The story starts with irony, saying that the man “was used to the lack of sun”, but later calling him “a newcomer in the land, a chechaquo, and this was his first winter.” (London, 609). This is ironic because in Alaskan winters, the sun is rarely up and the author says he is used to the darkness, but later says that he is a newcomer to Alaskan winters. Irony is used by London to show the contrast of what the man thinks and what is reality. The man has witnessed some of the powers of nature, but most likely got used to the darkness in the protection of a camp with shelter and fire. However, the man doesn’t know the true dangers of winter because he is a newcomer. The man thinks pridefully of himself because “He was quick and alert in the things of life, but only in the things, and not in the significances.” (609). This man is a keen, strong man, but he takes nature lightly and acts as if it’s a game, not realizing his life is at…
Naess was the developer of deep ecology during the twentieth century as well as the initiator to the deep ecology movement. He believed that every living being had inherent worth without their utility to man, taken into account. The older man in the Documentary, filmed in 1997, Arne Naess spoke about his beliefs and practices. He shared that as a child, he used to roam by the mountain he later built a hut on called Tvergastein. The mountain hut helped Naess write many of his philosophical books about ecology. This excerpt in the film, helps his audience realize that his connection with the large mountain and the Horizon, he says was “non-disturbing”, is curtail for man’s development. Naess claims the mountain itself is an entity and that it is alive to him, therefor without a doubt he believes it has intrinsic value to him.…
One of the few protagonists that is greatly affected by nature is Inman. Due to the fact that he is surrounded by the outdoors at all times he is able to realize and understand the beauty that nature holds and tries to absorb as much of it as he can. Inman is surrounded by nature the moment he escapes from the hospital. He even carries along his Bartram, a book which is filled with poems and stories all related to the topic of nature. One passage in Cold Mountain expresses Inman’s appreciation for the Bartram. “He told her how it helped sustain him on his journey. He shared with her his view that the book stood nigh to holiness” (Frazier 415). As seen in this passage it is clear the Bartram helps Inman get through hard times. He also finds the book very comforting and soothing. Inman became a much stronger man and more down to earth after this journey back home. During his journey, Inman had seen nature as either a positive or negative thing throughout his journey back. Nature was the reason Inman survived the journey. It gave him a place to protect himself from the cold and harsh weather. But not only the weather but also the home guards that were on the lookout. A good example of this is shown in this passage.…
(William Cronon, ed., Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature, New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1995, 69-90;…
To Chris McCandless and many others of his ilk like Henry Thoreau and Jack London,the wilderness of the west has a very specific allure. McCandless sees the wilderness as a purer state, a place free of the evils of modern society, where someone like him can find out what he is really made of, live by his own rules, and be completely free. Yet, it is also true that the reality of day-to-day living in the wilderness is not as romantic as he and others like him imagine it to be. Perhaps this explains why many of his heroes who wrote about the wilderness, for example, Jack London, never actually spent much time living in it.…
The reason the man had froze up and died was because of the bad decisions he made, like…
The wilderness holds a ferocity and beauty that refuses to go unnoticed. Man who is bored with his fellow peers and their long sought after work will often look to nature for help. The peace and enlightenment that only the wild can invoke inside a person is done through man’s desire to survive the savage conditions nature throws at them. From Christopher McCandless from “Into the Wild” by Jon Krakauer, to the Wilderness Women of Wyoming, to Gene Rossellini, to everyday people, the wild has a knack for helping individuals find themselves. The wilderness has invested itself into a part of everyone’s hearts and allows for an idyllic setting for healing and a renewed sense of self away from the rest of man.…
Bret Harte first shows us the unforgiving nature of Nature in “Luck of Roaring Camp” (1868). To show how very little Nature cares about us puny humans, and how swiftly she can destroy us, Harte states “… The North Fork suddenly leaped over its banks, and shot up the triangular valley of Roaring Camp” (Harte). Not only did Mother Nature come upon them swiftly, she also claimed three lives, including the innocent baby all the men in the camp had come to love. The same baby that earlier Harte described Nature being almost nurse-like to. “She would send wandering breezes to visit him with the balm of bay… the tall redwoods nodded familiarly and sleepily…” (Harte). The men even knew the flooding was a possibility – Stumpy himself, in a horrible twist of foreshadowing, claimed the river will return again to their little encampment. He is aware of the perilous nature of Mother Nature, but is either resigned to it or believes he’s above it. Even today, people refuse to evacuate ahead of floods, fires and hurricanes, thinking they are above it all. Harte uses his text here to show us how dangerous Nature truly is. Even tornadoes aren’t methodical in their destruction – they skip over entire homes, but…
After this first clip, the opening credits begin to run and it is accompanied by Bollywood music of all choices. This choice of music is entertaining and clever. It is clever because it…
people’s ideas of what nature and wilderness completely invalidate the true meaning of what nature really is. His main claim is that the western way of thinking about wilderness and nature as separate from humanity has led to environmental destruction and ethnic cleansing. In the beginning of the article, Dowie introduces the way these different photographers have created a myth of "nature" through their pictures of places that are "absent of humans" to give society a distorted interpretation of what nature is or looks like. He continues his article by involving scientists and anthropologists and uses their understanding of nature and wilderness as another view of the topic at hand. Later in the article, he references a man named William Cronon and an essay he writes pertaining to this topic, and also incorporates a few interviews that help his claim. Throughout the argument, Dowie addresses the audience in an open way. By including testimony, interviews, secondary sources, and a few rhetorical devices, Dowie effectively persuades the audience that nature and wilderness have been misinterpreted by the general population.…
Nature has the power to put together the humanity back into a person when the world has stripped the individual of their moral fiber. In the novel Victor searches for a way to clear his soul and mind, he is able to do this in the mountains of Switzerland. “I was carried by the wind: and sometimes, after rowing into the middle of the lake, I left the boat to pursue its own course and gave way to my own miserable reflections. I was often tempted, when all was at peace around me, and I the only unquiet thing that wandered restless in a scene so beautiful and heavenly”(page 95). This conveys the idea of nature having this control to change a man’s feelings. This creates the theme; Nature can have the power to influence an individual’s…
Edward Abbey uses his non-fiction Desert Solitaire as a sort-of sounding board for his “philosophical pretensions” (Abbey, 51). He shoehorns all manner of (sometimes divergent) ideas into his prose about the landscape and history of the southwest. It’s a wonderful thing, really, to be wrapped up into some story of his then, in a single paragraph, he reveals something about his soul before continuing on with the story as if nothing happened at all. Occasionally though, the seemingly tangental is in fact the critically important for understanding what he is actually saying in his work. Indeed, Abbey’s understanding of Man’s relationship to Nature is incredibly complex, but it is most easily elucidated, at least in part, by pressing on his understanding of the pitfalls of anthropomorphisation.…
It brings me back to when I was a kid. Even if it is embarrassing, I usually find myself climbing around on the rocks and wanting to explore the whole area. The time flies when I'm in a natural environment, and honestly it is a refresher. When the author said "It is a necessity" I came to the conclusion that, yes, I think it is necessary for me. While I don't think I need it very frequently, I think, in general, that refresher of my memories of youth, and the remainder of that child still in me, does make me feel more human. I am hopeful that as I get older and life becomes more and more difficult, I will still be able to get that same youthful feeling that many people crave and cannot achieve. I'm not a huge believer in spiritualness, but there is something behind the necessity of nature to a humans mental state. I think nature can be considered both a necessity and a luxury. We need it to remind us that in a modern world, we can still find peace in the simpler things in life. At the same time, I think nature providing that feeling is a luxury we should…
Freedom can mean a variety of different things to different people. To some, freedom may mean political equality, self-ownership, choosing what to believe in, or committing actions without restraint. However, how much freedom do the citizens of this world actually own? Fyodor Dostoyevsky gives his readers different perspectives about freedom in his story of The Grand Inquisitor on the Nature of Man, while Viktor Frankl insists that everyone has an inner freedom that no one can take away in his novel Man’s Search for Meaning.…
In” Creek” , Luke Davies illustrates a similar relationship, in which the complex beauty of nature is ideal in fostering loving relationships between humans. Davies describes the “the sun/Blesses all of [the lovers] ...watery kisses” and “the reeds caress” their ankles. This sensual language suggests a deeply innate connection between the natural landscape and loving human relationships. Davies has personified the ‘sun’ and ‘reeds’ as a divine being, who is celebrating and nurturing the lovers’ experience as they become immersed in nature. Consequently, Davies is illustrating the inextricable bond that exists between humans and the natural environment. It is this bond that can unite humans in shared feelings of love and purity and {text:change-start} metaphorically {text:change-end} transport them “outside of time” as they celebrate this.…