Summary Of The Animals In That Country By Margaret Atwood

My book club book, The Roar by Emma Clayton is about a semi-apocalyptic, semi-dystopian, society where there hasn't been any children born for the past 30 years and this is ‘reasonable move’ as Mal Gorman says, because the Animal Plague has been spread rapidly. Not much is known about the animal plague until the very end of the story.

Jim Harrison and Jack Underwood are two completely different authors who share one thing in common; their poems involve a connection with animals. Jack Underwood writes how he does not care too much about the animals which is the poem called “Totem Pole” as he hunts them and then mentions “to appraise my work only” (Underwood). Jim Harrison writes the poem called “Man Dog” in which the main character cares for his animal so much that he even pretends to act like his animal. In both poems we experience the authors writing in first person and expressing a somewhat somber mood. Jim Harrison and Jack Underwood are both able to connect through animals and through the use of emotions as well as a deeper connection we see how two different poems

Animals by Simon Rich is an outstanding short story which takes a unique perspective on the everyday life in a classroom. The story is written from the point of view of a hamster who spends his tortured life entrapped in a cage. From the first point in this story, it is clear that the purpose of the writing is not to understand the hamster, but rather to analyze the different actions of the people, and to discover that how they act towards the hamsters reflects on their character. It is curious to view the everyday interactions of people through a different set of eyes, that is done by humanizing the narrator’s perspective. Based on the actions of the many people and the treatment of the class pet, the author suggests that human nature is very much a product of the financial circumstances a person is subjected to.

An individual’s need to renounce a decision or a course of action can often lead to an individual forsaking themselves and choosing to live in their own fantasy, and not living in reality. In the short story “The Horses of the Night”, Chris has to deal with his below average life, in his below average house, and to do so he creates his own delusions by renouncing what his life is now. As the story progresses, the life of Chris progressively gets worse, with no job and no college education, Chris continued to create more delusions until finally, Chris could no longer handle it and chose a life outside of reality, leaving his body behind. Chris chose to renounce his life in its entirety and to live in a false reality in which he created in

The poem, “Gospel” by Philip Levine gives a vivid description of what the narrator sees around them. The narrator focuses their description on nature. They make many references to types of plants like lupine and thistles. Throughout the poem, nature can be seen as and abstract creature. Nature is giving and lively. The conflict in the poem is between the speaker and nature. The narrator tries to show how nature can give nice outdoor views and how the earth gives people a place to walk on while people give nothing back to nature. Levine’s speaker uses repetition and comparisons to show how nature is constantly pleading for the narrators attention yet they cannot offer anything to the relationship they have with nature. The poem slowly evolves

The theme of spirituality takes place in many novels that we have read this semester. Natives has used spiritual guidance as a means of connecting with their past and honoring their ancestors. To Natives, spirits have always played an important role in their culture and everyday lives. When Natives were forced to convert to Christianity and over time have their beliefs sucked out of them, the spiritual connection was broken as generations passed. One novel that particularly spoke to me on this subject was Monkey Beach, by Eden Robinson. The main character, Lisa, is struggling to fins herself after being blessed with the gift of being a shaman. In this novel, the author exploits how the European or western “white” culture has destroyed the

White also used a sarcastic tone to her poem. The sarcastic tone of the poem adds power to the message she is trying to convey to the reader. It brings attention to the situations of not just armadillos but every wild animal that are being taken for granted. In lines 10 to 12 “No one cares. There is no Save the Armadillo Society.” Unlike other animals that are included in the endangered species list, there are no groups or people who are trying to save the armadillos, because they are not endangered yet, there are still plenty of them in the wild, their lives are not as precious as a polar bear, or a siberian tiger.

For Native Americans, protecting their sacred ways was and is a matter of survival, but it is also a matter of respect for the power that is involved. Across the United States, there are more than 558 federally recognized and several hundred state recognized Native American nations (Russell, 1998). Given the wide-ranging diversity of this population consisting of 2.3 million people, it is essential to understand that the term Native American spirituality encompasses the vastness of more than 500 different tribal traditions represented by these hundreds of Indian nations. Being particularly interested in the spirituality as well as the spiritual philosophies and practices of Native Americans, I have decided to approach this very

“An Animal’s Place” written by, Michael Pollan is an article on rather animals should have the same constitutional rights as humans. Pollan explains in the article that, “Zogby poll found that fifty-one percent of Americans believe that primates are entitled to the same rights as human children”. Pg. 362 meaning, people want to stand up for how animals are being treated in factories. More and more animals are treated like they are machines and not animals. Pollan goes on to explain how he went to a few of the animal factories in the United States, to see how they operate. We found he was displeasing. They cage thousands of hens and pigs to the point that they become depressed. They start producing less and some resort in eating cannibalizing.

Garrouttee et al. (2009) discusses that even though the definition of Native American spirituality does not exist, there are several identifiable themes that emerge. The first thing that Garroutte et al. (2009) identifies is that spirits are often associated with animals, plants, and other things in the natural world. Another aspect is the Great Spirit, or father, which is equitable to God in the Judeo-Christian belief. The Great Spirit is more considered to be an omnipresent spirit or collectivity of spirits inhabiting the universe (Garroutte et al., 2009). To many Native American tribes, the material and spiritual realms are wound together and cannot be separated from the other (Limb & Hodge, 2008). To many Native American tribes, existence is spiritual (Limb & Hodge, 2008). Another area if commonality is ceremonies and rituals of the different tribes. Each tribe has a great variety of rituals, and ceremonies that are apart of each tribe’s culture, values, and beliefs. These spiritual practices reinforce the link between the individual, the creator, and the community (Limb & Hodge,

This can be linked to The Hunchback in the Park, where several pieces of evidence of animal imagery which have the same effect can be found. Examples of this include ‘Like the park birds he came early’ and ‘Through the loud zoo of the willow groves’. In addition, animals only communicate very basically, without the complexity that humans do. By referring to the two characters as animals in the poems, both poets exemplify how isolated the characters are from a normal society.

Often times the author's message illustrates the reality of a situation in society. In the 1960’s, the raise in protest against the prejudices of Native tribes lead to a Native American Renaissance in literature. As a result, the Native American literature depicts the destruction of the roots Native American culture. Authors, Sherman Alexie and Leslie Marmon, expressed their view on Native American culture through poetry. The combination of Alexie’s Evolution and Marmon’s Where Mountain Lion Lay Down with Deer leads to similarities and differences. According to what they saw, the poems are presented through the speaker's voice and the author's diction in order to develop the theme in both Evolution and Where Mountain Lion Lay Down with Deer. Although the two poems express similar themes, there is a contrasts between the two poems due to the tone of each piece and the literary elements employed.

In the poem “A Blessing,” James Wright analyzes the relationship between human beings and nature through the descriptive explanation of an encounter between his friend and himself and two Indian horses. He shows that although we are able to relate and interact with the animals we don't have the ability to join them or as Wright puts it: “break into blossom” (26-27). Wright uses imagery and personification to describe the nature he witnesses as he escapes from the stress of human life. The ponies in this poem are personified by comparing them to human beings, mainly through the description of their emotions. This personification lessens the gap between the author and the horses and separates him from civilization represented by the highways

Interactions between people are never ending. The effects of one conversation could affect the outcome of that person’s life, consequently changing their identity completely. There comes a time, though, when dealing with others confident in their identities, where one must ask themselves the personal question of “who am I?”. No matter if you’ve just stumbled upon this question, in the process of discovering the answer, consistently changing your answer, or confident in your answer, the people around you are the ones you have to thank for molding your personal identity.

In the poems “Traveling Through the Dark” and “Woodchucks” man must make a decision about nature in the most inconvenient ways. In “Traveling Through the Dark” the narrator is faced with, literally, a life or death situation, whereas in “Woodchucks” the narrator is faced under the Darwinian belief about killing. Both poems reveal the interpersonal relationship between man and animal as well as the moral dilemma that man faces with nature. However, through the use of narration, vivid imagery, and personification, the poets show one speaker’s sympathetic attitude towards the animals while the other speaker has an adversarial attitude toward them.