Examples Of Knowing Our Place By Barbara Kingsolver

With what it was like to walk for miles with no reason other than to witness the accumulation of trees and meadows, mountains and deserts,streams and rocks , rivers and grasses, sunrise and sunsets. It seemed to me that it had always felt like this to be a human in the wild,and as long as the wild existed it would always feels this way(Wild .pg.207). In this quote, Cheryl explains the beautiful scenery to the wilderness and the experience that came along. Nature taught her how to be

The natural world has a rhythm that ebbs and flows; it is this rhythm that all of nature follows. It is the natural order of life. It is where when left to itself, life finds its balance. The beauty of nature is all around us, and yet; we are unaware, too caught up in the rush of day to day living that we forget to look at what is right there in front of us. The pressures of society, friends and family, paying the bills, work, school, news events, the harshness of the world; we fail to see the softness, peace, beauty and the balance of nature. It is in nature where we find our true selves, our inner peace, our inner voice, our balance.

As reading this “journal” the topic that has come to my attention is how a lot of these “nature writers” are looking at nature either as a positive or negative experience. Most of these shorts journals are looking at nature for not only for what it is, but what it offers, for example in the short “The Marginal World written by Rachel Carson she portrays “"The Shore is an ancient world, for as long as there has been an earth and sea there has been this place of the meeting of land and water. Yet it is a world that keeps alive the sense of continuing creation and of the relentless drive for life. Each time that I enter it, I gain some new awareness of its beauty and its deeper meanings, sensing that intricate fabric of life by which one creature is linked with another, and each with its surroundings."(481). Based off this quote, we can see that a lot of these authors did not only see nature as something that could be touched, but rather seen as a spiritual entity.

Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau were the giants during the 19th century American Transcendentalism movement. Their influential work brought upon shared beliefs on concerning spiritual perspectives, government interference, and the ideology of cultural values in American society. Nature has a multitude of meaning if looked at it from all angles, but deeper within nature is the reflection of what you exert while in it. However they agree on the human condition, the two authors speak with different tones that reflect how nature affects the entirety of man’s spirit. While both Emerson and Thoreau practice the spirit of the human condition, Emerson focused his energy on how “[nature’s] philosophical import [is]…unchanged by man” (215.) where Thoreau implied that we are “subjects of an experiment” (1051).

In the beginning of creation of humans, nature has always been there as a friend. Nature is the phenomena of the physical world that includes plants, animals, the landscape, and other features that are on earth. Nature has all of the wild and domestic living things. Ralph Waldo Emerson was an American poet that led the transcendentalist movement and influenced other through his ideas and thinking. Ralph wrote “Nature,” and he describes his true feelings toward nature and God and how they have taken part of what has been created and also the relationship to humans. Ralph Waldo Emerson writes the passage “Nature” and he uses comparison between humans and nature and also uses figurative language to convey his appreciation and gratitude for nature.

Nature is a major transcendental value which both Emerson and Thoreau thrive off of. Emerson

In one's life, for many, the place means everything. In the novel Blank by Trina St Jean, a young teen looses her memory after an upsetting accident and spends the novel trying to figure out what happened. Jessica's life is set in her family farm and surrounding forest. Setting is crucial to her story because of her love for nature, her accident, and her runaway plan. To begin, Jessica’s family farm is the perfect place for a nature lover like Jessica, it could be that living on the farm made her develop her love, or that is grew over time. Nonetheless, the farm is a crucial setting to the story: “After taking the first photo it starts to come back to me. Not a memory, but a feeling. Like I’ve done this before” (St. Jean 189). Here it is seen

Though adventures in nature, and life, include fear and loneliness, having confidence is the true key to survival. During Wild, and A Walk in the Woods, Cheryl Strayed and Bill Bryson recall the experience of their journey of self discovery and realization in the wilderness by using significant contrast and, powerful pathos.

Throughout time, people have been exposed to elements that help them understand life. These tools can be found through family, religion, etc. These tools were and still are used by many great authors. Emily Dickinson was a great writer and was often inspired by nature. She utilized nature as a way of reflecting on her life. Walt Whitman did the same as well. Whitman used nature to evoke emotions and create a body of work that was beautiful. In both of their works, Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson use nature to portray their views on death.

Thoreau wished to open the minds of many revealing the importance of nature “Let us spend one day as deliberately as Nature, and not be thrown off the track by every nutshell and mosquito's wing that falls on the rails” (Thoreau II). In the quote, Thoreau discusses how he learned to live deliberately in nature encouraging other members of society to do the same. He has learned that it can lead to harmonization with oneself, to

Thoreau wrote “Walden” where he says “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach….”. Both of these quotes talk about going back to nature and seeing what it has to offer them. In Into The Wild by Jon Krakauer the main topic of the story are the events

In American Literature many authors write about nature and how nature affects man's lives. In life, nature is an important part of people. Many people live, work, or partake in revelry in nature. Nature has received attention from authors spanning several centuries. Their attitudes vary over time and also reflect the different outlooks of the authors who chose to discuss this important historical movement. A further examination of this movement, reveals prevalence of nature's influence on man and how it affects their lives.

Ralph Waldo Emerson was not only a magnificent writer, but a man who could see beyond the views of the world he lived in. One of his most famous essays is entitled “Nature,” and throughout this essay Emerson shows the audience his unique views that, along with other authors, inspired a new age of thinking: the Transcendentalism Age. Transcendentalists believed that God, Nature, and Humans had a unique relationship, and subsequently as one bond is strengthened, the bond between all three will also be solidified. Those who believed this ideology were called Romantics, and Emerson, along with Henry Thiourea and Margaret Fuller, argued for a closer relationship between Humans and Nature. Once this bond between Human and Nature was strengthened the bond between Human and God would also be strengthened. This philosophy was just being introduced to the world in the 1830’s, and as such, readers had to not only be convinced to read these essays, but also had to be convinced to listen to new ideas and attempt to understand them. In this age different views were widely ignored, or even shunned, and if the readers were not able to understand the essay, there would be no possibility of anyone reading his essay. Emerson attempted to make this process less demanding of the reader by speaking in simple language and using different literary devices to help the reader understand what Emerson was arguing for. These literary devices are the most used aspect of his writing; much less used are

The beauty of nature is often overlooked and underappreciated in today’s society. The neglect and lack of respect given to such a beautiful creation by members of society is widely reflected in Romantic poetry. The romantic era began in 1798, where writers such as William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge expressed their opinions and feelings towards nature. Overall such writers typically express a positive outlook on the natural world around them, however some stray the other way. Specifically Coleridge and Wordsworth began to express the feeling of disconnect towards nature. Both writers began to feel as though they could not understand nature and cannot connect with the beauty it gives off as expressed in poems such as “Dejection”, “London 1802”, and “Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey”. Not only did some of these writers begin to feel a disconnect but a select few also begin to feel as though people are disrespecting the balance of nature and are trying to disrupt the balance and manipulate it. Writers such as Mary Shelley, author of the novel Frankenstein, expresses the concern of people taking the laws of nature and twisting them. Writers and people living during this time period not only express an appreciation for nature but also the truth about the human relationship with nature. The relationship between humans and nature is on of mistreatment.

Moving Forward, Henry David Thoreau taught the “satisfactions and virtues of living simply and wisely in communion with nature” through “Where I lived, and What I Lived For” (Sayre 893). From the excerpt “Where I Lived, and What I Lived For,” Thoreau used three major points to clarify how he and other individuals view the natural world. Firstly, Thoreau stated that “at a certain season of your life we are accustomed to consider every spot as the possible site of a house” (“Where I Lived”). Even though this statement does not relate to Thoreau’s belief of nature, it relates to a majority of human belief of nature. People see nature as theirs for the taking to and to do whatever they please to it. Secondly, Thoreau gave reasons as to why he went to the woods by saying, “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived” (“Where I Lived”). Thoreau truly believed that in order to