Working with Aldous Huxley's "three-poled frame of reference," I took a look at one of my favorite essays and highlighted the text according to the legend to your left. I didn't find any real "objective, factual, concrete-particular" reference, except for the fact that the essay takes place in New York and the author is speaking of her own life. So maybe Didion's byline and the mentions of "New York" should have been in purple.



And here it is in all its three-poled highlighted glory. Funny how we tell writers to come up with a thesis in the beginnings and ending of paragraphs (the "abstract-universals"), beginnings and endings of whole essays, and here's the master putting a whole lotta universal in the middle of the essay, and then trailing out, as it were, with autobiographical. Fascinating. At least to me.

Labels: Creative Nonfiction, Graphic Essays, Saint Rose, teaching