Summary Of Annie Dillard's Pilgrim At Tinker Creek

In Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, there are fifteen individual chapters that talk about different topics. Dillard is not a curious natural observer, but an ecological hunter who connects philosophy and nature. She walks into nature, senses the wind and the ground, and communicates with plants and animals, like she is a part of nature. She feels that by viewing natural landscapes in Tinker Creek, then humans’ metal state can be purified by experiencing these views, because humans are complicated. By getting in touch with nature and investigating the relationships between humans and nature, Dillard accomplishes her pilgrimage. According to Dillard’s words, people cannot predict all natural phenomena by rules which are concluded by experience,

The nature described by Annie Dillard is consistent, but also diversified; it is orderly, but also disordered; it is sublime, but also ruined. Dillard writes about the horror of reproduction, the cheapness of life and the destiny of death. Nature becomes empty, which also makes people’s mind becomes empty, along with the coming of fall, the withering of trees, and the deaths of everything. In the beginning of chapter 8, “Intricacy”, Dillard drags the topic to the complexity of nature by writing “a rosy complex light”. Based on her ecological knowledge and examples, “Evolution, of course, if the vehicle of intricacy.” (Page 133) She explains that natural view itself is a complex structure, which means all existing complex objects are grouping together in the specific space and time. Where the life goes, where the complexity and chaos appears. In the following chapter “Fecundity”, Dillard describes the horrible scenes in her dream about two luna moths mating and the eggs hatching. This dream frightens her, and her own shouting wakes her up. “ I don’t know what it is about fecundity that so appalls. I supposed it is the teeming evidence that birth and growth, which we value, are ubiquitous and blind, that life itself is so astonishingly cheap, that nature is as careless as it is bountiful, and that with extravagance goes a crushing waste that will one day include our own cheap lives.” (Page 162) Previously,

When we seeing this world in a positive attitude, every simple detail can be pure and beautiful. It can help us maintain our purity and discover more beauties of nature. In this way, we are able to enjoy and experience the amazement of every tiny thing happens around us. However, only being positive may lead people into a wrong position that think everything around us is good and pure. Oppositely, when we using the negative attitude to face everything, even a simple action, like luna moth eggs hatch, can be horrible. Although it may not be as good as it is in positive way, it actually leads us to understand the true meaning of everything that happened. Whereas, only being negative will make us miss many beautiful moments. There is nothing absolute pure or absolute horrible. Almost everything happens around us is two-sided which means seeing in one way can only understand parts of it. If we want to fully know something, standing in two different ways will help a