ENG 101 Essay 3 (Joan Didion Self Respect) Professor Bahr PDF

Preview

Summary

essay 3...

Description

Ortiz 3

GOOD TITLE PAGE FORMAT Luis Ortiz Vasquez Professor Bahr English 101 13 March 2016

Shampoo and Self-Respect According to Joan Didion In “On Self-Respect,” GOOD TITLE FORMAT Joan Didion asserts that selfrespect is the ability to take responsibility for one’s own actions and the willingness to accept the consequences that these might have. GOOD Didion’s perspective of selfrespect can be applied to the film Shampoo,  GOOD TITLE FORMAT in which, the main characters George, Jill, Jackie, and Lester provide us with a lucid example of what having and not having self-respect looks like. From these characters, Jill is the one who displays the most self-respect; whereas, George is the one who shows the least self-respect.  GOOD Joan Didion states in her essay: “self-respect is a discipline, a habit of mind that can never be faked but can be developed, trained, coaxed forth.” (217). NOTICE CORRECT PUNCUTATION PLACEMENT WITH QUOTES Jill is a good example of this assertion. She starts in the film not only with no self-respect, but also with no self-confidence.  GOOD “I have a decision to make and I want your feelings about it,” she tells George in an effort to get his opinion about whether or not she should accept the job of her dreams. She’s always going after George even though she feels at the end of his list “why am I always at the end of the line when you’re passing out favors,” she tells George. Throughout the movie, she pursues George ad nauseam, unheeded, with the only dream that one day he will settle down and she will be the only woman in his life. However, the only thing she gets from

Ortiz 2

George is disappointment. “You never stop moving, you never go anywhere, grow up!” she told George in a moment she bit the bullet and let everything out, but then she drowned in self-reproach for telling him the things he deserved to be told. It was not until she found George having sex with Jackie, and Felicia’s earring on his bed, that she realized how incapable of love George was, and how futile it was to follow him. With her dream shattered in a million pieces and burnt until reduced to ashes, she knew there was only one thing to do: sever any bond she had with George. That was not easy for her, but when she did it, something emerged like a phoenix from those ashes. It was self-respect. She became a new version of herself, now she was strong-willed, self-confident, and more importantly, selfrespecting.  GOOD Having mentioned Jill as the character with the most self-respect, the character with the least self-respect is George. Joan Didion asserts, “people with self-respect have the courage of their mistakes. They know the price of things.” (216). George displays the phenomenon called “alienation from self” that Didion describes at the end of her essay (218). Throughout the movie, he can be seen pleasing all these women, one after another, without even stopping for a minute and asking himself “do I want to do this?” Not even once I saw him take responsibility for his mistakes, let alone accept the consequences. “I don’t know what I’m apologizing for,” he said to Jill when she asked him if there were others, “they’re so great looking, and they feel great, and they smell great,” he says as an excuse for his promiscuous behavior. Even after this confession, he was still expecting forgiveness from her, which he didn’t get because now Jill was different, she was displaying character. In a final confrontation with Lester, George does his last deed of generosity. He told Lester that Jackie really liked him, and by doing so, he convinced Lester to forgive Jackie. He forgot the fact that he loved Jackie, and that she was his last chance to do things right “I want you to

Ortiz 3

marry me, I want to take care of you, and I want you to have a baby with me” he told Jackie in an effort to get her back. However, it was too late. Lester left Felicia and asked Jackie to leave to Acapulco with him. “Honey please don’t leave me” he begs Jackie, “I have to go,” she said as she got on her car to Lester’s arms. The game moved on and George was left behind. Drowning in his loneliness, he discovered the final turn of the screw: he run to find himself, and found no one at home.

THIS IS EXCELLENT LUIS, GRADE: A (100%)...