In the “Impoverishment of Sightseeing”, John Daniel seeks to inspire readers to experience nature beyond observation. Daniel clearly differentiates between the minute appreciation received from sightseeing, and the aweing admiration you can feel if you engulf yourself in nature. Through sharing his personal experiences and scholarly analysis, Daniel demonstrates the importance of being vulnerable to the environment that is necessary for comprehensively understand nature. He argues by allowing ourselves to be naked to nature, one can understand how the natural World has the power to limit our existence. The personal and analytical writing style allows his essay to be both convincing and relatable. Under the personal scholarly genre, Daniel …show more content…
provokes the reader to think in depth, while retaining communal attention with personal narrative. Both his writing style and content contribute to inspiring the reader to experience the entirety of nature. Beyond Daniel’s writing style, the structure Daniel adopts is strategic. The essay begins with Daniel reflecting on a childhood experience of exploring boulders. As he was climbing, Daniel describes the fear that petrified him as he heard the rattling of snakes just underneath the rocks. Daniel argues that this fear allowed catalyzed him comprehend nature beyond the observational dimension. Although, after sharing his experiences, Daniel changes his writing style midway through to analyze the average perception of nature. By first sharing personal experiences, Daniel gains the attention of and begins to connect with the reader. With an established connection, the reader is inherently more perceptive to Daniel’s opinion. The structure and style, which both contribute to the genre, are effective in persuading the reader to experience nature nakedly. One paragraph especially demonstrates Daniels attention to artistic details.
He begins the paragraph describing himself climbing a granite face in Yosemite, here the verb climbing emphasizes the difficulty in traversing the rocks. Daniel gives the reader additional context by subbing “only a few hundred feet up, most of them.” This gives the reader a quantitative basis for the magnitude of the climb, and also reinforces the progress Daniel has already made. In the next sentence, Daniel describes his focus on each small crack immediately before him, where his use of immediately emphasizes his concentration. Daniel then describes the granite flaring in his peripheral. The word flaring demonstrates natures power to subject an individual to see and feel. Daniel describes the vision of the granite face becoming increasingly clear and vivid in his mind. This sentence develops a connection between what is seen and something that occupies the entirety of his mind. Additionally, in order for the granite face to occupy the entirety of Daniel’s mind it had to have been reoccurring and focused …show more content…
on. Daniel then describes that not only the rock he had seen was consuming his mind, but that the part’s he had not yet reached he could also see in his present. Here, his mind has accepted the journey ahead and is preparing itself for future obstacles, as if they were in the present. The challenges yet to be seen represent the uncertainty and danger of nature that Daniel encourages the readers to experience. Daniel conveys his message that the unknown that struck him with fear and excitement elevated his experience. Here he uses a simile to compare the fear he felt in this experience with the fear he felt whilst encountering rattlesnakes, “like rattlesnakes hidden beneath boulders”. The simile supports that experiencing nature nakedly will lead to fear and excitement, as it did for Daniel in two separate experiences. Daniel speaks in the first-person saying “that was what I climbed after”, not the sights, but the feelings. Daniel describes the experience as “more beautiful than anything I saw with my eyes.” Here, Daniel emphasizes that you cannot understand nature through what you can see with your eyes, and that a naked experience requires more active involvement. The emotions Daniel felt while climbing the granite face catalyzed Daniel to seeing the dangerous beauty of nature. Daniel’s use of first-person throughout the entire paragraph emphasizes that this was his own experience, and that is something the reader must also experience for themselves.
Daniel also provides extensive imagery during this paragraph to help the reader visualize themselves and build curiosity, leaving the reader wondering what they would see and feel if they were also to climb that rock face. Overall, the paragraph contributes a powerful personal experience to Daniel’s argument to experience nature actively. The personal experiences that Daniel cites all serve to demonstrate the depth of understanding nature that is possible. Daniel argues that with a furthered understanding of nature, the environment is seen as integral to life. Throughout the essay, Daniel caters to personal motivations to convey his opinion. Daniels emphasis is on the benefit of broadening personal wisdom rather than environmental causes. According to Daniel, the primary benefit of in depth experiences is gaining a new understanding of the
environment. Yet, the dynamic between the benefit of personal understanding and nature’s agenda shifts when Daniel explains nature as integrated. Daniel argues that nature retains its own limiting power over the existence of humans. Just as in Daniel’s experience with the snakes he was endangered and helpless. In many ways, the argument is similar to the philosophical debate of nature versus nurture in the concept of the self. While our nurture, and the World humans have developed, has power, ultimately it is nature that limits our existence and our possibilities. Additionally, Daniel argues the importance of being vulnerable to the power nature has over humans. Ultimately, Daniel motivated the reader with personal agendas, but the overall message conveyed is that understanding nature is accepting the power it holds. Therefore, nature demands its own worth over any personal agenda. David Quammen addressed the role that humans play in nature, and argued that the environment does not simply surround humans, but is integrated. Quammen points out that nature existed chronologically before the existence of humans, so it is limiting our existence. This idea helps provide further understanding to how Daniel hopes the reader can see the environment if they allow themselves to be vulnerable. Through naked experiences, Daniel wants people to experience the hostility in nature and feel helpless. The acceptance that people are helpless in nature is supported by Quamenns argument that humans are not the center of nature. Both authors seek to support the theory that the existence of humans is integrated and limited by the environment. Daniel provides a strong argument for the need of naked natural experiences. He uses his personal experiences and carefully structured analysis to give the reader a basis for how to view the environment. Yet, it is still necessary that each person subjects themselves to natures forces to experience the emotions necessary for comprehending the power of nature.
She starts by bringing a pessimistic view to photographs of nature, by describing what may or may not lie just outside the boundaries of the picture. Mockingly she leads the reader to assume that there are no real nature photos left in the world, but rather only digitaly enhanced photos of nature wit...
He thinks that the humans have destroyed the beauty of the nature. The speaker is also showing us his in depth experience of the place. The audience is everyone in this world who wants to learn about the nature and the contact of the people living generations before us with the environment. People who want to learn about preserving the environment can also be considered the audience. What is the purpose of the author’s message?
Have you noticed that we feel a powerful desire to connect with nature during difficult times? Whether we are injured, depressed or sad our inclination towards nature increases. Patients in hospitals recover faster if they are in a room with a nice view. Why? Because nature is so pure and powerful that can restore our spirits and heal our bodies and minds. The beauty of nature has been praised in art, poetry, writings and films. Naturalists, poets and writers have documented the many benefits of spending time in nature. "Calypso Borealis" by Muir and "I wandered Lonely as a Cloud" by Wordsworth are two great pieces of literature where our hearts are filled with an indescribable emotion. John Muir and William Wordsworth express their relationship
Through his naturalist essays, Lopez restrains that immediate urge we have to pet the horsey, take a Polaroid, and move on. He persuades us to appreciate the urge. He strives to teach us about the inherently liberating spirit of nature, about how in just experiencing one moment with nature "ever...
From the lone hiker on the Appalachian Trail to the environmental lobby groups in Washington D.C., nature evokes strong feelings in each and every one of us. We often struggle with and are ultimately shaped by our relationship with nature. The relationship we forge with nature reflects our fundamental beliefs about ourselves and the world around us. The works of timeless authors, including Henry David Thoreau and Annie Dillard, are centered around their relationship to nature.
Perceptions of the natural world have fluctuated throughout humanity’s short time on this earth, going in and out of style as societies and technologies have grown and died. As is the the very nature of literature itself, literature and its authors have managed to capture these shifting views, expressed and illustrated by the art of written word. Naturally, the literature chosen for us to read based on this fluid theme of nature encompasses an array of perspectives. One of these views is that nature is sublime and above all else, a reflection of all that which is perfection. Another is that nature is cold, uncaring, and indifferent to the vanities of humanity.
By not cherishing the gift of sight and using it properly, many discoveries are left unfound. In the writing piece, Seeing, Annie Dillard speaks of nature and the small things that we all are unconsciously blind to and not appreciative of. Seeing explores the idea of what it means to truly see things in this world. Annie Dillard’s main point is that we should view the world with less of a meddling eye, so that we are able to capture things that would otherwise go unnoticed. There’s a science to how we view things in nature.
Nature can be described as being odd, it can even be described as being distracting. Nature can be used to help with things in life such as medicine, but William Cullen Bryant uses nature in a different way that people usually do not see it. He uses nature to guide humanity through some of his darkest hours. In William Cullen Bryant’s “Thanatopsis” and “To A Waterfowl”, Bryant promotes extended metaphors in order to show nature as being a guide for humanity.
Without delay, I begin my in-depth look into the requirements of this study and what was expected of me, as an English 111 student. To successively complete these assignments, I would need to be focused on the process of such writing assignments. Along with the instructor’s ideas that our writing would be done in such different ways it will eventually consume every waking moment of my time and become top priority for the next four months.
While discussing Henry David Thoreau's Walden and Aldo Leopold's A Sand County Almanac, we attempted to address an important challenge -- Is the close observation and description of nature merely an idle thing for people in today's world? It could be suggested that nature writing and the close enjoyment of natural environments is merely "recreational" and not intellectually, economically, or politically worthy of our efforts. Perhaps this activity has "spiritual value" or gives us a "sense of peace." But does it really have anything to do with the way we live in the world today? It seems to me that this question is central to the whole course of study and that we need to be able to answer it convincingly and in some detail.
Wilderness is a highly idealized concept in today’s society – we simply put it on a pedestal and choose to admire it as we see fit. Nature and wilderness are considered distant and remote concepts, separate from our everyday, civilized lives. By approaching the natural realm in this sense, we simply detach ourselves from our origin, which leaves us to fantasize about the great outdoors as an escape from the artificial creations of our everyday life. This desire to escape our artificial lives has lead to the construction of locations such as national parks, which merely appear to be the natural world, yet in reality they are simply just facets of the modernized world we have created.
In Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “Nature”, he develops his own perspective on the interconnection between humans and nature. As an admirable essayist and transcendentalist, he believed that man can have the ability to go and find the Truth in solitude and nature, and can return to reason and faith. “You cannot see the mountain near.” When one is near a mountain, it looks enormous; however, you can see it in its entirety from a far distance. There is no need to even perceive it as a challenge, especially if instead we focus on one rock at a time; loving and appreciating the journey. Having the right perspective towards things can help form a healthy reality. He believed nature could positively change people’s outlooks in life. In Emerson’s view, “Nature always wears the colors of the spirit.” In other words, he is saying that however someone feels is how they will view nature. From his experiences, he believes if a man becomes part of nature once again, loses his egotism and becomes a lover of beauty, then he has become a “transparent eyeball.” Having experience as Emerson did with nature can make one’s perspective more valuable and precious in this
Nature writing can be found in numerous genres and each can portray different opinions, thoughts, examples, solutions, etc. Therefore, setting up a general set of guidelines allows people the opportunity to define what is meant by nature writing. Defining genre can be highly influential when readers are trying to capture the essence of what they are reading. Lawrence Buell’s four criteria for what constitutes an “environmental text,” provide a basic set of understandable guidelines. However, as the criteria stand they are too directed at the factual context and overlook the “experience” or emotional resonance of reading such works.
The style of the essay changes tone from the first four paragraphs which leans toward a formal style; the formality is mainly due to the lack of “I” statements and first person point of view. The conclusion paragraph switches to a less formal almost conversational tone. ...
I have not had many meaningful moments with nature, even though I have many encounters with it. But the encounter that is the most prevalent in my mind is my vacation at Willow Lake, Minnesota. Here I had encounters with nature on the water, out bike riding, and watching a storm come in the distance.