“On Self-Respect”
Joan Didion’s inclusion of her personal experience in “On Self- Respect” represents an epiphany which stimulates her ideology on the quintessence of self-respect: “I lost the conviction that lights would always turn green for me, the pleasant certainty that those rather passive virtues which had won me approval as a child automatically guaranteed me not only Phi Beta Kappa keys but happiness, honour, and the love of a good man (preferably a cross between Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca and one of the Murchisons in a proxy fight); lost a certain touching faith in the totem power of good manners, clean hair, and proven competence on the Stanford-Binet scale. To such doubtful amulets had my self-respect been pinned, and I faced myself that day with the nonplussed wonder of someone who has come across a vampire and found no garlands of garlic at hand.” The green lights are emblematic of unequivocal approval which Didion had anticipated she would enjoy all her life. Missing the Phi Beta Kappa enabled Didion to realize that self-respect should rise above measures such as the “Stanford-Binet Scale.” Assigning her self-worth to the scale and other extrinsic gauges is unfavourable to the blooming of intrinsic self-worth. Had Didion embraced adequate Self- worth, she would not have been upset by her not being nominated in the Phi Beta Kappa.
Self- deception is a principal impairment of unqualified self- respect: “Although to be driven back upon oneself is an uneasy affair at best, rather like trying to cross a border with borrowed credentials, it seems to me now the one condition necessary to the beginnings of real self-respect. Most of our platitudes notwithstanding, self-deception remains the most difficult deception. The charms that work on others count for nothing in that devastatingly well-lit back alley where one keeps assignations with oneself: no winning smiles will do here, no prettily drawn lists of good intentions. With the desperate agility of a crooked faro dealer who spots Bat Masterson about to cut himself into the game, one shuffles flashily but in vain through one's marked cards—the kindness done for the wrong reason, the apparent triumph which had involved no real effort, the seemingly heroic act into which one had been shamed.” Authentic self-respect should not be hooked on external endorsements. Banking on other parties to corroborate one’s substance is tantamount to utter self-deception which shifts one’s concentration from basic esteem to superficial scales. An audacious individual would not dwell on repute at the expense of self-worth. In as much as reputation influences an individual’s integrity, it should not be used to extinguish one’s self-respect which should be superior to status.
“Some Dreamers of the Golden Dream”
Melancholic matrimonies are injurious to the accomplishment of “the Golden dream”: “Unhappy marriages so resemble one another that we do not need to know too much about the course of this one. There may or may not have been trouble on Guam, where Cork and Lucille miller lived while he finished his Army duty. There may or may not have been problems in the small Oregon town where he first set up private practice. There appear to have been some disappointment about their move to California: Cork Miller had told friends that he wanted to become a doctor, that he was unhappy as a dentist and planned to enter the Seventh-Day Adventist College of medical Evangelists at Loma Linda, a few miles south of San Bernardino. Instead he bought a dental practice in the west end of San Bernardino County ,and the family settled there, in a modest house on the kind of street where there are always tricycles and revolving credit and dreams about bigger houses , better streets. That was 1957.By the summer of 1964 they had achieved the bigger house on the better street and the familiar accoutrements of a family on its way up: the $ 30,000 a year, the three children for the Christmas card, the picture window, the family room, the newspaper photographs that showed Mrs. Gordon Miller, Ontario Heart Fund Chairman…They were paying the familiar price for it.And they had reached the familiar season of divorce.”
Didion unambiguously sketches the curve which delimits the despondency in the Millers’ marriage. The complications manifest from the inception of the matrimonial, and failure to restrain them underwrites their evolution and compounding. The couple’s deviating opinions regarding their relocation sponsors their discontent. Besides, Cork Miller’s profession- related discontent spills over into the matrimonial scope. Moreover, the ‘golden dream’ of social mobility bulldozes the couple to aspire for an outstanding life. Additionally, the material success which is exemplified in the “$ 30,000 a year, and bigger house” does not back the household’s outright contentment. Evidently, the prospect of a divorce is a climax of sorrow which shows that notwithstanding of the material accomplishment, the couple is neither in love or gratified to be married. Accordingly, divorce is the definitive expense for the ambitious ‘golden dream.’
The evidence exhibited in court is perplexing which makes it problematic to seamlessly isolate Lucille Miller's unconditional liability in her husband demise : “ The prosecution hinted at men other than Arthwell, and even, over Foley’s objections, managed to name one. The defense called Miller suicidal. The prosecution produced experts who said that the Volkswagen fire could not have been accidental. Foley produced witnesses who said that it could have been. Lucille’s father , now a junior-high-school teacher in Oregon, quoted Isaiah to reporters: ‘ Every tongue that shall rise against thee in Judgement thou shalt condemn.’ “Lucille did wrong, her affair,’ her mother said judiciously.” With her it was love. But with some I guess it’s just passion.’ There was Debbie, the Millers’ fourteen-year-old, testifying in a steady voice about how she and her mother had gone to a supermarket to buy the gasoline can the week before the accident. There was Sandy Salgle, the courtroom every day, declaring that on at least one occasion Luccile miller had prevented her husband not only from committing suicide but from committing suicide in such a way that it would appear an accident and ensure the double indemnity payment. There was Wenche Berg, the pretty twenty-seven-year –old Norwegian governess to Arthwell Hayton’s children, testifying that Arthwell had instructed her not to allow Lucille Miller to see or talk to the children.”
The evidence concerning Cork Miller’s suicidal mind-set conjectures that he many have consciously ended his lifespan for the benefit of his family who would obtain the double indemnity reimbursement after his departure. Besides, the testament about the state of the Volkswagen gathers that Lucille may have calculatingly started the fire to terminate her partner’s existence. Lucille’s mother proclamation vis-à-vis her illicit affair conjectures that she thinks Lucille exterminated her husband to create room for her clandestine affair. Comparatively, Lucille’s father religious allusion specifies his conviction about his daughter’s guiltlessness. Debbie’s testimony is implicating because it deduces that the gasoline they had purchased could have been employed in setting the Volkswagen ablaze. Sandy Slagle’ testament relates to common moral hazards whereby Miller would have purposefully burned himself to guarantee substantial compensation for his survivors. Wenche Berg’s testimony renders Lucille a chief suspect whose husband could not trust her with their children. The testimonies presented result in the Lucille versus Cork binary because they persuade a reader about the probabilities of each one of them ( Lucile and Cork) being accountable for the death. The correspondingly persuasive evidence leave the reader in quandary over the precise basis of the fire-linked demise.
