Category Archives: Wilderness

ahhh, Frack

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In a Environmental Studies class of mine, we watched a documentary that some of you might have seen titled Gas Land,  by Josh Fox. In this film, it starts out with some vivid imagery of some of our natural gas wells, and takes us inside a some sort of congress meeting, discussing the importance of drilling for natural gas, saying that there is “no real credible threat to underground drinking water from hydrolic fracturing,” however, Josh seems to come up with some different findings along his journey for the truth. What he finds is frighting, and I encourage all of you to watch Gas Land, for I cannot get the whole feeling of the movie in one small post. This film is available on HBO and Netflix right now, and I’m sure you can find it a thousand other places online, because it is a pretty relevant issue. In the first minute of the film, those in favor of fracking have been giving misleading information, such as :” … entire process is imperceptible under the surface” and, “Mostly water and a few chemicals are used”. However after watching the film, and doing some independent research, I found that the fracking could drill us into a darker future.

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Anthropomorphism in Environmental Films

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Over the weekend I decided to watch the environmental documentary, African Cats. The film was released last year on Earth Day, what better timing for a new documentary film devoted to wildlife. African Cats captivates the audience as you follow a year in the life of a group of lions and cheetahs through Kenya. The films emphasis was on female cats that are the heroes. The audience is first introduced to Layla, an aging lioness struggling to keep up with her pride for the survival of her daughter, Mara. Then introduced to Sita, a single mother cheetah of three who lacks a pride for protection and food.

Samuel L. Jackson over dramatic narration emphasizes the anthropomorphism throughout the film. African Cats tumbles into anthropomorphic cuteness and applies human motivations to animal behavior. Throughout the film the audience can’t help but have sympathy through the suspense as the feline moms struggle for survival against hyenas, crocodiles, male lions, and cheetahs. The film anthropomorphizing of the cat with human emotions and motivations make the story emotional and are effectively done. The audience gets to know these wild cats enough to invest their sympathy through dangers and losses. The losses are balanced by triumphs and comic relief to teach children about life and death, without traumatizing them. Continue reading →

A Connection Between Robert Frost and Henry Thoreau

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For the blog this week I am going to further a point I raised in class about the Woodchuck  found in the opening paragraph of the chapter Higher Laws. The Drumlin Woodchuck by Robert Frost calls attention to a Woodchuck as well. The Drumlin Woodchuck is a poem associated with nature, wilderness, and retreating from the influence of man. According to an article by Fritz Oehlschlaeger titled Two Woodchucks, or Frost and Thoreau on the Art of the Burrow the; “admiration for Walden(by Frost) is well known, and numerous critics have suggested both general and specific parallels between the works of Thoreau and Frost.” While this admiration adds a layer of depth when reading Frosts poems as they can be connected to the ideas of Thoreau, it is interesting to look at the poem A Drumlin Woodchuck as an explicit nod to the Walden, where the Frosts poem can be seen as a response. Oehlschlaeger claims to have discovered this original relationship between these “two woodchucks”, and suggests that Frost uses the name Thoreau through a pun; “so instinctively thorough”(line  31). The usage here is claimed to be a pun By Oehlschlaeger, and this analogy seems apt.

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The Cold

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Rowlandson effectively uses the wintery season she was captured during to portray the bleak and desperate mood felt in this excerpt. Her having had to “sit all this cold winter night upon the cold snowy ground,” portrays a lack of control over her environment. For her captors, the Wampanoags, would not provide shelter to her and her sick child, and she had no ability to affect that. This exposure to the elements also sets the scene as cold, which is something she puts emphasis on by using it twice in that one phrase. That coldness can then be transferred to the Native Americans in a symbolic gesture, further portraying Rowlandson’s situation as bleak. And if her captors, her environment, and her mood are all cold and bleak, what will keep her motivated?

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Faith and Nature

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In Mary Rowlandson’s book, A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson, she recounts the transformations she must go through, once natives take her captive. The Second Remove describes her struggles to survive in the “vast and desolate wilderness.” Rowlandson describes how she was exhausted and missed her home and that the Spirit of God was the only thing that kept her going. Rowlandson states, “God was with me in a wonderful manner, carrying me along, and bearing up my spirit, that it did not quite fail” (312). Rowlandson was showing her faith towards God and displays that He was the only thing keeping her from giving up. She describes the wilderness as a very barren place that is exceptionally inhospitable compared to her society. Continue reading →

Nature’s Influence on Man

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American colonists arriving in these shores brought with them ideas of individual liberty and the natural right of property. If you worked hard and put in the time, the thinking goes, you were entitled to the fruits of your own labor. Crevecoeur sketches a convincing tableau that incorporates these philosophies into 18th century life in the New World. Instead of being given dominion over untamed land, the early settlers had to work to push back the woods and make the soil productive. At the same time, however, they were influenced by their surroundings to the point that even man’s basic humanity was at risk. Unlike the earlier Rowlandson, who writes of her stoic stand against wilderness that is enabled by the grace of God, Crevecoeur’s letters suggest that man’s interaction with nature works both ways.

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Emerson: Minister of the Sublime

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Throughout “Nature”, Emerson’s ministry background is evident, but it is especially clear in the “Introduction”.  Like a minister, enlivened by his faith, he asks countless rhetorical questions of the reader, like a preacher to his congregation. “Why should we not have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation to us, and not a history of theirs?” This is his initial call for spirituality based on the direct observation of nature, instead of through texts or prophets. Again, playing the good minister, he clarifies his terminology, stating that “Nature” is that which is external to ourselves, “essences unchanged by man; space, the air, the river, the leaf.”
A reoccurring pattern throughout the text is the notion that spirituality and connecting to the divine is achieved by a communion with the sublime. In essence, forgive the rhyme, the sublime is linked to the divine.  In “Chapter 1. Nature”, Emerson jumps immediately into the sublime.

“…if a man would be alone let him look at the stars. The rays that come from those heavenly worlds, will separate between him and what he touches. One might think the atmosphere was made transparent with this design, to give a man, in the heavenly bodies, the perceptual presence of the sublime.”

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The Sublime Deep

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On March 25th, 2012, James Cameron, the director behind Avatar and Titanic, traveled to the bottom of Challenger Deep, the deepest point of the Mariana Trench at almost 7 miles total. Equipped with a one man submersible eight years in the making, he was able to stay at the bottom for over six hours in order to collect 3D footage and other available samples. However, a trip such as this doesn’t come cheap. The last eight years have cost Cameron vast amounts of money as he has personally paid for the construction of his sub, the first of its kind. On top of that he has spent these last few years perfecting the sub and putting it through many trails in order to maximize its ability to collect useful data as well as bring him back alive. The pressure at this depth can kill a human instantly were there a single leak in the structure of the sub so there is no room for error. Man certainly does not have dominion at these depths.

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Advertising and the environment: videos from class

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If you are interested in taking another look, here are the videos we watched in class on Thursday.  Stories, metaphors, and images of the environment often come to seem deceptively transparent  through long usage.  It is our job as literary and cultural analysts to uncover how they are working and to make them strange again.  And if you watch these commercials enough times they definitely start to seem really strange.  Kids dressed up as trees and flowers blowing in the wind.  Making garbage disappear simply by holding a beautiful poster in front of it.  A car that transforms into animals in order to navigate a rugged landscape.  Weird stuff!   Environmental and literary tropes — like the sublime, the pastoral, harmony or the ecological web, and wilderness (see the Buell glossary of terms for explanations of these) — are everywhere; you just have to keep your eyes open for them.  Where do you see them in your day to day lives?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHZRJpeOe8w

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