Analysis Of Elegy For The Giant Tortoise By Margaret Atwood

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I found that Elegy for the Giant Tortoises by Margaret Atwood had a more powerful depiction of extinction. Through the poem Atwood demonstrates that humans have a tendency of caring more about species that are extinct, but at the same time do very little to prevent these other species from ending up that way in the beginning. In the last stanza, Atwood says, “the relic of what we have destroyed” (line 23) probably had the most impact on me. This is because we tend to value the image of the species more once they are extinct rather than honoring their actual lives, as well as honoring them while they were living. Human activity contributes to the extinction of species like the giant tortoise, in which Atwood demonstrates that we lessen these

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