TOW #2: This is the Life by Annie Dillard (written, non-fiction text)

“This is the Life” is a short essay written by an American fiction and non-fiction author Annie Dillard. Her work serves as a spiritual healing for many, as it makes reader reflect on their on actions and ways of living. In “This is the Life,” Dillard emphasizes how people of the modern society take everything for granted and therefore are unable to progress and think outside of the box that they were put in. Rather than having their own views, people are inclined to think what “everyone” else thinks, although that group of everyone might differ depending on their surroundings. To condemn the modern society, the author uses a sarcastic tone as well as a provocative one. She describes something that would have been considered fortunate many years ago, but is not so fortunate in the modern society. She purposely describes this idea as something “Everyone you know agrees: this is the life”(3), to demonstrate how lucky we are to take those things for granted, but how unfortunate we are to forget that we should be thankful for those things. Also, she outrightly describes the things people take for granted by saying “[T]hese are not universal”(1). She is emphasizing that people need to realize that their everyday pleasure is the greatest desire for others. Dillard’s main audience is the people who take things for granted and need to appreciate what they have, and her secondary audience is the future generation who might make the same mistakes of taking things for granted. She is afraid that the future generation will make the same mistakes again and this is evident as she describes humans “who were ever alive lived inside one single culture that never changed for hundreds of thousands of years,” but people still do not understand what they are doing wrong as they “scratch their heads at so conservative and static a culture”(12).

Dillard achieved her purpose because after reading her essay the audience feels contrite and remorseful and makes them look back and evaluate their actions. Dillard’s bitter accusation makes people realize how fortunate they were.