky,” but Annie Dillard knows that it is there, because she is able to see “streaks of clearness”. It is difficult to distinguish anything in the darkness. Nevertheless, the dimness is a foundation to turn on the imagination and see, for instance, a “cloud in the sky suddenly lighted as if turned on by a switch”. The author writes about the interaction of dark and light, in order to show readers connection between two opposites. She also uses quotations of other writers in her essay. For example regarding the interplay of the dark and the light she makes the reference to Van Gogh letter, “If we are blinded by darkness, we are also blinded by light.” (698) This sentence is significant, because the dark cannot exist without the light. Everything is connected in this world. Therefore, if people would learn to see simple wonderful objects, they will get ability to see “artificial obvious.”
People should know about wonderful possibilities of their vision in order to see beautiful gifts form nature. Dillard uses quotations of Marius von Sender from his book “Space and Sight” in order to show that. In this book, people who have been blind from their birth are getting the ability to see after surgery operations. They have never seeing anything but the darkness and now they get a chance to investigate the world in new colors. Before they were able to feel the sun’s warm, but could not determine the colors of the sun’s rays. The author describes in detail the limitations that blind person feels, “Those who are blind from birth… have no real conception of height or distance.” (700)
After they got their vision most of “newly sighted people” were astonish by the variety of colors in the universe. One girl for example, “was dazzled by the world’s brightness and kept her eyes shut two weeks” (702). Another little girl visited a garden and stopped near the tree. She “stands speechless in front of the tree, which she only names on taking hold of it, and then as the tree with the lights in it.” (702) This book is a bright example that helps us to figure out the beauty of the world. Dillard “saw color-patches for weeks after” she read this wonderful book. In the essay she writes: “I live now in a world of shadows that shape and distance color, a world where space makes a kind of terrible sense.” (703)
Dillard leads readers through her essay “Seeing” to show that people only see what their eyes want to see. But in reality, people should be able to catch sight of not only visible and explicit things that happen around them but they also have to pay attention to something that could be hidden that is not easy to discover. Then probably people would be able to get beautiful gifts from universe. For example, Dillard finds the way to see the cedar tree with the light through the trunk. She writes, “It was less like seeing than like being for the first time seen, knocked breathless by a powerful glance.” (706) In conclusion I would like to emphasize that people are able to find a magic that life and nature present to us if they will try but it is also always possible to create this magic on your own too.