Comparing Annie Dillard's 'Jest And Earnest'

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Annie Dillard Essay
The weird complexity of nature is rather intriguing, finding a definite answer for why anything happens in the animal kingdom seems almost impossible. American author Annie Dillard wrote an essay titled, "Jest and Earnest" (a chapter from her book Pilgrim at Tinker Creek) published in 1974 where she shared her thoughts about nature, and she essentially questions the cruelty and randomness in nature while still trying to persuade deeper thinkers of life that there may still be beauty beneath it all. Dillard provides some reasoning to this claim by giving three different types of acts: one being downright horrible, another being description of beauty, finally one being both, and she also cites contrasting thoughts from credible …show more content…

It starts rather peacefully, Dillard seemly amused by nature and its inhabitants; however, she starts to notice this one out of place frog amidst all the other normal ones, and this is the starting part in where Dillard quickly shifts her tone from peaceful to disturbing. This was her first time ever to witness killing, which was a water bug eating a frog, and it left her in shock. This act makes her question the idea of an ordered, meaningful existence, and going as far as questioning rather God created the water bug, and living things in general, out of jest or earnest. When she starts to question these things she again switches her tone. The act of the water bug was very horrible thing, and nothing beautiful or meaningful seems to come out of it. Dillard does not find a concrete answer to this question herself, but she uses her own experience with nature to …show more content…

She quotes Allah questioning rather God made heaven or earth “in jest.” (231) Suggesting if God made these things for amusement or as a sort of cruel joke. However, she later quotes Albert Einstein saying, “God is subtle,” and that he is, “not malicious.” On one side you have a god written in the books saying that he made stuff out of jest, but on the other side you have a well-known scientist saying god does not practice in malicious ways like in just jest. Dillard provided these two contradicting quotes to support her stance that nature can be random and is not always fully comprehensible. God, in theory, is supposed to control the entire world, and that includes nature. Dillard suggest that humans can never probably fully understand nature, only god can. Again, she backs up this statement by using two quotes from different opposing sides. We don’t know if either of them is right or wrong because the only true way we can possible know why God created the things he did is by asking him directly. This, in the end, shows the reader that not everything can be fully understood and that some stuff in nature is purely just random to

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