Analysis of The Abstract Wild by Jack Turner
Jack Turner's The Abstract Wild is a complex argument that discusses many issues and
ultimately defends the wild in all of its forms. He opens the novel with a narrative story about a
time when he explored the Maze in Utah and stumbled across ancient pictographs. Turner tells
this story to describe what a truly wild and unmediated experience is. The ideas of the aura,
magic, and wildness that places contain is introduced in this story. Turner had a spiritual
connection with the pictographs because of the power, beauty, and awe that they created within
him upon their first mysterious contact. Turner ruined this unmediated experience by taking
photographs of the pictographs and talking about them to several people. His second visit to the
pictographs was extremely different- he had removed the wild connection with the ancient mural
and himself by publicizing and talking about them. This is Turner's main point within the first
chapter. He believes that when we take a wild place and photograph it, talk about it, advertise it,
make maps of it, and place it in a national park that we ruin the magic, the aura, and the wildness
of that place. Nature magazines, photographs, and films all contribute to the removal of our wild
experience with nature. It is the difference between visiting the Grand Canyon after you have
seen it on TV and read about it in magazines, or never having heard of the place and stumbling
across it on your own during a hike. Unfortunately, almost every wild experience between
nature and the public has been ruined by the media. Through Turner's story he begins to explain
the idea of the wild and its importance and necessity of human interaction with the wild.
The second chapter contains two major ideas. The first is Turner's defense and
explanation of the appropriateness of anger. Turner thinks that society wrongly taught the
people to repress and fear their emotions. Turner finds primal emotions to be necessary to our
survival, as well as the survival of the wild. He explains that anger occurs when we defend
something we love or something we feel is sacred. He reminds us to cherish our anger and use it
to fuel rebellion. Turner criticizes the cowardice of modern environmentalists in the following
passage: "The courage and resistance shown by the Navajos at Big Mountain, by Polish workers,
by blacks in South Africa, and, most extraordinarily, by Chinese students in Tiananmen Square
makes much of the environmental protest in America seem shallow and ineffective in
The Fires of Jubilee, by Stephen B. Oates, tells an account of Nat Turner’s rebellion. Beginning with Nat’s early life and finally ending with the legacy his execution left the world, Oates paints a historical rending of those fateful days. The Confessions of Nat Turner by Thomas R. Gray and approved by Nat himself is among Oates’ chief sources. Oates is known as a reputable historian through his other works, and has strong credentials however, in the case of The Fires of Jubilee there are some limitations. It is, therefore, worth analyzing Oates’ interpretation for reliability. In doing so one sees that The Fires of Jubilee, because of its weak use of citations, failure to alert the audience of assumed details and the way in which Oates handles the chief source Confessions, quickly begins to shift from a decently steadfast description to an untrustworthy and unreliable account.
As mentioned earlier I would start my discussion with a very prominent emotion called Anger. Anger is defined as a person’s response to a threat or the perception of a threat against an individual or group. Anger is an emotion that is often difficult to control because of the intense physiological reactions involved in the fight or flight response that triggers anger. The fight response is a response triggered naturally by the body to protect itself against the instigating situation (Lazarus, 1991). In the novel The Great Gatsby Fitzgerald narrates two important incidents that stand as a fine example for expressing anger with violence i.e., 1) Tom hits Myrtle 2) Wilson kills Jay Gatsby.
Having such an image before our eyes, often we fail to recognize the message it is trying to display from a certain point of view. Through Clark’s statement, it is evident that a photograph holds a graphic message, which mirrors the representation of our way of thinking with the world sights, which therefore engages other
The wild is a place to push yourself to the limit and take a look at who you truly are inside. “Wilderness areas have value as symbols of unselfishness” (Nash). Roderick Nash’s philosophy states that the wilderness gives people an opportunity to learn humility but they fight this because they do not have a true desire to be humble. Human-kind wants to give out the illusion that they are nature lovers when in reality, they are far from it. “When we go to designated wilderness we are, as the 1964 act says, "visitors" in someone else's home” (Nash). People do not like what they cannot control and nature is uncontrollable. Ecocentrism, the belief that nature is the most important element of life, is not widely accepted. The novel Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer depicts a young boy who goes on an exploration to teach himself the true concept of humility. Chris McCandless, the protagonist, does not place confidence in the universal ideology that human beings are the most significant species on the planet, anthropocentrism.
Man has destroyed nature, and for years now, man has not been living in nature. Instead, only little portions of nature are left in the world
To conclude, Thoreau believed that people should be ruled by conscience and that people should fight against injustice through non-violence according to “Civil Disobedience.” Besides, he believed that we should simplify our lives and take some time to learn our essence in the nature. Moreover, he deemed that tradition and money were unimportant as he demonstrated in his book, Walden. I suggested that people should learn from Thoreau to live deliberately and spend more time to go to the nature instead of watching television, playing computer games, and among other things, such that we could discover who we were and be endeavored to build foundations on our dreams.
Turner, Robert L. (1999, July 20). A cynical look at American politics; Book Review; The New Prince; by Dick Morris. The Boston Globe, p. E3.
In Into the Wild, Jon Krakauer explores the human fascination with the purpose of life and nature. Krakauer documents the life and death of Chris McCandless, a young man that embarked on an Odyssey in the Alaskan wilderness. Like many people, McCandless believed that he could give his life meaning by pursuing a relationship with nature. He also believed that rejecting human relationships, abandoning his materialistic ways, and purchasing a book about wildlife would strengthen his relationship with nature. However, after spending several months enduring the extreme conditions of the Alaskan wilderness, McCandless’ beliefs begin to work against him. He then accepts that he needs humans, cannot escape materialism, and can never fully understand how nature functions. Most importantly, he realizes that human relationships are more valuable than infinite solitude. McCandless’ gradual change of heart demonstrates that exploring the wilderness is a transformative experience. Krakauer uses the life and death of Chris McCandless to convey that humans need to explore nature in order to discover the meaning of life.
The control theory is “the view that people refrain from deviant behavior because diverse factors control their impulses to break social norms.” (Chegg) Adam Lanza had a different way of behaving in general, which can make him an outcast to society. Lanza had grown up a more unusual life than most people, therefore making him a peculiar person. Lanza had been detaching from society and social norms by his grotesque acts from OCD and other disorders. In relevance to the crime Lanza had committed, it was out of pure hatred. Lanza had feelings of hate towards society and separation from his mother. This concluded that he thought it was a rational crime to commit which is why he did
But, as a slaveholder stalled in financial difficulty, Gray likely saw a huge profit and publicity in satiating the public 's thirst for knowledge about such an mysterious figure. Also, literary critics have consistently pointed to inconsistencies in Turner 's language and tone throughout the document. They suggest that Turner and Gray 's plans conflict reliably in the text and thus create the uncertainty that has characterized the document for over a century and a half. Turner 's image has changed and evolved over the years. He has emerged as a hero, a religious fanatic and a villain. Turner became an important icon to the 1960s black power movement as an example of an African American standing up against white oppression. He was also the subject of William Styron 's 1967 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Confessions of Nat Turner. But others have objected to Turner 's indiscriminate slaughtering of men, women and children to try to achieve this
...lusion, both Booker T. Washington and W.E.B Dubois had the same dream for African Americans which was mainly Citizenship but their way of achieving it differed from each other. Due to interest in immediate goals in Washington's economic approach, Whites didn't find out that he anticipated the full acceptance and transformation of Negroes into American life. He believe that Black had to start so little and work their way up and gradually achieve power, positions, and responsibility before they can now become citizens. Dubois clearly understood Washington's program but believed that it was not the remedy to the race problem. He kept believing that African Americans should study liberal arts and possess the same rights as Whites. Dubois believed that Blacks should not sacrifice their constitutional rights in order to finally achieve a status that was guaranteed already.
In our society today, a big debate has emerged. People are squabbling, arguing, deliberating and discussing on whether Marijuana should be legalized. In the United States, this debate is amplified because people think that illegalizing the substance does not fight its illicit use but only makes it more available and easily accessible. It also makes it “as a cool recreation drug” (Pi, 2007) for the young people. “It is actually easier for many high school students to obtain Marijuana than it is for them to obtain alcohol, because alcohol is legal and therefore regulated to keep it away from kids” (Marijuana, 1999). Debate about legalization of the drug is a significant issue that is socially important to our community and it should be analytically discussed in length. I personally believe that legalizing the drug across the United States of America would help fight its usage and save us a lot of cash (Marijuana, 1999).
He was living with a white man named Mr. Joseph Travis. Turner claims he was a good man to him, and he could not complain of the way he was treated by Mr. Travis. (pg. 12.). Yet he still decided that it was his duty among others to take this man’s life who treated him respectively. Turner killed Mr. Travis, and his family of 5 except for an infant who was in its cradle and they had not known about it. (pg. 12.).
Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” King’s words immaculately depict Booker T. Washington’s methods of ending discrimination in the Jim Crow south. While King’s words perfectly depict Washington’s philosophy, they directly rebut against WE.B Dubois’ methods of ending discrimination in the Jim Crow south. Even though both men agreed that African Americans deserved fair treatment, they had combatting viewpoints on how to resolve the issue. Booker T. Washington believes that African Americans should be proficient in manual labor before even considering the possibilities of political positions or equal rights, on the other hand, W.E.B
The most integral theme to consider in The Call of the Wild is the affect the wilderness has on our deep laden primal urges and instincts. It causes to triumph in survival, to become tested by our environment, and ultimately show us what we all will always be: