As humans become more advanced, we continue to lose touch with the natural world; this is exhibited in our loss of instincts, our inability to maintain the environment, and our need to conquer and alter nature, not coexist with it. In our great quest for knowledge, power, and recognition, certain concepts are often left at the wayside. Being in touch with nature, spending time simply absorbing the surroundings, and living in the moment are examples of this. People have somehow developed this idea that “civilized” people aren’t free and wild; they are prim and proper, they’re impeccably clean, and their days are well planned out and organized. Schedules are key.
Once upon a time, humans probably had instincts to rival those of other animals. This has slowly changed over time, to the point where our instincts are deadened, unresponsive and nonexistent in the instances when we would call on them. Jack London’s “To Build a Fire” illustrates this with a sharp contrast between the mind of man and a dog. The main character in this tale is unfamiliar with the territory he is traveling, uneducated to what it means to be properly prepared for such a task, but yet he was confident he would survive. The line, “In fact, he carried nothing but the lunch wrapped in the handkerchief,” (London, 28) should set off warning bells to anyone familiar with extended time spent in the wilderness. The weather was freezing, but yet for the protagonist, things simply didn’t compute properly. “Fifty degrees below zero meant eighty-odd degrees of frost. Such fact impressed him as being cold and uncomfortable, and that was all” (London, 27). Instinct would dictate better preparation than that, but this man was sure of his abilities to r...
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... the wilderness and our compulsion to subdue it that causes Standing Bear to make this statement: “And here I find the great distinction between the faith of the Indian and the white man. Indian faith sought the harmony of man with his surroundings; the other sought the dominance of surroundings” (149).
It’s a funny thing, contemplating the course of human existence and our role in shaping not only ourselves, but everything around us. Some may say humans are sitting at the pinnacle of our existence thus far, but in the process, we’ve lost something along the way. In becoming who we are today, we gave up vital survival instincts. Our predisposition to look out for Number One at all costs will ensure the continued destruction of our natural world. The ultimate question asks how many people will need to advocate an internal re-evaluation before change is attainable.
Cronon raises the question of the belief or disbelief of the Indian’s rights to the land. The Europeans believed the way Indians used the land was unacceptable seeing as how the Indians wasted the natural resources the land had. However, Indians didn’t waste the natural resources and wealth of the land but instead used it differently, which the Europeans failed to see. The political and economical life of the Indians needed to be known to grasp the use of the land, “Personal good could be replaced, and their accumulation made little sense for ecological reasons of mobility,” (Cronon, 62).
Nevertheless, his life becomes much more facinating when the fact is introduced that Black Elk converted to Catholicism and even became a catechist, afterwards. This completely does not fit into the sterotype of the frustrated reservation Indian, who spent his time with alcohol and gambling. Therefore, one question is emerging. How could Black Elk balance Native American spirituality with Western Christianity? This question directly leads us to the spiritual level of Black Elk’s life. As can be seen in the following, his religion changes in a natural development from his native Lakota religion to Catholicism.
Growing up Black Elk and his friends were already playing the games of killing the whites and they waited impatiently to kill and scalp the first Wasichu, and bring the scalp to the village showing how strong and brave they were. One could only imagine what were the reasons that Indians were bloody-minded and brutal to the whites. After seeing their own villages, where...
As Chris became more fascinated with the wilderness, he increasingly became indifferent towards different aspects of his life. Chris’ operation prior to embarking in the wilderness was fruitless because he lacked the sufficient and valuable preparations. Furthermore, it is appropriate to say that the actions that he took were beyond heedless: “He spent very little time learning how to actually live in the wild” (Christian 1). Practice makes perfect is a common proverb that echoes throughout society but was unfortunately missing from Chris’ life. Chris’ enthusiasm towards nature prevented him from making a logical decision of having sufficient experience with the wilderness itself. Ultimately, Chris was an oblivious person because he commenced into the wilderness with meager supplies. However, Chris failed at entering his excursion with sufficient preparations: “He left the map in Gallien’s truck, along with his watch, his comb, and all his money, which amounted to 85 cents” (2). By leaving his belongings in Gallien’s truck, Chris made an extremely absurd decision. More specifically, he disabled any possibility for him to receive immediate assistance when his health began declining rapidly. Finally, individuals should prioritize rationality in certain situations because it is crucial for them to use when they are blinded by a
“To Build a Fire”, a short story written by Jack London, is viewed as a masterpiece of naturalist fiction. “To Build a Fire” features a miner and his wolf-dog companion who are traveling in the Yukon Territory to meet fellow miners. The miner is the protagonist and the wolf-dog companion is the foil because the wolf-dog plays off of the traits of the protagonist. The central theme of “To Build a Fire” concerns the struggle of man versus nature. “To Build a Fire” tells of a man traveling in the extreme cold through the Yukon Territory. Before heading out on his journey, the man is warned not to travel alone in the extreme cold, but he travels any way. The man faces many hardships while on his journey. Despite his effort to stay warm and survive, the man freezes to death before he reaches his destination. The wolf-dog in the story studies the situation and knows that traveling is not a good idea. The wolf-dog stays with the miner until his death. Once the miner dies, the wolf-dog finishes his journey by heading off to the miners’ camp on his own. The most argued point of this short story is the reason for the protagonist’s death. Even though the miner in “To Build a Fire” eventually panics after being unable to start a fire, he struggles in the wilderness of the Yukon Territory and ultimately finds his death due to ignorance caused by a lack intuition and imagination.
In George E. Tinker’s book, American Indian Liberation: A Theology of Sovereignty, the atrocities endured by many of the first peoples, Native American tribes, come into full view. Tinker argues that the colonization of these groups had and continues to have lasting effects on their culture and thus their theology. There is a delicate balance to their culture and their spiritual selves within their tightly knit communities prior to contact from the first European explorers. In fact, their culture and spiritual aspects are so intertwined that it is conceptually impossible to separate the two, as so many Euro-American analysts attempted. Tinker points to the differences between the European and the Native American cultures and mind sets as ultimately
The first settlers in the United States are Native Americans. Fighting for hierarchy and they once roamed nomadically, searching for peace and sanity. Seeking equality from the white m...
The novel Lame Deer, Seeker of visions is a biography of a Lakota Medicine Man who lived in the 1900’s. this book is his personal views of the situation that Lame Deer’s people have been left in after everything that had happened as the “white man” immigrated to what they believed to be unknown land and theirs for the taking. through the story he speaks of the history of the desecration done to the Native Americans by the European invaders. as well as explaining to Richard Erdoes, through hours of interviews, the way of the Lakota People and their Rituals and customs. this depiction shows the vast spirituality of the Lakota as well as what they hold highly in their religion. It is explained how the “white Man” took over their sacred land and destro...
While the Indians were at peace with nature, the white man was destroying it, cutting down its forests and exploiting its natural recourses. The Indians had no concept of time other than that of the sum and of the seasons, while eh whites had business deadlines and busy schedules. Because of this vast difference in values, peaceful coexistence was not easy to achieve.
As the plot unfolds, I feel the story's protagonist falls victim to several factors brought into play at once: his inexperience with the severity of the Klondike winters, his inability to envision the possible consequences of his decision to travel alone in such weather, a series of unfortunate events during his trip, and the misjudgment exercised in his attempts to survive those incidents. Though quick and alert, the man's lack of imagination renders him unable to visualize what might happen to a man traveling without a companion should adverse circumstances arise in such severe weather in an uninhabited landscape. When he indeed finds himself in dire straits as a result of getting wet in the brutal freezing weather, he once again fails to imagine how quickly the cold will threaten his life and consequently misjudges the severity of his situation. His poor judgment causes him to make one mistake after another until he finds himself incapable of extricating himself from his situation. It seems obvious that had he made himself more familiar with the culture of the land and paid attention to the warnings of the old-timer on Sulpher Creek, he might have chosen to delay his trip and live to travel another day. Had he understood the importance of fostering a relationship with the dog, a native Husky with inbred instincts regarding the native climate, the dog would have interacted differently with him, maybe warning him of the danger of the weather through its actions or perhaps providing help, either by sharing its body heat or by going for help. However, instead he held little regard for the dog and the dog reciprocated: "there was no keen intimacy between the dog and the man.
Cabeza de Vaca’s Adventures in the Unknown Interior of America shows that while Christians thought themselves superior to natives, both sides were diverse and could commit good, bad, or neutral behavior towards each other. Therefore, the Indians and the Christians were much more similar than different. This is apparent in de Vaca’s accounts of Indian to Indian behavior, Christian to Christian behavior, and Indian to Christian behavior (and vice-versa).
The Indigenous people of America are called Native Americans or often referred to as “Indians”. They make up about two percent of the population in the United States and some of them still live in reservations. They once lived freely in the wilderness without any sort of influence or exposure from the Europeans who later came in the year of 1492, and therefore their culture is very different from ours.. In the following essay we will discover some differences between the religious beliefs of the Native American Iroquois and Christianity to see if the culture and ways of living have an effect on the view of religion, but we will also get to know some similarities between them. I am going to be focusing on the Iroquois, which are the northeastern Native Americans who are historically important and powerful.
In this way the religion practiced by the Native Americans was taken as contradictions to Christianity. The natives were informed that Christianity was designed to be an eternal rule of significance and a means from which they could use to return to God from their religions that had deviated (Eliot par. 3). Through sermons given by Whitfield, the minds of the natives were engaged in religion and making religion the subject of most of their discussions. They embraced all the opportunities to hear what was been taught on Christianity. The Christian revivals were attended by the young and old alike (Edwards par.
In “To Build A Fire”, the main conflict throughout is man versus nature although it would be inaccurate to say that nature goes out of its way to assault the man. The fact of the matter is, nature would be just as cold without the man's presence regardless of him being there .The environment as a whole is completely indifferent to the man, as it frequently is in naturalist literature. The bitter environment does not aid him in any way, and it will not notice if he perishes. In the same way, the dog does not care about the man, only about itself. Ironically enough though, as the man was dying he was getting upset toward the dog because of its natural warmth, the instincts that it had, and its survival skills and those were the elements that the man lacked for survival. It is ironic that the man had to die in order to find out that man's fragile body cannot survive in nature's harsh elements, regardless of a human’s natural over-confidence and psychological strength.
When the narrator introduced the main character of the story, the man, he made it clear that the man was in a perilous situation involving the elements. The man was faced with weather that was 75 degrees below zero and he was not physically or mentally prepared for survival. London wrote that the cold "did not lead him to meditate upon his frailty as a creature of temperature, and upon man's frailty in general, able only to live within certain narrow limits of heat and cold."(p.1745) At first when the man started his journey to the camp, he felt certain that he could make it back to camp before dinner. As the trip progressed, the man made mistake after mistake that sealed his fate. The man's first mistake was to step into a pool of water and soak his legs to the knees. This blunder forced the man to build a fire to dry his wet socks and shoes so his feet would not freeze and become frostbitten. When the man began to build a fire he failed to notice that he was doing so under a large, snow laden spruce tree where he was getting his firewood. When the man had a small fire that was beginning to smolder the disturbance to the tree caused the snow to tumble to the ground and extinguish the fire. "It was his own fault or, rather, his mistake. He should not have built the fire under the spruce tree. He should have built it in the open."(1750).