Summary Of On Self Respect By Joan Didion

her critical and compelling piece of writing, "On Self-Respect," Joan Didion describes her own definition of self respect through her own personal experience and allusion in order to convey to her readers that having self-respect is not all about the pleasure you get from your surroundings, but rather to live well in your own soul and recognize the variety of things that’s worth of having. To begin her argument, Joan Didion used her own personal experience to develop her own definition of self respect. She started off referring herself when she was a teen, she thought self respect was gained by how others praises you and the attentions you receive from others. Through the Phi Beta Kappa event, she had failed to show her understanding of self-respect …show more content…
Through the flashback of her personal story, she wants to emphasize, although the fact that she did not get into the Phi Beta Kappa was one unfulfillment in her life, but don’t allow that one failure let you down. In addition, don’t let your id take over your ego and should always be able to distinguish how much you can do for yourself, from how much you’re willing to do for yourself. As she was growing up, she was able to observe and visualize that we should not let that one particular thing stops you from achieving your goals, which shows her success and gives her the credibility to tell us her perspective of self-respect. In order to show your capability to observe something new, you would have to show your capability of letting go of something old, which serves more effectively to show your willingness to make a change in your life. Joan Didion used allusion to be one of the supporter’s to convey to her readers to live by being able to see a bigger picture of things. The reason why the author alluded toThe Great Gatsby, Jordan Baker’s personality was because, “Jordan took her own measure, made her own peace, avoided threats to that peace” (Didion,