Gaining Self-Respect

At first, her disbelief is directed toward her failed attempt to gain acceptance into Phi Beta Kappa, although she does qualify this bewilderment with the statement, "This failure could scarcely have been more predictable or less ambiguous (I simply did not have the grades). " This shows Didion's semi-nihilistic ways, yet limiting her nihilism to education. Through words such as painstaking, embarrassing, failure, humorless, count for nothing, in vain, and deceived, Didion expresses her anger and embarrassment. "

The lesson Didion learned took a great disappointment in her life, but it was quite a valuable lesson. The third literary device she uses is a metaphor. Through words such as marvel, doubtful, and unnerved, she expresses her disbelief and astonishment. "Although to be driven back upon oneself is an uneasey affair at best, rather like trying to cross a border with borrowed credentials. " Her second disbelief is how she lost her self-respect simply because she was not accepted into Phi Beta Kappa. At first, she becomes angry because she was not accepted into the sorority.

The first literary device Didion uses is imagery. The next literary device is a simile. Eventually, though, her anger turns into embarrassment when she realized she lost her self-respect because she was naïve and vain enough to believe she could attain anythig she wanted because of her virtues. When she realized her virtues meant absolutely nothing in the real world, she lost all respect for herself. Eventually, Didion realized there was only one thing standing between her and self-respect: the idea that one cannot deceive oneself. "I had somehow thought myself a kind of academic Raskolnikov.