Theme Of Environmentalism In The Garies And Their Friends

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The Garies and Their Friends: An Argument for Environmentalism

The 19th-century in America was a time of blossoming new philosophies that resulted from a curious amalgam of the lingering ripples of the Revolution and the discord between the North and South. One of the philosophies developed during the time period was transcendentalism, the philosophical movement that at its core believed in the “inherent goodness of both people and nature” (“Transcendentalism”). Transcendentalists held the conviction that it was society and its institutions that corrupted the human being, an ideology titled environmentalism. Abolitionists adapted the idea of environmentalism to slavery forming the notion that “circumstances—previous enslavement, the lack of formal education, and the absence of remunerative employment—explained African American degradation” (Newman, 33). …show more content…

Webb addresses the theme of environmentalism and conveys the statement that African Americans are not congenitally improvident and ignorant, but instead are this way because of the conditions of slavery and the persistent nature of racism. Webb argues against the fallacy that African Americans are inherently ignorant by way of signification in both irony and allusion. The most artful example of this occurs during the first chapter of the novel, “In which the Reader is introduced to a Family of Peculiar Construction”, whilst wealthy white ladies and gentlemen have a light dinner

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