On Self Respect Analysis We all worry about the extent to which we respect ourselves, and one of our sharpest criticisms of others is how little self-respect they seem to possess. But defining self-respect in all its nuances is not an easy task. In “On Self-Respect” Joan Didion explores qualities that contribute to, as well as inhibit developing self-respect, primarily how it has everything to do with how we feel about ourselves, and nothing to do with how others see us. By presenting personal anecdotes and scenarios, citing literary and historical references, and providing concrete examples of what it is not, Didion demonstrates how difficult and elusive acquiring and developing self-respect can be. Didion begins by reflecting on her own experiences struggling with “matter[s] of misplaced self-respect.” She recalls a diary passage where she wrote “that innocence ends when one is stripped of the delusion that one likes oneself.” She remembers …show more content…
She cites Charles “Chinese” Gordon’s “[putting] on a clean white suit and [holding] Khartoum against the Mahdi.” She recounts events recorded in twelve-year-old Narcissa Cornwall’s diary as she and her pioneering parents remain calm as Indians invade their homestead, demonstrating the family’s self-respect in acknowledging the risks they were prepared to take in heading west. She paraphrases the Duke of Wellington’s oft misquoted remark that “Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton” in pointing out that the English officers learned at school the kind of self-respect and character necessary to defeat Napoleon. And in the same context she cites Dante, she cites Helen Keller’s dependence on her teacher Annie Sullivan. Such historical references add credibility to her literary references, illustrating that whether fact or fiction, grappling with self-respect is the stuff of