“On Self Respect” by Joan Didion

Once again, we are working with the same article for Monday analysis and Blog Week.   By the time that you get to working on this blog, hopefully your answers will be informed by some of the discussion that we have had in class.  Well thought out, detailed paragraphs will let me see how you are synthesizing the reading with the discussion and putting that to work in the blog.  Happy Weekend!

 Discussion questions for “On Self Respect” by Joan Didion

1)       Didion uses allusions to literature (that we may or may not have read) in order to support or illustrate her points.  What effect does this have on the reader?  Is it helpful? Is it alienating?

2)      List some statements that she clearly makes about having, or not having, self respect.  Are these based on assumptions that people would generally agree with?  For instance, she uses the example of committing adultery without asking forgiveness to illustrate “courage of their mistakes” and “character”.  What do we make of that?

3)      She maintains that having self respect is a “discipline,” a “habit of mind”.  She says that having self respect is a discipline “that can never be faked but can be developed , trained, coaxed forth”.  She also says that disciplines represent values that lie underneath them.  How are her statements about self respect as a discipline connected to the idea of building writing skills as a discipline or a habit of mind?