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Coping With Life There Are Essay

Shilts' essay, of course, is largely about his expedient status as a celebrity figure due to his work involving the education of the public about AIDS, which largely took place within the first five years of the disease's spreading. Death by aids is generally more time-consuming, and certainly not as quick as the rapid overtaking of the earth by the shadow of an eclipse. The author would more than likely differ with Dillard in her view of what is important about life, which the following quotation largely implies. I quickly acquired all the trappings of bestsellerdom: 60 Minutes coverage of my "startling" revelations, a Book-of-the-Month Club contract, a miniseries deal with NBC, translation into six languages, book tours on three continents, featured roles in movie-star-studded AIDS fund raisers, regular appearances on network news shows, and hefty fees on the college lecture circuit" (Shilts 220).

There is little doubt that Dillard would consider such vibrant activity as part of the waking process of life which she attributes so much importance to. Yet these activities are largely the means for despair for Shilts' in this essay, as the following quotation indicates. "Never before have I succeeded so well; never before have I failed so miserably." The success with which the author alludes to is his celebrity status and fairly ubiquitous media presence -- for a time. Yet Shilts' widely regards this activity as means of failure, since the primary point of this essay is that due to all...

This notion, however, is one of the final points of dissimilarities between the essays, since Dillard's written work concludes with a sense of closure, peace, and acceptance about her husband's death and the nature of death altogether. Such acceptance may be indicated in the following quotation, in which the author writes, "It was good to be aback among people so clever; it was good to have all the world's words at the mind's disposal, so the mind could begin its task. All those things for which we have no words are lost" (Dillard). This statement, made following the conclusion of the eclipse which symbolizes the death of her husband, indicates her acceptance for the intangible, immortal nature of death and other aspects of life.
Works Cited

Dillard, Annie. "Total Eclipse" in Teaching a Stone to Talk: Expeditions and Encounters. New York: Harper Perennial. Print.

Shilts, Randy. "Talking Aids To Death" in And the Band Played On: Politics, People and the AIDS Epidemic. Carbondale: Stonewall Inn Editions. 2000. Print.

Sources used in this document:
Works Cited

Dillard, Annie. "Total Eclipse" in Teaching a Stone to Talk: Expeditions and Encounters. New York: Harper Perennial. Print.

Shilts, Randy. "Talking Aids To Death" in And the Band Played On: Politics, People and the AIDS Epidemic. Carbondale: Stonewall Inn Editions. 2000. Print.
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