Nature And The Home Place Analysis

Nature and the wilderness has a major effect on our everyday life that most people do not notice. The Home Place explored the true meaning and use of the wilderness. With the narrator J. Drew Lanham growing up with an immediately interest and passion for nature you get a deeper look into the wild. The journey between J. Drew’s siblings, parents and even grandparent shows the importance of nature and the Home Place to their family. When J. Drew’s grandfather or “Daddy Joe” returned from war he was wounded both physically and mentally and needed a place to turn too. “Daddy Joe left the war behind and turned his attention to family and farming” (Lanham 43). Having a connection with nature can provide a lot of health benefits. It gave Daddy Joe more structure and a reason to get out of bed while also reconnecting with his family. J. Drew’s grandmother or “Mamatha” also had an important connection through nature. Once he husband had passed she connected with nature in a way that other people could not see and sometimes she was thought of as a witch. She
even “turned to a different prescription filled somewhere “out there”” (Lanham 47). Meaning for sickness instead of using over the counter medications she relied on the remedies found in nature. An important source of income for the Lanham family also relied on nature. “The money was an important supplement to the paltry pay he and Mama made as schoolteachers” (Lanham 15). Since both their father and mother had lower wage jobs as school teachers they needed another source of income to support their family and this was found in the nature around them. “Daddy put many of the Home Place acres to work growing produce” (Lanham 15). This allowed them to pursue the career they wanted while also bringing in income. The income they brought in was important to their family because they were able to put their children through college. Resources used from their land were also an important factor in their lives. “In addition to the firewood gathered for Mamatha, the forest freely sacrificed sturdy post and rails of hickory for corrals and fences” (Lanham 27). The firewood helped heat Mamathas house since she was always cold. Also, the wood was used to build the fences and post that kept their cattle and other animals in. Nature played the most important role in the narrator J.
Drew’s life. From an early age, he had always been interested in nature starting with being able to fly and eventually leading into his job of bird watching. It also gave Drew a stronger connection with his Father and brother when they would go split wood or mend fences together. “Now here I was far away from moments of inertia and rates of deceleration, out under the biggest, bluest sky, surrounded by singing birds in fields of forest that stretched as far as the eye could see. I’d always dreamed of this kind of life” (Lanham 138). Not only did he benefit from nature by finding his true passion and realizing he did not want to be an engineer it also taught him many lessons throughout his life. Starting with when he got his first BB gun and killed a bird to the ending where he realized “uncertainty was more the rule than the exception in nature” (Lanham
140). Without nature, an important part would be missing in the lives of everyone in the Lanham family. Not only did it provide medicine and profit and bring family relationships closer it also helped them discover what they want to be and the true meaning behind life as they know it.