Analysis Of Dillard's 'Living Like Weasels'

In “Living like Weasels”, Dillard explores the concepts of the interconnectedness of nature as well the concepts of freedom and choice, both of which are quintessential transcendentalist ideas. This essay also seemed to me as strongly reminiscent of Thoreau’s Walden, another transcendentalist work. The central event in this essay was the encounter between Dillard and a weasel while she is visiting Hollin’s Pond. They lock eyes and seem to share an intimate moment, which Dillard describes as “a sudden beating of brains, with all the charge and intimate grate of rubbed balloons.” This is a pivotal point in the essay because it is after this moment that she begins to consider the way the weasel lives and examines the benefits of living animalistically over living as humans typically do.

This concept of “living like weasels” is merely a representation of living with just the bare necessities. This idea of necessity is also one she mentions several times. She discusses the instincts of the weasel and how it was driven by these to bite the eagle’s throat and not let go. Dillard’s stance on this idea seems to be that it is better to be driven by necessity than to “live in choice, hating necessity and d[ie] …in its talons.” She makes the distinction because to live by necessity is to lead a simpler and, to Dillard it seems, a more meaningful life. She suggests humans are meant to live in a similar way, “to grasp your one necessity and not let it go,” just as the weasel grasped to the eagle. To me, this seemed very similar to the concept of living deliberately which Thoreau expresses in