Man vs. Nature

Man vs. Nature The natural world is superior to all of humanity. Without reason, land controls us and influences our identities. Through mankind’s power we try to suppress the natural world but never truly succeed. “Progressive Insanities of a Pioneer” by Margaret Attwood, “The Bull Moose” by Alden Nowlan and “Not Just a Platform for my Dance” are comparable poems in a way that all three deal with a theme of the natural world and the power it holds against mankind. “Progressive Insanities of a Pioneer” and “The Bull Moose” both express that nature is more prevailing than humanity and that humanity will unsuccessfully try to conquer the natural world. Although, “Not Just a Platform for my Dance” displays how cooperating with the superiority that nature possesses can be favorable to civilization.
In the poem "The Bull Moose", Alden Nowlan writes of human's separation from nature that signifies the Bull Moose as nature and the observers as mankind. Nowlan uses the poem as a depiction of how man has removed himself from nature, and by doing such; humans are isolating themselves from the assets that make them truly human. He illustrates this by man's lack of awareness of the Bull Moose's greatness, the “pole fenced pasture” between the two worlds, and the power of the creature's roar. Eventually mankind recognizes that he is not “shaggy and cuddlesome” but a “scaffolded king”. Civilization arrogantly approaches nature by attacking the self-righteous dominance they feel towards it.
In “Progressive Insanities of a Pioneer” Margaret Atwood captures the theme of a civilized urge to ignore the superiority of the natural world. “In the darkness the fields / defend themselves with fences / in vain: / everything / is getting in.” The dilemma of the pioneer is made clear when he is described as “a point/ on a sheet of green paper” in the first lines of the poem. It is suggesting outer space "with no walls, no borders / anywhere; the sky no height / above him, totally