The White Album

“We tell ourselves stories in order to live. The princess is caged in the consulate. The man with the candy will lead the children into the sea. The naked woman on the ledge outside the window on the sixteenth floor is a victim of an accident, or the naked woman is an exhibitionist, and it would be ‘interesting’ to know which.”

Didion uses figurative language to express the importance of stories. Humans don’t need stories to live. They need oxygen, food, water, and some kind of shelter. In addition, she introduces the main theme of stories and the human tendency to assign meaning, uses repetition of the word “the” to underscore her point, and establishes her impressionistic style through the series of possible stories.

“I was supposed to have a script, and had mislaid it. I was supposed to hear cues, and no longer did. I was meant to know the plot, but all I knew was what I saw: flash pictures in variable sequence, images with no ‘meaning’ beyond their temporary arrangement, not a movie but a cutting-room experience.”

By using figurative language, Didion demonstrates the near omnipresence of the media. It would have her think of life like a movie story, but she doesn’t have a script and only sees spliced scenes. Thus, Didion announces her independence from mediatized narratives.

“As a matter of fact almost everything Huey Newton said had the ring of being a ‘quotation,’ a ‘pronouncement’ to be employed when the need arose.”

Didion depicts media and storytelling as dictating the words of Black Panthers Party leader Huey Newton. He speaks in quotes to make himself consumable for the media or for the Black Panther narrative about him and his situation.