The Nature of Nature Essays
"Pop goes the weasel because the weasel goes pop."
Oh, the early 90s how I miss you. Bare with me here as I'm writing this blog without the use of my book or syllabis. Dillard's point is much clearer than Barnes' point. Dillard focuses tightly on a weasel drawing out positive features that we (humans) would consider barbaric. The weasel is free because it only reacts based on its situation. There's no analzying it. Dillard recalled an account of a hunter finding a weasel skull attached to the neck of a bird he shot. Reactions keep/try to keep us alive and out of danger. Thus, the weasel tries to escape but to no avail. Yet, this is the only stress (if we can call it that) a weasel faces.
Barnes' point is much more thematic. It has to do with the love of a mother (or was it a father) of a daughter. This daughter wants to battle a forest fire, I think, although it could just be the coffee making things more creative. Well...i'll write more later on this once I'm fully awake and have battled other commuters.
Oh, the early 90s how I miss you. Bare with me here as I'm writing this blog without the use of my book or syllabis. Dillard's point is much clearer than Barnes' point. Dillard focuses tightly on a weasel drawing out positive features that we (humans) would consider barbaric. The weasel is free because it only reacts based on its situation. There's no analzying it. Dillard recalled an account of a hunter finding a weasel skull attached to the neck of a bird he shot. Reactions keep/try to keep us alive and out of danger. Thus, the weasel tries to escape but to no avail. Yet, this is the only stress (if we can call it that) a weasel faces.
Barnes' point is much more thematic. It has to do with the love of a mother (or was it a father) of a daughter. This daughter wants to battle a forest fire, I think, although it could just be the coffee making things more creative. Well...i'll write more later on this once I'm fully awake and have battled other commuters.
posted by Red Head Matt at 6:18 AM
2 Comments:
So what is the point of Ashes of August? Does it draw a picture and allow for intpretations? It seems to be more of a story than anything else. It describes a place unlike Dillard's weasel which focues on the weasel on as the main character
I think I announced in class that this piece (or almost exactly this piece with maybe a few itsy bitsy things changed - I didn't read it that carefully) was published in The Georgia Review as fiction. Hmmmm.
So you nailed it when you say it is more of a story than anything else.
I think it doesn't have a point (like Schartz said - it doesn't really have a point but it is ABOUT something), and it is about living in a place that is dry and has fires and the kind of bargain we make when we do such things (- like living next to a river that floods periodically?) So yeah, it doesn't have a point, like Dillard, but it is about something. And it has detailed description of a natural phenomenon and a place. I wanted us to read the two ends of nature writing => essays that make a point and essays that don't.
So it seems that you like essays with a point better than essays tht are stories?
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