Slouching Towards Bethlehem Literary Elements

Creative Nonfiction, New Journalism

The most prominent setting is Didion's home state of California. Notable Exceptions are Sonora, Mexico, New York, and Hawaii. The pieces were written between 1964 and 1967, the year the collection was published.

Didion is known for her very personal narration style. She frequently used the first-person point of view and interjects her own thoughts, opinions, and emotions into otherwise journalistic accounts.

Tense, anxious, melancholic, foreboding, angry, confused.

The protagonist and antagonist varies from piece to piece. Though Didion herself is often the primary protagonist, the collection also contains pieces focusing on John Wayne, Howard Hughes, and Comrade Michael Laski

The major conflict is so often an internal conflict within Didion herself. As she notes in "On Self-Respect" she is an anxious, melancholy character who often struggles with her own intentions and emotions. For example, in "Goodbye to All That" Didion recounts her struggles with loneliness in New York. This not the case for every story in the collection however. Lucille Miller has a murderous conflict with her husband in "Some Dreamers of the Golden Dream," and Joan Baez has conflict with her conservative, disapproving neighbors in "Where the Kissing Never Stops."

Because this is a collection of journalistic pieces, there is no clear climax in Slouching Towards Bethlehem.

The piece "Slouching Towards Bethlehem" appears prophetic decades after its publication. Whereas many saw the 1960s as the beginning of a more peaceful and accepting America, Didion saw drugs, danger and depravity. She foreshadows these observations at the beginning of the piece. Quoting the W.B. Yeats' poem "The Second Coming" Didion writes, "the centre will not hold." Writing in 1967, she seem to foresee the Manson Murders, the Altamont Disaster and the reelection of Richard Nixon that would obliterate any hope for an American utopia.

Didion writes with great restraint. She cooly portrays what she sees and allows the reader to make their own interpretations. For this reason, much of her work can appear detached and understated. For example, in "Slouching Towards Bethlehem," Didion is introduced to a 4 year old name Sharon who gets high everyday on the LSD that her mother gives to her. While a horrifying picture, Didion does not make a comment on the situation, she simply moves on to her next point. As well, she writes about the Lucille Miller murder trial with incredible nonchalance and is not phased by the violence she encounters.

The stories title itself, Slouching Towards Bethlehem, is a reference to the WB Yeats' poem "The Second Coming." Throughout the stories, Didion frequently alludes to the settlement of California, with special attention paid to the cannibalistic Donner Party. The interesting, and veiled, allusions are to the Vietnam war. Didion does not explicitly mention the war throughout majority of the stories, but as it was taking place during the time the collection was written, it's specter looms in the periphery of the collection. The sense of dread that exists in the collection is no doubt influenced by the conflict in Asia.

Some of the most memorable literary imagery of the counterculture movement of the 1960s was written by Didion in the titular piece of the collection. She describes the fashions, apartments and gatherings of the hippies of Haight-Ashbury. There is also, as ever, frequent Californian imagery. She speaks of the Sacramento Valley and the Santa Ana mountains, of wind and of heat. Her images factor in sounds, and senses beyond the visual alone. Didion also provides detailed imagery of the people she writes about. There's Baez's beauty and John Wayne's stern handsomeness.

The piece, "I Can't Get That Monster Out of My Mind," focused on the Hollywood film industry is centered around a great paradox. While the filmmakers of the New Hollywood era believe that they are making subversive, revolutionary movies, Didion suggests that they are derivative, uninspired and boring. Further, while the so-called "independent filmmakers" believe that they are rebelling against the established order of Hollywood, they are still following all the traditional conventions of the film industry. To a similar extent, the hippies of the Haight-Ashbury believe that they have freed themselves from the "hangups" of mainstream culture, but Didion notes that they still fall into sexist, consumeristic behaviors.

A parallel is drawn between the fires of California and Hell in "Los Angeles Notebooks."

Joan Baez is repeatedly referenced as the symbol, or figure, of the whole pacifistic non-violence movement in the 1960s. Didion tries to interrogate and understand this form of synecdoche in "Where the Kissing Never Stops." There is also a plethora of metonymy and synecdoche in "Comrade Laski, C.P.U.S.A. (M-L)." When the Soviet Union is mentioned, it is meant to symbolize communism as a whole, just as when the United States are mentioned it is meant to refer to the capitalist system.

As a relatively literal author, there is literal personification throughout Slouching Towards Bethlehem. A notable outlier, however, is the Santa Ana winds. The warm winds that blow from the Santa Ana Mountains often cause forest fires, and Didion portrays them as a malevolent and foreboding entity.