Kayla Chen #6Block 28/73/2014“Goodbye to all that” and “Someone”The world we live in is always subject to change, creating a mix of conflicting feelings and the need to escape. In Joan Didion's "Goodbye to All That" and Danny Santiago's "The Somebody," narrators Chato de Shamrock and Joan Didion create this sense of them searching for a place where they can call "home" and fit in. It can be said that negligence can allow one to seek attention elsewhere. Chato constantly makes graffiti, trying to attract others. But need is not always necessary to escape. The ideal vision of a place can be distorted by realistic experiences that do not meet expectations. Didion follows this path when she chooses to go to New York. Thanks to Chato and Didion's independence, they are able to endure their own individualism and self-discovery. In terms of tone, both authors create a realistic tone through their diction. In Didion's mind, she describes New York by saying that “New York was not just a city. It was an infinitely romantic concept, the mysterious nexus of all love and money and power, the shining and perishable dream itself” (231). But in reality, his imagination of such a fascinating city does not meet his expectations when he first arrives: “That first night I opened the window on the bus to the city and looked at the skyline, but all I could see it was Queens trash. and the big signs that said MIDTOWN TUNNEL THIS LAND and then a deluge of summer rain” (226). The use of “trash” to describe Queens and a “flood” scene sets a cold, bitter, dirty tone because Didion is not impressed. In “The Somebody,” Santiago uses words related to death to create a tone of desperation. ...... middle of paper ...... Her memories come from many incidents that occurred during her stay, described in such intricate detail that are unique to her. Through these themes, Chato and Didion casually set off for Los Angeles to embark on a new path that will hopefully be more rewarding for them. Through the realistic tones that the authors create in Chato and Didion's first-person narration, it is easy to see how unreal the world is. AND. As their stories continue, the tones of their narrative separate. In “The Somebody,” Chato's tone is wryly optimistic, and in “Goodbye To All That,” Didion's tone is full of nostalgia and regret. Overall, there is a recurring theme that revolves around the characters' independence and how to use it to discover themselves, the outside world, and other aspects of it. And with that, they focus so that the world can be theirs and not someone else's.