Living Like Weasels By Annie Dillard

In “Living Like Weasels”, the author Annie Dillard, encounters a weasel. Typically, in the animal kingdom a weasel is viewed as an unremarkable, and even disgusting animal. However, with the appearance of a weasel, Annie encounters a sort of revelation, or epiphany, about life and how it should be lived. In a particularly poignant quotation in paragraph 14, Annie says, “That is, I don’t think I can

In “Living Like Weasels,” author Annie Dillard’s idea is that humans can benefit from living wild as a weasel. I strongly agree because to live wild like a weasel is to live mindless, free and focused. With these living abilities we as humans will be able get closer to our aspirations in life and do whatever means necessary to get there.

Secondly, Dillard’s work “living like weasels” effectively projects her perspective through the use of her radical comparisons. Throughout the essay, Dillard’s use of comparisons often helped familiarize her audience in connecting complex and abstract concepts together into concrete context. This is first seen as she states “His journal is tracks in clay, a spray of feathers, mouse blood and bone: uncollected, unconnected, loose-leaf, and blown.” Through this, Dillard connects a concept most would be familiar with: writing journals, to describe what goes on in a weasel’s mindset. In addition, she illustrates that not only do weasels act out of survival, but simply that their “journal” is a transcript of their physical actions. Dissimilar to humans, weasels do not render their thoughts nor “write in journals”, but rather react out of instinct. It is often seen through the content of the piece that she also enjoys to contrast and compare through the occurrences of juxtaposition. This can be seen in the phrases such as, “Our look was as if two lovers, or deadly enemies, met unexpectedly on an overgrown path when each had been thinking of something else: a clearing blow to the gut”. Through these lines, the ideas of man vs nature are continuously

Annie Dillard 's, "Living Like Weasels" has many observational characteristics about the daily life of a weasel. At the exposition of her story, she goes into detail about the appearance, behavior and other such details about a weasel’s life. According to her observations, weasels are wild and obedient to instinct, meaning a weasel will do anything to survive. In the passage Dillard notes, weasels are "ten inches long, thin as a curve, a muscled ribbon, brown as fruitwood, soft-furred, alert … He had two black eyes I didn 't see, any more than you see a window" (Dillard). This analysis of the weasel’s appearance emphasizes the fact that they are simple land dwelling creatures. Initially, Dillard only viewed weasels as the inferior animals’ society deems them as. But as she observed their

In "Living like Weasels", author Annie Dillard uses rhetorical devices to convey that life would be better lived solely in a physical capacity, governed by "necessity", executed by instinct. Through Dillard's use of descriptive imagery, indulging her audience, radical comparisons of nature and civilization and anecdotal evidence, this concept is ultimately conveyed.

Coming of age is a recurring theme that is universally known throughout many different pieces of literature. Whether it’s influenced on true experiences, childhood memories, or even based on one’s current juvenile reality, many of theses works have a correlation between them that include many similar ordeals and struggles that the character goes through in order to metamorphosize into taking their first step out of childhood. One prominent theme that often appears is how one experiences and faces a time of tribulation and other walls that stand in one’s path. In effect, hardships mature and enlighten one, causing the loss of something such as childhood innocence. Lastly, these three combined points finally lead to one’s metamorphosis out of childhood. All in all, these three factors take one out of childhood, and slowly allows one step out into the reality of this world.

In her essay “Living Like Weasels”, Annie Dillard explores the idea of following a single calling in life, and attaching one’s self it this calling as the weasel on Ernest Thompson Seton’s eagle had. Dillard presents her argument using the analogy of a weasel and how the; “weasel lives as he’s meant to, yielding at every moment to the perfect freedom of single necessity” (Dillard). In constructing her argument, however, she often contradicts herself undermining the effectiveness of her argument and leaving the reader confused. Dillard primarily uses ethos and pathos to support her argument and concerning both, the reader discovers; inconsistencies in her character, and conflicts between her perceptions of the weasel’s emotions and its actions. Concerning her ethos, Dillard presents herself as a part of suburbia and then is suddenly, inexplicably overcome by the desire to live wild. Dillard also uses very detailed language throughout the essay in describing her surroundings and thoughts, however; this further undermines her argument and ethos as she is trying to convince the reader that she could simply become as simple and single minded as the weasel she has focused her argument around. With her use of pathos, Dillard begins her essay with descriptions of the weasel’s brutality, yet; she concludes by stating the weasel lives as is necessary. By simplifying her experience and presenting a reasonable explanation for why she wanted to

In Annie Dillard’s short story “Living Like Weasels,” the reader follows her narration of her first encounter with a weasel. The setting takes place at Hollins Pond, a patch of woods residing near a housing development in Virginia, where she sits on a log and observes the scenery. Some time passes and she eventually watches a weasel scurry into her line of sight; their eyes lock, and her entire perspective on life is altered. After the fact, she describes the confrontation through her analysis between a weasel living in the wild versus people living in civilization. She brings several good points into light that cause herself to question her entire approach on the way she should live. I for one find Dillard's train-of-thought very relatable in analysis of my own life.

Secondly, Dillard believes also that the lifestyle of a weasel, if lived and followed by a human, will deliver this person to a successful life. As Dillard references in the story, and also in the introductory paragraph, Weasels live on necessity while people are living on choice. By this, she is implying that weasels live their everyday lives day by day, they do not stress about what is to come next, the focus on what they need to get done at that moment, not what is down the road. Weasels intellectual ability allows them to base their actions off of instinct, rather than off of research, predictions and estimations. Weasels are able to figure out what the best option is for them at any given moment, they do not over-analyze what may be coming their way; weasels just live their lives the way they should believe: carefree. When Dillard describes humans as thriving off of choice, this really begins to make readers think that what she is saying is true. Everyday that a person wakes up, he/she is immediately bombarded with possibility and question. Should I make my bed? Which bottle of shampoo should I use? What shirt should I wear to day? Are some of the question people may ask themselves as they wake up and prepare for the day. We are able to make decision at every point in are life, and some decisions can make or break your career; one bad decision could even take away your family, house

Annie Dillard’s essay is just an exploration into the way human beings might live. When she sees a weasel, she looks into the life of that weasel. Studying how it lives its life. Then she compares it to humans. Human beings are creatures of caution and fear. We never fully live our lives because we are too caught up with avoiding risks. We think, debate, and calculate each and every move while weasels just simply act. A weasel is a creature of action and instinct. A weasel lives its life the way it was created to, not questioning his motives, simply striking when the time is right. I agree with Dillard’s idea that we "might learn something of mindlessness, something of the purity of living in the physical senses and the dignity of living without bias or motive" (Dillard 210).

Chapter ten flashes forward to McCandless death, and it was published in the New York Time and Anchorage Daily News. The media wrote of how foolish and ignorant McCandless was for going into the wilderness so unprepared. Once the death is being investigated by the police the police begin to question Sam, McCandless’s half-brother. To identify him he shows them a picture with long hair and a beard. This made me question who was the man in the picture, was it really McCandless? He wasn’t reported as having long hair, ever. As the half-brother informs his parents of McCandless death the parents respond in devastation. I find it weird that the police contacted his half-brother first and not the parents. Oddly enough I find myself agreeing with the media more than I do with the author. I cannot seem to grasp the thought of going into the wilderness, and not being overly prepared. While I understand that it is a brave action, it is also foolish and somewhat stupid on his part. I also find him to be very selfish. In chapter eleven the author starts to interview McCandless parents, and starts to question the family’s dynamics. The father is very similar to McCandless in the aspect that he is very intense and highly intelligent. Chapter twelve is a continued exploration of McCandless’s character. The author wants to know what made McCandless, McCandless. He finds that he took a road trip to the desert the summer before his freshman year of college, and nearly died of dehydration. I

Published in 1997, Marie Howe’s anthology of poems, What the Living Do was written as an elegy to her brother, John, who passed away due to AIDS. Howe’s anthology is written without metaphor to document the loss she felt after her brother’s death. Although What the Living Do is written as an anthology, this collection allows for individual poems to stand alone but also to work together to tell an overarching story. Using the poetic devices of alliteration, enjambment, repetition and couplets, Howe furthers her themes of gender and loss throughout her poems in her anthology.

The Least Weasel is a secondary consumer (carnivore). They have to eat 40%-60% of their body weight every day, because of this they mainly eat rodents like rabbits, voles, lemmings and hares. If they get really hungry they will occasionally eat insects and amphibians during the summer. They hunt hunt night and day but stay within close range of there home. But what they eat is different than what eats them. The predators of the Least Weasel are other Weasels, snakes,

The work seems to reference that there are two types of people in this world and they are either a cat or a dog. These two serving as a

In Jeanette Winterson’s, “The 24-Hour Dog”, the relationship between narrator and dog is a loyal one where as in Ken Barris’, “The Life of Worm”, the relationship between narrator and dog is quite strained. This essay will aim to discuss these stories in relation to one another, how they differ and relate to one another. Lillian Feder writes about madness in, “Madness in Literature”, this will be used to highlight the mental states of both narrators. The relationship each narrator shares with his dog is unique, in Harold Herzog’s, “The Impact of Pets on Human Health and Psychological Well-being: Fact, Fiction, or Hypothesis”, he discusses how pets can actually affect your mental health. In Adam Dashner’s, “Examples of Symbolism”, the significance