What was the purpose of the piece as a whole?

Part One:
Significant Ideas, Passages, Conclusions
*There is a correlation between her experiences at the beginning of the passage and the eclipse
*Light imagery / color imagery -- people risk their lives for it and gold also associated with sun and sunlight
*Platinum blond woman imagery -- with the black dress -- color imagery associated with the world during the eclipse
*Old men at the hotel -- practically dead -- drunk. loss of life
*P5 -- six old men yelling six! six!
*P4 -- snow sometimes happy -- but an avalanche white is color imagery rep. death and cold -- like the absence of the sun.
*Too much of a good thing -- platinum wealth, but also death and sadness
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Part Two:
Significant Ideas, Passages, Conclusions
*Light imagery -- the beauty of nature vs second half darkness that followed the eclipse
*Color imagery parallels light and dark imagery
*P18 -- not a scientific experience -- emotional instead. the absence of the sun, not the presence of the mood
*P24 we got the light wrong -- taking life for granted, seeking new meaning or interpretation of life
*The sun symbolic of life, nature, comfort -- this is being taken away -- experienceing a world without these things
*Repeats the sun being an old worn wedding band when eclipsed -- reconsidering marriage to Gary?
*P23 -- alludes to being part of a primitive civilization -- no longer a scientific or rational understanding of the world
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Part Three:
Significant Ideas, Passages, Conclusions
*Existential crisis -- what is significance? It obliterated meaning itself -- a different way of thinking (or not thinking, feeling or responding to ) the world
*p28-- riding these monsters deeper down. get audience to understand that she views the world differently now than any of them possibly could without this experience
*After the eclipse -- the devastation is still all around them almost like it is alive, a person
*It is a big event -- but insignificant in the perspective of the universe -- discusses the Crab Nebula -- a supernova ancient but unchanging
*P36 -- we had all died and were alone in eternity. We are the dead. 
* Presents herself as unstable -- 
*Christianity allusions -- death and rebirth

Part Four:
Significant Ideas, Passages, Conclusions
*Rebirth after the sun comes back out P50 references back to the things she has seen before headlamp and the canary -- repetition of these motifs
*Easy to die -- how easy the world can become dark
*Describes the place as death -- waking up after the eclipse -- sun is life eclipse is death P 38 -- the ring around the eclipse is like a lifesaver -- he is thinking candy, she is thinking literally
*Waking up at the beginning and the end -- traveling full circle 
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