Total Eclipse

"Total Eclipse" is a story about trying to understand life. The narrator goes through a serious of interpretations regarding life through the experience of the total eclipse. The speaker takes a deep journey into the depths of her mind and proposes many questions about life. Ultimately, it shows how it feels to lose one's former notions about self and life and to regain a new sense of perception.

When first on the mountain to watch the total eclipse, the narrator describes the sky as bright and colorless. He/she says what you see is the sun go through phases while getting narrower and narrower. Gradually, you see less sun and more sky and suddenly a black circular shape engulfs the sun. Darkness sweeps over the land and the sky.

It was a journey into the unknown, at least partially. She had experienced a partial eclipse before but she says the experience does not prepare you at all for a total eclipse. This is one of the questions about human life that the narrator raises: does experiencing something similar to something else prepare you for that following experience. Her opinion on the matter is obviously no. Another question raised within the story is when do theory and reality come together as one. The narrator says during a totally eclise it's easy to separate the two. He/she says seeing a total eclipse is entirely different from what you know. When describing the relationship he/she has to Gary, it's remarked, "we had all started down a chute of time. At first it was pleasant; now there was no stopping it." This implies the idea and question of does knowing your going to die mean you have to feel sad or unpleasant. Her answer seems to be yes.

Throughout the essay, the speaker continually makes the comments that he/she is dead and so are the others around him/her. This description first gets introduced when experiencing the total eclipse. The narrator feels lost and out of place during the event. He/she has trouble recognizing that which is or was familiar. The colors are that of metallic and hues of gray. He/she says there is no sound and the world they know is gone. It seems as though