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September 30, 2005
First Draft (Seeing)
Whether you like Annie Dillard’s essay or not, it is clear that she has a unique way of saying things. “What you see is what you get” is not, in fact, her strongest statement in “Seeing” in terms of originality, however, it is a quote that I think may be the most important for the reader to pay attention to. Although this piece of writing is not the most pleasant to read, Dillard has an imaginative way of describing the point she is trying to make.
What is this point, exactly? Dillard explains her childhood experiences to begin. “…finding a penny will literally make your day, then, since the world is in fact planted in pennies, you have with your poverty bought a lifetime of days” (Dillard 95). This is her first major idea that she constructs. She is saying that if we are in the mindset that something small, such as seeing a perfect flower or watching a happy family together on the subway, can bring excitement, then we will live all of our days in happiness. This is a strong point to make. Many people in today’s modern world have fast-paced lives full of burden and tragedy. They only see the big picture without the details.
This is very closely related to her other main idea. Dillard writes about how when we take the time to look at something carefully, especially in nature, we will get more out of it. When we make time to see, we get more out of what we are looking at. She uses the example of the birds in the trees, and how if we just glance at a tree, we may see nothing but a tree, but if we sit on the grass and watch it closely, soaking up the atmosphere and staying attune to our senses, then we may notice the birds there even before they move and fly away.
If we look at the semantic meanings of this piece of writing, rather than the literal syntax, other meanings can be found in the text. For instance, when we focus on and notice the people around us who care, and the relationships that we take for granted, the more we will get out of these relationships that we form. Therefore, using nature could also be a metaphor for everything in life.
Overall, I agree with Dillard’s ideas, and after reading the essay again, I enjoy the layers of meaning that she includes, as she points out the importance of seeing life using nature to form stories. And we too, have to really see and focus on “Seeing” to see the semantics behind it and realize that “What you see is what you get.”
--Ariel
Posted by lcishagan at September 30, 2005 12:48 AM