Essay based on adaptation from Former US President Jimmy
Carter, Foreword to Arctic National Wildlife Refuge: Seasons of
Life and Land, A Photographic Journey by Subhankar Banerjee
Jimmy Carter, former the United States President, builds an
argument to persuade his audience that the Arctic National Wildlife
Refuge should not be developed for industry. He does so with the
adequate usages of persuasive elements, such as appropriate selection
of dictions, which appeals to the emotion and provokes the sense of
duty, and metaphoric expressions in order to deliver the greatness of
the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which should be bequeathed
soundly; Carter illustrates his claim successfully with the features that
strengthen his logic and
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persuasiveness of the argument. First of all, Carter engages the audience by choosing his words rhetorically, demonstrating not only his insistence, but also elucidating the grandness of the nature, which should be preserved. He begins his speech explaining how impressive was visiting the regions of the Arctic Refuge and fortunate he was to be one of the few observers that can experience “a once-in- a-lifetime wildlife spectacle”.
Carter repetitively
accentuates the priceless worth of it, conveying the necessity of
protecting the area. Accordingly, as he establishes his point about
restricting development of the Arctic Refuge, Carter elaborates assertion
by describing the range as “the extraordinary wilderness and wildlife
values” and “incompatible with oil exploration”.
In the second place, he vividly elucidates the beauty of the Arctic
Refuge, which cannot be found in anywhere else that is artificially
created. “There was a timeless quality about this great land” indicates
how a nature is able to be awestruck like the time period has been
stopped since the Ice Age, borrowing Carter’s depiction. Furthermore,
after witnessing thousands of caribou with their newborn claves, he
expounds the magnificent sight as “the sweep of tundra before us
became flooded with life.” Carter genuinely derives the audience to
empathize with his claim, generating distinctiveness of the nature,
making them to consent with what he deems to be right; He concludes
the speech with “To leave this extraordinary land alone would be
the greatest gift we could pass on to the future generations”, scrupulously delivering his persuasion. To sum up, Jimmy Carter deliberately chooses his words and reinforces the claim with detailed and metaphorical description of the Arctic Range to amplify his point as impactful as possible. In addition, emphasizing the importance and untradeable virtu of the nature, he entices the audience not able to disagree with his perspective, cherishing the wilderness. Carter adapts discernable proficiencies, accomplishing his intention purposely.
Who could possibly know that the story of one young man could turn the people of Alaska against him, and others from around the country to rally behind his almost majestic journey. Jon Krakauer set out to get Chris McCandless’s story written in greater depth after his article was ran in the magazine Outside and he received so much mail on that topic that inspired him to do more, more than just Chris’s journey itself. This essay will analyze Jon Krakauer’s book Into The Wild in order to show how well he used the rhetorical analysis concepts and rhetorical appeals.
When Jon Krakauer published a story about the death of a young man trekking into the Alaskan frontier in the January 1993 issue of Outside magazine, the audience’s response to Christopher McCandless’s story was overwhelming. Thousand of letters came flooding in as a response to the article. Despite the claims, especially from the native Alaskans, questioning McCandless’s mental stability and judgement, it soon becomes clear that McCandless was not just "another delusional visitor to the Alaskan frontier" (4). As Krakauer retells the life of Christopher McCandless and gives his own take on the controversy around McCandless’s death in Into The Wild, the reader also creates his own opinion on both McCandless and Krakauer’s argument. Krakauer
the idea of the wild and its importance and necessity of human interaction with the wild.
Environmentalist and desert-lover, Edward Abbey in his essay “The Great American Desert” warns readers about the perilous dangers of the American deserts while simultaneously stirring curiosity about these fascinating ecosystems. He both invites and dissuades his readers from visiting the deserts of North America through the use of humor and sarcasm. In this essay, he is rhetorically successful in arguing that the open spaces of the undeveloped deserts are sacred places in need of respect and protection through his clever use of pathos and logos.
In order to depict the refuge in a positive manner to the American people, he accordingly used positively weighted words. First, in the first sentence of the article, Carter refers to the refuge as “America’s last truly great wilderness.” This invokes a sense of urgency in Americans to protect the refuge; the people of America cannot allow the greatest natural beauty in their country to be defamed. While describing his trip to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, President Carter paints an appealing picture in the minds of Americans.
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.
"The Bull Moose" by Alden Nowlan is a finely crafted poem which reminds us of how far man has strayed from Nature. Through a carefully constructed series of contrasted images, Nowlan laments, in true Romantic fashion, man's separation from Nature.
The novel “Into the Wild” by Jon Krakauer goes into great detail to describe the main character, Chris McCandless, who died traveling alone into the Alaskan wilderness. McCandless, whom in the novel renamed himself Alex, left his home and family to travel to Alaska in 1992. In Alaska McCandless planned to live an isolated life in the desolate wilderness, but unfortunately he did not survive. This non-fiction novel portrays his life leading up to his departure and it captures the true essence of what it means to be “in the wild”.
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.
The wilderness can be used to measure against the man made world, a “scientific yardstick.” Throughout the entire piece he is arguing that the importance is not what we can actually see or touch, but what we think of and how we think of the wild. This letter is being written to inform them of what would be missing without the wilderness. Those who think fondly of the Grand Canyon or the Everglades and have never been there are merely working from the idea, but those who have been there know what it has to offer and therefore receive the calming and sobering state of mind Stegner refers to.
Imagine living in a place where you feel free, and safe all of your life, and then one day it’s all taken away from you. Native Americans have always depended on the land to take care of them. Had the Great Spirit forsaken them? These are the thoughts that pondered the mind of Seattle as he answered to the Governor of Washington, in the essay titled “Address”. What was the purpose or message behind Albert Bierstadt’s painting titled “Among the Sierra Nevada”? How are these two separate works associated? To understand the relationship that these two works share we must look at them from today’s perspective. The Address is a Political Science/ History piece that addresses problems, and states facts about the way of life for Native Americans the beauty of the land and how Americans were to take that away from them, while Bierstadt’s painting is able to show us the piece and serenity to the earth and within ourselves.
In Thinking Like a Mountain, the author, Aldo Leopold, writes of the importance of wildlife preservation through examples of the symbiotic relationship of animals and plant-life with a mountain. He asks the reader to perceive the processes of a mountainous environment in an unusual way. Aldo Leopold wants the reader to "think" like a mountain instead of thinking of only the immediate, or as the hunter did. Taking away one feature of an ecosystem may eventually destroy everything else that that environment is composed of. Nature and wildness is essential for the well being of life on this earth.
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 poem "The Bull Moose" illustrates that when humans and nature come together, they clash and conflict because humans attempt to control nature in order fulfill their need to control themselves. In the poem, the moose is on his death march and searching for a place to die peacefully. During his search, after leaving his natural environment of "trees [and] mountain[s]," the moose approaches a "pole-fenced pasture." This "fenced pasture" symbolizes the division between the moose's natural free environment and the environment dominated and controlled by humans. When the moose reaches the environment dominated by humans, he approaches the cattle, and rather than greeting the moose in a friendly manner, the cattle symbolically move "to the other end of the field" because they realize that the moose is not like them and does not belong in their environment. This situation illustrates the clash between the human environment...
The Arctic tundra, a vast plain of ice and water, is located on the northern poles of the Earth. Characterized by its low precipitation, minimum sunlight, and a layer of permafrost- a thick layer of ice that never thaws away- this biome is very cold, with temperatures as low as negative 70oC. One specific population that has adapted to this harsh environment is the polar bears.