Driven to Clarify the Subject

¶ … driven to clarify the subject with a focused goal. This fulfills what she calls the obligation "to use the narrating self only to shape those associations that will provide drive and lead on to inner resolution" (Gornick 30). It shows sympathy with the subject so that the reader is not turned off. She wants the piece to have "empathic understanding that endows the subject with dimension" (Gornick 35). She calls the personal essay a kind of self-investigation of the "other' in oneself" that is not a confession (Gornick 47). In her view, it succeeds by giving the subject depth and sympathetic dimension. The writer solves a problem. The depth comes through changes, shifts in perspective and tone, where the relation of the narrator to the subject deepens somehow, enriching the reader's interest. It is this movement that pulls the reader along toward that "singular insight" (Gornick 82).

This essay will discuss Walter Benjamin's "Hashish in Marseilles" and Joan Didion's "Goodbye to All That" as examples of Gornick's principles. It will show how these two essays are guided by a central insight. They develop their narrative through shifts that deepen their personal inquiries and lend sympathy to the subject matter. The reader finds herself engaged in the narrative due to the central themes and connections made.

The problem Benjamin addresses in "Hashish in Marseilles" is the question of loneliness. He uses a description of the effects of hashish to analyze this social problem. This guiding insight is clear from the beginning. Benjamin smokes the hashish alone. Then, when he goes out, he feels friendliness in the world and has the expectation of people treating him well. This is important because it seems to be an expectation he did not normally have. The hashish gives him a different perspective. And the theme is revealed: "The feeling of loneliness is very quickly lost" (Benjamin 371). The narrator's experiment with hashish is a social experiment about how hashish might change one's view of the world and others.

This changed perspective is shown through the narrator's descriptions and the strange things he notices. As one reads, one identifies with the same effects as the narrator -- the heightened perceptions. The tone is meditative and humorous. He experiences weirdness in events that make one laugh. For example, he sits down at a big table and feels shame at how big it is for a single man. He notices things, too, like the names of boats on the quay. He says, "The love promised to these boats by their names seemed wonderfully beautiful and touching to me" (Benjamin 373). The reader is caught up in his experience, and comes to feel the same kind of joy. It is not loneliness. This is most clear in his sudden obsession with faces. Thinking about their ugliness, he understands how "ugliness could appear as the true reservoir of beauty, better than any treasure cask" (372). This is not the normal social experience. He says, "Under these circumstances there was no question of loneliness" (Benjamin 373). This is ironic since he is alone. The hashish makes him feel contrary to his real state.

The key shift happens when he contrasts his sensation of pleasure with mechanization. It is as if he experiences a different world. He feels magic and music, not routine. The central insight now is that there is another experience of society than the one he normally possesses. It is not lonely, but is connected and complex. He describes the trance as a maze, where "we not only discover the twists and turns of the cave, but also enjoy this pleasure of discovery against the background of the other, rhythmical bliss of unwinding the thread" (Benjamin 373). His tone is lyrical and validates this new social experience. The reader follows him. The rational sentence in the newspaper turns now magical. There is a sense of brotherhood with others. He is "incapable of fearing future misfortune, future solitude, for hashish would always remain" (Benjamin 374). There is no loneliness to fear.

Yet his sinking into the dream of things is an illusion. He thinks of love that hashish allows him to squander. This is ironic. His love of existence comes down to individual experience. In the end, he is in fact alone. The social effect of hashish is temporary and fading. When the intoxication wears off, he discovers that the freedom from loneliness was a dream. That is the dramatic twist at the end of the narrative. But it happens because of the depth of sympathetic involvement that carries the reader along with the narrator as he explores the dimension of society through the effects of hashish.

Didion's "Goodbye to All That" also displays depth through the narrator's self-exploration. The theme that unifies the essay is that the experience of New York changes over time. Didion wants to show this contrast of youth and later years. In the beginning, she is full of romantic illusions about New York. She is young, fueled by movie images, and optimistic. This is heightened by her expectations of some life-changing experience. The reader identifies with the excitement of moving to a new place. Didion describes the first years as fleeting. Time passes "with the deceptive ease of a film dissolve" (Didion 682). The reader falls in love with New York as the narrator has. As she smells the streets and tastes a peach, she knows that she had "reached the mirage" (Didion 683). This description of youthful confidence, opportunity, and possibility are sympathetic. She feels like the extraordinary could happen at any moment. Her image of New York is that it is promise.

Yet there was a cost to her dreaming. Her imaginary view of New York made it impossible to settle. This introduces tension in the narrative and gives it depth. She says, "In my imagination I was always there for just another few months, just until Christmas or Easter or the first warm day in May" (Didion 684). The narrator has trouble identifying because she is an outsider. She contrasts herself with those who grew up in the East. They did not adopt mythical notions about New York. She gets along better with Southerners who are equally outsiders. Her sense of transience is symbolized by the fact that she never bought furniture.