In Annie Dillard’s essay “Living Like Weasels” she tells us about an encounter she had with a weasel. When meeting the weasel, she begins to appreciate and admire their way of life, and how different it is from ours, how they live purely out of necessity, while we live by choice, bias, and/or motive. She questions the way we live our lives and makes us consider how different our lives could be if we only had one thing we live for, or in her words, “...stalk your calling in a certain skilled and supple way, to locate the most tender and live spot and plug into that pulse” (98). I personally do not believe that living like a weasel is the best way for a human to lead their lives for it is too restricting and does not sound as liberating as Dillard …show more content…
There’s no stressing over things like school or work- you escape from your normal everyday problems that are no longer relevant to your life. It could be liberating, giving you a sense of productivity and fervor knowing you’re devoting your whole life doing something you love. But is it really possible to live in such a limiting lifestyle? I can only think of a few people who might live in this way; golf players who play into their late seventies, or musicians who make music their whole lives. But do these people truly only live their lives following one necessity? I don’t believe they do. I don’t believe it’s possible for a person to live a life that only revolves around one thing only. Living like a weasel means living a solo life, only worrying about yourself, and this sounds like something that is completely unrealistic for humans. We are a social species and we often need to rely on each other to complete certain goals. I highly doubt these golfers or musicians spent their whole lives following their calling without the help or collaboration of others. Living like a weasel is something we can never fully reach because, whether we like it or not, we are gonna have to ask for help in order to one hundred percent stalk your
In Annie Dillard’s, “Water of Separation” a chapter from her book Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, the chapter marks a year since Annie Dillard began living at Tinker Creek. By utilizing personal anecdotes and allusions, she reveals her reflection of the past year at Tinker Creak. The personal anecdotes and allusions give the entire chapter a tone of candid.
Nature’s beauty has the ability to both entice its audience and frighten them. Mary Oliver in her passage explains her experiences with the two sides of nature. Her experiences with the owls elicit both an awe response and a frightened one. In connection, her experiences with a field of flowers draws a similar response where she is both astonished by them and overwhelmed. Oliver’s complex responses display the two sides of nature. It's ability to be both captivating yet overwhelming in its complexity. In “Owl” Mary Oliver uses descriptions of nature demonstrated by owls and fields of flowers in order to convey her complex responses to the two sides of nature.
I have recently read a book, Artemis Fowl, by Eion Colfer that I want to share with your book club. Artemis Fowl is a book that transports you to a whole new world, a world filled with fantasy and excitement. This book was published in Ireland by The Viking Press on April 26, 2001. This book’s main character is the 12 year old child genius, Artemis Fowl II, Artemis is very observant as it is made clear in the first chapter as he recognizes that a man is lying through his first meeting, in which his client comes to meet him in a waiter disguise but this cannot fool Artemis since it was quite clear to him that a waiter doesn’t have polished nails. Artemis caught his lie almost immediately, this client had made a deal with him to show him a location
Laura Deeb’s An Enchanted Modern: Gender and Public Piety in Shi’i Lebanon seeks to rectify post-9/11 notions of political Islam as anti-modern and incongruous with Western formulations of secular modernity. Specifically, Deeb is writing in opposition to a Weberian characterization of modern secular Western societies as the development of bureaucracies through social rationalization and disenchantment. Within this Weberian framework Deeb asserts that Shia communities are in-part modern because of the development of beuorocratic institutions to govern and regulate religious practice. However, Deeb makes a stronger argument oriented towards dislodging the assumptions "that Islamism is static and monolithic, and that
Moreover, Dillard uses the weasel, as a model to illustrate her belief of living in an environment where choice is not in abundance and the mind is simple. As we reflect on our own human life we actually find a period of time where humans lived much like the weasel in a fight or flight response, this was during the historic caveman days. While it would appear during this historic time period humans had little stress due to limited life choices, they actually had an enormous amount of stress. The stress they endured was similar to the weasel’s survival instinct, where their main focus was to survive from one day to the next. During this time
Wolf believes that we, tiny specks, live a more meaningful life by helping the other tiny specks around us, and not focusing so much on ourselves. If not, then we are living a meaningless life. I agree with her statement but to an extent. I agree that if we live an egocentric life then we are indeed living a meaningless life. But, she also states, “Many of the things that give meaning to our lives (relationships to loved ones, aspirations to achieve) make us vulnerable to pain, disappointment and stress” (842). So, “neither is a meaningful life assured of being an especially happy one, however” (842). Which brings me to my point that everyone has a different mindset on life. Everyone has different meanings on what is considered a meaningful life. For example, it states, “From the inside, Blob’s hazy passivity may be preferable to the experience of the tortured artist or political crusader” (842). Near the end, Wolf strongly states, “The difference between a meaningful and a meaningless life is not a difference between a life that does a lot of good, and a life that does a little. (Nor is it a difference between a life that makes a big splash and one that, so to speak, sprays only a few drops.) It is rather a difference between a life that does good or is good or realizes value and a life that is essentially a waste” (847). Everyone simply has a different meaning to what is a meaningful
Anne Bradstreet starts off her letter with a short poem that presents insight as to what to expect in “To My Dear Children” when she says “here you may find/ what was in your living mother’s mind” (Bradstreet 161). This is the first sign she gives that her letter contains not just a mere retelling of adolescent events, but an introspection of her own life. She writes this at a very turbulent point in history for a devout Puritan. She lived during the migration of Puritans to America to escape the persecution of the Catholic Church and also through the fragmentation of the Puritans into different sects when people began to question the Puritan faith.
Modern America unfortunately consists of individuals being faithful to things that do not contribute to prolonged good feeling. In fact, the average American places more value on rapid evolution than on self awareness or personal journeys. This problematic lifestyle is the focus of Annie Dillard’s essay “Living like Weasels,” in which she address her audience of unfaithful individuals whom want to speed through the variety and not develop the time and effort for a slow expedition and reminds them that life must be evaluated and slowed to grasp the few vital things that are essential, necessary, and proper. With an array of rhetorical devices such as syntax and juxtaposition, Dillard creatively reveals her purposes: expose the audience to “live
For class we read “The Death of the Moth” by Virginia Woolf and “The Death of a Moth” by Annie Dillard. This was the first time I had read either of these essays and I have found a new respect for their style of writing. I think that the amount of detail that they put into the two essays was astonishing. But, what impressed me the most was the difference between the types of detail.
There is a old time saying that “you will never know what true happiness feels like until you have felt pain”. In order to reach where you are going in life you have to go through hardship and pain to find your inner contentment. Often times,people who have too much in life always takes it for granted ,because all they have is pleasure and not knowing the feelings of pain and being without. Martha C. Nussbaum author of “who is the happy warrior” states that you have to go through pain to find the true meaning of happiness while Daniel M.Haybron author of “Happiness and Its Discontents” states that pain doesn 't bring happiness,happiness is just a thing you feel when you think you may have enough. To find happiness you have to go through the unbearable process of life.
Wolf argues that a person must feel something towards his or her project or activities and that the person must feel gravitated toward this project and it must excite them or they may be passionate about it. But, not all people feel the same way in what they do. It doesn’t necessarily mean that their lives are meaningless, just that they look at what they’re doing with a different perspective. The person might be (i) spontaneous in what they choose to do; the activity excites them but they like to do things at different times, (ii) unreflective or idle; they don’t really think about or are not self-reflective about their beliefs, (iii) episodic and has no long term commitments to their projects, or they may be (iv) detached in what they do and they may not love or feel passion towards anything they do. Each example is of a person who may not be passionate and not feel anything towards their projects but have at least some success in such activities. This person may do different kinds of work, help people, and admire art the same way normal people do just with less passion and excitement but with the same amount of success. It would not be fair to say this person’s life lacks meaning because they’re less
Raging, monstrous, twisted, and compelling are a few descriptions of James Ellroy’s novel, The Black Dahlia. The novel consists of two detectives, Bucky Bleichert and Lee Blanchard, who become encompassed with the murder of Elizabeth Short; violence and obsession become a focus within the story line, only to never have the case officially solved. Through specific expressions, readers of The Black Dahlia inherit the darkness of James Ellroy’s writing style.
Each person is different, each with different emotions and reactions to their surroundings. People strive to uncover the secrets to the meaning of life. In reality, humans are given the desire to live the way we want and have a critical thinking mind, unlike animals. In the essay Living like Weasels, Annie Dillard believes we should live more carefree and instinctual as weasels, but what we were given as humans is a gift that no other creature has – free will and choice to shape our own lives.
Weasels live for themselves. They find one thing that they focus their entire being to and they will not let go even in death. Humanity is longing for the same concept. I often find myself at a loss, constantly looking for a purpose in life, and being caught between two decisions, unable to proceed forward. Weasels are not like that. They leave no room for doubt in themselves, and even in death, they follow through. Dillard symbolized this very concept in her essay by telling of how a man shot down an eagle only to find the dry skull of a weasel attached to the eagle’s neck. The weasel is “obedient to instinct, he bites his prey at the neck...and he does not let go” (Dillard 119). Even though the weasel died, it did what it wanted to do even if it had to die to accomplish its task. That is perseverance in a very extreme sense. It is a quality that weasels have and humanity lacks. As Dillard
Throughout literature’s history, female authors have been hardly recognized for their groundbreaking and eye-opening accounts of what it means to be a woman of society. In most cases of early literature, women are portrayed as weak and unintelligent characters who rely solely on their male counterparts. Also during this time period, it would be shocking to have women character in some stories, especially since their purpose is only secondary to that of the male protagonist. But, in the late 17th to early 18th century, a crop of courageous women began publishing their works, beginning the literary feminist movement. Together, Aphra Behn, Charlotte Smith, Fanny Burney, and Mary Wollstonecraft challenge the status quo of what it means to be a