Comparison Between John Muir's 'And A Sand County Almanac'
Environmental Ethics:
A Look at Aldo Leopold’s and John Muir’s Works
Never has a man left the embrace of nature once he found himself enamored by it; this infatuation is found in both John Muir’s and Aldo Leopold’s writing, a sense of wanting to protect this deity they call Mother Nature, a moral and ethical responsibility which every human being has to this Mother. Both John Muir and Aldo Leopold recount their almost romantic encounter with Mother Nature in their books Our National Parks and A Sand County Almanac, respectively. However, in both books it is notable that each man carries instilled in the very fiber of their being a sense of dissatisfaction toward the process of mechanization and industrialization; processes which unfortunately …show more content…
Throughout the narrative Leopold uses this literary technique numerous times, however, the starkest example is the personification of the mountain and the wolf, “I thought that because fewer wolves meant more deer, no wolves would mean hunter’s paradise. But after seeing the green fire die, I sensed that neither the wolf nor the mountain agreed with such a view” (130). Leopold personifies the mountain and the wolf as moral compasses which must be looked up to by any human being; he even goes on to conclude that his original belief of “hunter’s paradise” was distorted the moment he “sensed” the reprimanding attitude of the mountain toward the situation. This is not the only instance where Leopold personifies the mountain; it is evident in numerous places that Leopold regards the mountain as a grandmother or higher authority which must be considered when taking a decision. Leopold states that “Only the mountain has lived long enough to listen objectively to the howl of a wolf” (129), in this excerpt Leopold emphasizes this image of age and wisdom. Expressing the truth that only the mountain has lived long enough to truly understand what is going on and only the mountain has the authority and knowledge to state which is right and which is
A Look at Aldo Leopold’s and John Muir’s Works
Never has a man left the embrace of nature once he found himself enamored by it; this infatuation is found in both John Muir’s and Aldo Leopold’s writing, a sense of wanting to protect this deity they call Mother Nature, a moral and ethical responsibility which every human being has to this Mother. Both John Muir and Aldo Leopold recount their almost romantic encounter with Mother Nature in their books Our National Parks and A Sand County Almanac, respectively. However, in both books it is notable that each man carries instilled in the very fiber of their being a sense of dissatisfaction toward the process of mechanization and industrialization; processes which unfortunately …show more content…
Throughout the narrative Leopold uses this literary technique numerous times, however, the starkest example is the personification of the mountain and the wolf, “I thought that because fewer wolves meant more deer, no wolves would mean hunter’s paradise. But after seeing the green fire die, I sensed that neither the wolf nor the mountain agreed with such a view” (130). Leopold personifies the mountain and the wolf as moral compasses which must be looked up to by any human being; he even goes on to conclude that his original belief of “hunter’s paradise” was distorted the moment he “sensed” the reprimanding attitude of the mountain toward the situation. This is not the only instance where Leopold personifies the mountain; it is evident in numerous places that Leopold regards the mountain as a grandmother or higher authority which must be considered when taking a decision. Leopold states that “Only the mountain has lived long enough to listen objectively to the howl of a wolf” (129), in this excerpt Leopold emphasizes this image of age and wisdom. Expressing the truth that only the mountain has lived long enough to truly understand what is going on and only the mountain has the authority and knowledge to state which is right and which is