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Joan Didion's On Going Home

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Joan Didion's On Going Home
The sixth passage in “On Going Home” by Joan Didion, gave me feeling of nostalgia. I could feel the longing and sincerity of the author’s love and want for her child. I could feel how the mother wants nothing but the best for her child but is unsure if she can offer the best due to how it is “different now”. In the passage Joan writes, “...would like to pledge her a picnic on a river with fried chicken and her hair uncombed…” (4) The fact that Didion is imagining things that she later understands will probably not happen to her child shows how caring she is towards her family and how dreams of a better future. The longing caused by this fantasy-based future is taking Didion to another reality in which she hopes her imagination will take place.

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