Change of Perspective from City Life to Country Life based on American Earth by Barbara Kingsolver

Throughout history human beings have always relied on nature, utilizing it for both sustenance as well a source of renewal and peace. Despite this, people have adapted as we progressed through time and advanced into our current age. But as this occurs, they also seemed to distance themselves from the environment. Although in present times the majority live within the confines of a city, some have begun to feel the effects that the daily hustle and bustle involved in such a life can cause. Our instinctual desire for open expanses of wild land still remains, and with the building stress that has come to define society the need for the settling presence of nature has never been higher.

Barbara Kingsolver explains and demonstrates her concern for this in an excerpt of her writing found in “American Earth.” The most important thought that I feel that she expressed was the fact that too many children have grown up surrounded by streetlights for trees and pavement for grass. She explains that she lives a “cabin build of chestnut logs in the late 1930’s,” (American Earth pg. 939) and then g...