Terry Tempest Williams’ Refuge Essay

Not only is he the most nominated living individual in the history of the Academy Awards (with 49 nominations), but he is also the third most-nominated person in Hollywood History, second only to Metro Goldwyn Mayer (62) Walt Disney (59). In his credentials he holds five Academy Awards, seven British Academy Film Awards, 22 Grammy Awards, and 4 Golden Globe Awards. Considering that obtaining a single nomination for any of the aforementioned awards is remarkable in itself, this astounding number is truly

An individuals sense of belonging within society is governed by their perspectives and views towards their environment and landscape,their own ability to adjust and appreciate the environment governs whether they can feel at home with their setting or alienate themselves from new cultures and long for old traditions.Raimond Gaita’s Romulus My Father and Manfred Jurgensen’s Bonegilla 1961 reflect the consequences of negative perceptions and an inability to understand new landscapes which lead to negative consequences.

The lake itself plays a major role throughout the story, as it mirrors the characters almost exactly. For example, the lake is described as being “fetid and

Terry Tempest Williams and Wangari Maathai are both very powerful women who devoted their lives to improving the world one step at a time. Williams, the author of Refuge, is a naturalist, a feminist, and a writer who brings such power into everything she touches. Her passion for change has brought so much goodness into the world. She has beat many obstacles, including her own struggle with herself, which to her is the same fight we have with nature, and finally accepting the outcome; whatever that may be unnatural, or natural, is the secret to life. While we read about what Terry Tempest Williams writes about her mother’s difficulties while struggling with cancer, we also have Wangari Maathai speaking about all the violence she faces in Kenya.

The author symbolizes the water as transition and spirituality, the lake is symbolized as the elusive badness the boys want so badly. The narrator notices that none of them are as bad as they try to act. After that night the narrator realizes he cannot make it in that life, rather the narrator wants to go to the safety and security of his home and parents.

In the detailed story of an impoverished family during the late 1900’s, Jeannette Walls describes her experience from the young age of 3, up until adulthood. The family of 6, with Rex Walls as the father, Rose Mary as the mother, and her three siblings, Lori, Brian and Maureen, were constantly moving throughout the country with little to no food or cash. The memoir shows how dysfunctional the family was, but never seemed to force the reader to condemn the parents. In a life of poverty, the have to move for own to town, and often lived in various mining towns. Although they each found something they learned to love (like Jeannette’s rock collection) in the desert, they had to leave them behind once Rex’s alcoholism only worsened, and they ran

The migration to the Great Salt Lake was an excruciating journey, spanning thousands of miles. When the Mormons reached the Great Salt Lake they understood why no one had settled on the land before. Vast amounts of acres and a large body of water mean nothing when the land is dry and water undrinkable. To remedy their problems, the Mormons set up a water irrigation system to filter the lake water into a usable source. They acclimated to the land and understood that time would be needed to cultivate the soil, which they successfully restored,

At the beginning of the semester, I read Peirce F. Lewis’s “Axioms for Reading the Landscape.” Lewis interprets landscapes through a set of rules which he calls “axioms.” In weeks four and five, I was assigned to read Joshua Jelly-Schapiro’s “High-Tide, Low Ebb,” Rebecca Solnit’s “Little Pieces of Many Wars,” and Raymond Williams’s “Culture is Ordinary.” Within Jelly-Schapiro’s and Solnit’s articles, there are two different maps provided by Shizue Siegel and Ben Pease that illustrate and support both Jelly-Schapiro’s and Solnit’s arguments. Jelly-Schapiro focuses on the demographic and racial changes that transpired during and after World War II in San Francisco Bay, California. While Solnit, examines the historical landscape changes that took

In many ways, adversity is the leading factor for change. People, animals, and things often alter their shape or ideas to fit with their surroundings. Usually, those surroundings include one driving factor that forces the change: struggles or difficulty. This idea poses the question, in what way do people deal with adversity? The books The Call of the Wild, by Jack London, and The Prince, by Niccolo Machiavelli, along with the article “What Does It Take to ‘Assimilate’ to America?” by Laila Lalami, carry a common theme: it is not just change that helps people deal with adversity, but adaptation. Change is the simple act of becoming different, whereas adaptation is the act of changing oneself to fit in one’s environment. Adversity, however

When the opportunity to attend the local Peteetneet Schoolhouse Museum transpired, many historical facts would be discovered. Upon arrival the large two story stone building resembled something from a pioneer movie. The museum guide quickly came to escort myself through the exhibit and shared her mass amount of information. The historical building housed the information of local Mormon settlers and the steady cultural clash between the Ute, Paiute and Navajo Indians. Along with interesting information and artifacts, the museum brought to life the struggles of early settler’s.

William’s analogy between civil society and a group of people aboard a ship eased the dynamics of his letter. By illustrating how his ideas of liberty would take place on a ship, Williams’s ideas seem more approachable rather than terrifying his audience by explain it with everyday details of society. Since everyone other than the Indians in the New World had lived on a ship for months, to arrive to the New World, Williams made this analogy relatable to everyone’s previous experiences. Williams’s analogy could have been unsuccessful because he did not illustrate clear margins for what daily life would look like with his ideas in

Once More to the Lake tells the story of E.B. White’s journey back to his childhood lake in Maine. White compares the lake of his childhood to the lake of his adulthood. Everything was the same to White when he went with his son. “It was the arrival of this fly that convinced me beyond any doubt that everything was as it always had been, that the years were a mirage and that there had been no years,” (50 Essays pg. 446). The scenery of the lake brought peace and tranquility to White as he realized that he had become his father and his son had become him. White embraces nature at first, but towards the end he fears its mortality. “As he buckled the swollen belt, suddenly my groin felt the chill of death,” (50 Essays pg. 450). Once More to the Lake is satiated with description and figurative language. White uses heavy detail to capture the reader and get his point across. The natural setting of the lake revealed the essence of life to him.

However the differences between the Sevier-Fremont and Williams reside in their way of living. For both, their existence or way of living is synonymous with their relationship to nature. The Great Basin was the womb in which the Sevier-Fremont developed. However the umbilical cord was never severed as the shores of the Great Salt Lake became their lifeline, their life support. Williams’ history and current relationships with her family speak of close ties with nature. Her Mormon ancestors believed that the Great Basin was the Promised Land. They carved out a life for themselves amid the land’s hostility, declaring it sacred. The basin remains sacred to Williams in many respects. From bird watching and astrology with her mother and grandmother, to marriage maintenance with her husband Brooke, the majority of the familial activities Williams describes have an outdoor element. Furthermore for Williams, naturalist in residence at the Utah Museum of Natural Science, the Great Salt Lake is not only the

Nearly everything that a human does is in response to the environment. Our lives are defined by what is around us and what we find in front of us, whether this means accepting, dealing with or changing it. This has been the pattern since primates first stood up and became Homo erectus, and has continued until we considered ourselves doubly wise. The shape of the land affected where humans moved. Weather was something with which to contend. Fire affected humans until they conquered it – and herein lies the core of the relationship. The earth affects humans, and humans affect it back, viewing characteristics and patterns as problems and challenges, and finding a solution.