Category: Annie Dillard

Introduction

The writings of acclaimed American author and essayist Annie Dillard have had a profound impact on the field of modern literature. She has captivated readers for decades with her lyrical words and astute insights, drawing them into a world where nature, spirituality, and human existence are profoundly and deeply intertwined.

Born in 1945, Dillard saw her literary career take off with “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek,” released in 1974. The Pulitzer Prize-winning masterwork explored her year-long immersion in Virginia’s Tinker Creek area, where she painstakingly recorded the subtle rhythms of the natural world.

She transformed the observation process into an art form by using vivid, sometimes lyrical descriptions that compelled readers to consider the natural world’s beauty and ugliness.

Dillard’s articles encourage readers to consider existential issues in life because of their reflective and meditative approach. Her examination of how people and the environment interact, in addition to her profound spiritual concerns, strikes a chord with a broad audience.

The writings of Annie Dillard, a writer who resists simple classification, are a tribute to the ability of words to shed light on the fundamental riddles of existence. In this article, we will examine her essay topics, writing techniques, and effects on literature and the human psyche as we dig into her body of work.

Biography

The celebrated author Annie Dillard was born on April 30, 1945, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She has always been curious, has given her work much thought, and has never wavered in her dedication to the writing trade.

She showed a profound curiosity about the natural environment at a young age. Later on, her art would adopt this obsession as a defining subject. She studied at Virginia’s Hollins College, where she polished her writing abilities and earned an English degree in 1967. Her experience at Hollins College was essential in forming her sense of literature.

The 1974 release of Dillard’s debut novel, “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek,” launched her literary career.

This nonfiction piece brought about a significant turning point in her life. She described her year-long vacation in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, notably near Tinker Creek, where she immersed herself in nature and studied the complex ecosystems that flourished around her.  Her insights were scientific and profoundly philosophical, they led readers to mull over existentially significant issues. She was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction for her outstanding debut.

After the publication of “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek,” Dillard wrote several articles and books that covered a variety of subjects, including the natural environment, spirituality, art, and the human condition. She stood out as a distinctive voice in American literature because of her unusual literary style, characterized by her vivid imagery and lyrical vocabulary.

“Teaching a Stone to Talk” (1982), one of her best-known works, focused on her excursions to many exotic locales, such as the Galápagos Islands and the Amazon Rainforest. She thought about the complexities of the natural world and the intricate relationships between people and their surroundings while she traveled.

In her work, Dillard also frequently explores spirituality and religion. A devastating plane accident serves as the setting for the short but powerful book “Holy the Firm” (1977), which explores issues of faith and the supernatural. Her singular vision allows her to see spiritual significance in the banal and sad.

Annie Dillard has won various awards for her literary achievements, including the Robert Kirsch Award for lifetime accomplishment from the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the New York Press Club Award for Excellence in Journalism.

Annie Dillard’s life and work continue to inspire both writers and readers. She has earned a reputation as one of the most renowned essayists and authors of our time thanks to her love of the natural world, ability to draw profound truths from the mundane, and mastery of words. Her legacy inspires us to think deeply, wonder about life’s mysteries, as she has done throughout her brilliant career, and see the world through her sensitive eyes.

Famous Works

Writing with grace, introspection, and a solid bond to the natural world are all present throughout Annie Dillard’s work. Her well-known books have impacted American literature, enthralling readers with their vivid descriptions, insightful philosophical observations, and unrelenting inquiry. Let’s examine some of her most famous works and discover the elements that give them enduring appeal.

“Pilgrim at Tinker Creek” (1974)

Dillard’s debut book is a masterwork of nature writing and intellectual inquiry. It follows her year-long absorption in the beauty and ugliness of the natural environment near Tinker Creek, set in Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains. She asks readers to reflect on the complexities of life, death, and the interconnection of all living things through her detailed observations and thoughtful insights. She won the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction for her piece, which is still regarded as a masterpiece.

“Teaching a Stone to Talk” (1982)

In this collection of articles, she travels to far-flung and exotic locations, including the Galápagos Islands and the Amazon jungle. “Teaching a Stone to Talk” examines the mind-boggling wonders of the universe and the philosophical issues they raise. These pieces by Dillard are notable for their vivid imagery and deep insights, which compel readers to consider life’s unfathomable mysteries and how humans interact with the natural world.

“Holy the Firm” (1977)

Dillard wrestles with issues of faith and the divine in this brief but impactful book. She considers the nature of pain, the existence of God in the world, and the frailty of human existence against the backdrop of a horrific plane disaster. The spiritual book “Holy the Firm” encourages readers to reflect on the significant links between the material and spiritual worlds.

“An American Childhood” (1987)

In her autobiographical memoir, Dillard takes readers on a trip through her youth in Pittsburgh. She examines the wonder and curiosity of adolescence, the importance of family, and the development of her identity as a writer via several vignettes and tales. The book “An American Childhood” offers insightful information on the events and forces contributing to Dillard’s unique viewpoint and voice.

“The Writing Life” (1989)

This piece provides a fascinating look at the creative process. She explores the writing procedure’s struggles, setbacks, and joys by drawing on her personal experiences as an author. For budding writers and anybody interested in writing, this work provides an honest and informative analysis of the writer’s path.

Conclusion

Through their exquisite prose and profound philosophical ideas, Annie Dillard’s articles reveal the complex link between people and the natural world. Her writings, including “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek” and “Teaching a Stone to Talk,” encourage readers to reflect on the tremendous beauty of life and the mystery of the human experience.

After the last section’s tone of Dillard’s fascination of weasels violence, the tone changes to a sense of comfort and peacefulness. The sense of scenery Dillard uses like the pond close to her house brings this comfort of nature. As Dillard uses “so” she explains that she already has a motive to go along this path. Dillard depends on herself to do this action instead of doing it by necessity. This section relates to the Transcendentalism Era where Transcendentalists like Emerson and Thoreau believe the values of life is individualism, idealism, and the divinity of nature. Humans have a sense of relaxation and freedom through nature but is that enough? Dillard uses antithesis throughout this section as she describes the nature around her and the material world around her. The “highway” and “barbed-wire fences” contrast with the “pond’s shoreline” and “grassy fields.” This shows that although she has nature to keep her at peace with herself, the material world has a negative aspect that hurts her peacefulness in the natural world. Even though nature brings her comfort, she still wants more. She wants to go after her own aspirations with instinct, not motive. She doesn’t want nature to be the only place she can escape.

After seeing a “wild” weasel Dillard tries envision herself in the weasels brain. How would it be to live by necessity, rather than by choice? Again, her tone changes as she is less suspicious. The exaggeration of “locked and someone threw away the key” allowed her to envision the soul of the weasel. They didn’t just start at each other but they comprehended each other. This meaningful interaction allowed Dillard to spill everything she learned about the weasel. Dillard through this meeting that humans have become too sidetracked by their freedom of choice and she blames herself for being unable to separate herself from the world’s chaos. Dillard couldn’t take her eyes off the weasel because she felt as if she was looking through a window into a new world. After she saw what the new world had to offer, she switches to a motivational voice. Now, Dillard is all about driving the readers into believing that a single necessity is better than having complete freedom. She demonstrates in detail why she believes that necessity should be more important as her specific details of the interaction between her and the weasel. The second part of the quote represents a cacophony which is a harsh, discordant mixture of sounds. The use of ‘B’ being repeated several times represents how our brain acts as a limitation from the true life. We overuse our brain and instead should act how we truly wish to act. Her interaction allowed her to understands weasels more than she understands people.

The structure of this stanza is important as the author starts to relate her observations of weasels to human behavior. This can be represented as the second part of the story as it transitions more into a motivational aspect to humans. The first part was the contrast between the life a weasel and the second part is an insight into her own life. This quote shows exactly how living like a weasel would be which can be the definition of the title. Dillard wants to live in necessity rather than choice and everything she describes that a weasel does follows that. She wants to rely more on instinct and present happiness than worry about the future. This is a contrast and it is used to describe the differences between weasels and humans. Dillard’s simplicity of life and humans are flawed. The word “open” suggest a sense of freedom and lack of restriction in the weasels’ “time and death”, suggesting weasels’ acceptance of their present time and accepting death when it comes “painlessly”. The use of “painlessly” gives a sense of comparison between weasels and humans, who dies more painfully. The diction suggest the attachment that human had, and the things that they cannot let go in life, as weasels die with no desires. The continuation of “noticing everything, remembering nothing” links back to Dillard’s use of “time”, suggesting weasels’ simplicity with time and how the present is all that matters for them, as humans does the opposite by carrying their past burden with them as they move along in life. The word “given” suggest the lack of choice that a weasel has in life, as humans were given more choice. The words “given” and “fierce” suggest how weasels’ strive to achieve anything that is necessary for their own survival. The last word, “pointed will” suggest the obligation of the weasels’ lives and how their “will” is the only thing that keeps them alive. Dillard has successfully delivered each meaning of her informal diction to emphasize the differences between weasels’ simply life and humans’ greed, structuring it in a way for readers to realize the growing demands in our society. Humans can benefit from living wild as a weasel because living mindless, free and focused we will be able to get closer to our goals in life. As Dillard expresses, achieving our goals would be easiest if we were to live mindlessly.

This quotes use of repetition of the phrase, “held on,” shows the sense of regret and longing that the speaker has for the life of a weasel. The speaker wishes she had held on tight for a better life, different than the one she has. This quote is the whole purpose of this essay. She now has an amazing and shocking tone and she wants the readers to experience with her. This amazement allows her to relate the weasel to some sacred figure. Dillard starts to becomes jealous of the weasel’s ability to live by necessity and explains how people can learn from the wild freedom of weasels. This quote explains how Dillard already had a first chance to live but she wasn’t satisfied. Although she has a second chance, she doesn’t know if she can fully live right. “Should of” shows her guilt and “through mud and into wild rose” shows what her life in the past could have been if she abided by this. This analogy is of what she should’ve done to what she actually did shows that she is taking advantage of the present moment without waiting for the future.

Dillard uses connections from past writings, detailed imagery, and careful diction to reveal the weasel’s strong desire to something everyone can learn from. The tone is deep and thoughtful. Dillard finally doesn’t mention the weasel and illustrates the purpose of the text. This quote supports the greatest skill of all, living by necessity. Learning about this now allows readers to go after their aspiration with instinct, not motive. If we were all to live like the weasel does, where their mindset is to be wild it will benefit us in the long run. Humans love to have the power of choice which Dillard believes is negative for the people. Dillard uses details from the first paragraph where a dead weasel still stayed onto the eagle. She is in awe at how this weasel holds onto something that they want. She brings this imagery back when she states, “to grasp your one necessity and not let it go, to dangle from it limp wherever it takes you.” Dillard also uses careful diction by using epistrophe by the phrase, “It would be well, and proper, and obedient, and pure” By keeping the word “and,” she shows her excitement and wonder over the weasel. The author concludes that humans can learn from the wild freedom of weasels. Dillard ends off with doing whatever makes you happy by holding on to a necessity and sticking to it “wherever it takes you.”

Nature can be a therapist, for example, walking in the woods, listening to the leaves agitating themselves in the breeze, a sense of seclusion and tranquility can be gained; nature can also be destructive, for instance, floods, hurricane and avalanche deprive thousands of lives. In 1979, at the sight of a total eclipse, Annie Dillard has learned about the unpredictability and strong power of nature, thus emphasizing the significance of communication to create something new for the world in order to overcome the fear. By reflecting on her inner fear and the power of nature, demonstrating the imagery of old-time movies and creating metaphor of “wake up”“dolphin” and “bucket and shovel”，Dillard successfully persuades people to “wake up ” and utilize the power of communication.

Annie Dillard bolsters her opinions that nature is full of power and unknown with her specific word choice. Dillard begins by presenting the road to the destination of viewing the eclipse. She describes what she is going through is “dying” and “whimpering”, which spreads negative feelings and characterizes an atmosphere of horror. In doing so, she shows that her minds are dominated by fears, unprepared for how to react for the eclipse. Affected by her anxious feelings, readers will also tremble by the strange atmosphere and be curious about what will happen in the next. Then Dillard shifts her focus from the path to eclipse to the hotel lobby. Featured as “dark”, “derelict”, the hotel lobby strengthens the feeling of mystery that Dillard receives. What strikes the readers’ eyes is the antechamber to the hell, where the painting of crown looks ominous and is full of strange people. In arousing people’s scare, the author implies that this journey is destined to be unusual. After that, Dillard moves to describe how the sun slowly came up. By portraying the change from “lusterless yellow” to “empty sky”, the process of eclipse comes out of paper, from the sun’s clearing the clouds to its going away. During this process, the author was so impressed by the nature, for even if she has learned about the eclipse before, the theory and words cannot explain what she saw. With those words the author selects, she successfully conveys her fear and awe towards this spectacle, promoting readers to understand the strong power of nature that words cannot express and paving the way for her changes of perception.

Dillard further describes what she sees as the imagery that she is watching the movie filmed in the middle-age, where everything is “platinum” ”metallic” and “matte”, which seems detached from the reality. It is described that everything backs in time, slow fading away to the origin of civilization, the time when human beings were not armed with basic science knowledge. The distorted time indicates that Dillard is the same as those who in the premier time, regarding the eclipse as a sacred signal and coming up with nothing to deal with the fear towards it. After reading the description, readers feel that nothing is weirder than this phenomenon, along with imaginary screaming, lost memory of everything that had happened and they cannot help drawing the picture that Dillard is pushed to the rim of universe, losing her direction and passing away. Thus, they come to realize the misery power of nature. Also, Dillard overlaps the imagery with the repetition of “wrong” and “dead” in order to foreshadow her changing views towards eclipse, which is mentioned in the later. When she sees grasses and faces, her repeating of “wrong” not only indicates what she sees is different from reality, but points out that there is limiting words to express her feeling. Stepping further, she imagines that she is pressed by the nature to the edge of death so as to emphasize the insignificance of human beings when confronting the nature. The readers, in return, resonates with the hopeless lost in readers’ minds, forced to feel terrified and believe that they merely have pony power compared to that of nature that can summon people to leave from the reality.

Sticking in the confusing state, Dillard then “wakes up” from the chaos in her mind by evoking the metaphor of “dolphin” “life saver” and “bucket and shovel”. Dragging herself from living like a death, the author is alarmed by “life saver” of the college student, when the importance of words suddenly triggers her mind. By comparing to her imagery film in the old time, when people believed only God could save them from being scared off, the author successfully connects the “God” to the reality—-communication. The author’s inspiration begins as “like many will-less dolphins, we plunge the surface, lapse and emerge”, which is used to assimilate people’s routine that they always immerse in their personal universe. However, even though emerging for thousands of time, what people perceive is just part of the world so that they tend to immerse in the fear brought by their partial views. Through this metaphor, the author vividly persuades the readers to involve in sharing experience with others and therefore think of problems from a brand new perspective. The audience, after experiencing the fear brought by unpredictable nature, tend to understand the importance of not isolating themselves in their own minds. Later, the author mentions “bucket and shovel” to represent the means of conveying people’s words. It is usual that buckets and shovels are used to dig out the sands and shells and build up castles by children, so they stands for the access for people to acquire their wealth—- perceptions. Also, as children might dig out different kinds of shells, people harbor various views towards the world. As a result, the author wants to reclaim that the participation of sharing words and experience is needed. Writing down her inspiration drawn from the eclipse and specifying the abstract concept she wants to convey, the author force the readers to agree on the necessity of joining the words and activities.

By diffusing the fear and waking up the minds of people to share their experience and thoughts, the author sets up the model for those who wants to enhance others’ participation in the society. The audience, through the words reflecting fear, description of imaginary movies and implicit meaning of “wake up” “dolphin” and “bucket and shovel” , consider the passage as plot-twisting as taking the roller coaster. What is different from the eclipse is that while the sun is slowly covered by the shadow, the audience can finally walk through the cloud of mist to realize that the only way to save people from the unknown and unpredictability is sharing words.

The essay, Total eclipse by Annie Dillard, is a creative literature work that has created an impact and great influence through generations and which continues to inspire and entertain literature lovers even today. Dillard wrote about the experience after two years of seeing the eclipse. Total eclipse experience makes Annie use an explicit vocabulary and makes a personal connection by explaining total eclipse events to the readers. In this essay, she’s not trying to discuss the total eclipse; it’s more about life-changing something more significant that changes your life. Yet her tone and mood throughout the essay were completely confusing for me.

During my first time reading this story, I used to believe that Dillard is just explaining total eclipse events, which meant to me that a person who has never seen an eclipse wouldn’t be able to understand the impacts — but taking a another look as a bookworm I realized that there is little use of scientific-related language in the entire story. The inadequacy of the scientific language demonstrates how the author tries to make a personal connection and describing things in a way that even those who have never seen an eclipse would understand. The author Annie in the essay “Total eclipse” cleverly employs literary devices in the entire essay. She puts the images of the essay in readers’ minds by using proper styles of literary. For example, the author portrays the sky as a background or a pathway for space objects such as the sun and moon to travel.

In the description of the Total eclipse, “a piece of the sky appeared, suddenly detached, blackened, and backlighted, which came from nowhere and overlapped the sun”. Annie Dillard suggests that the moon is simply a piece of that sky that appeared and covered the sun. She gives the reader a sense of awe at this piece of sky is doing to the majestic sun by severally repeating the -ed sound in this sentence multiple times. The author constantly refers to the moon by using a pronoun “it.” Dillard describes the event by saying that “a piece of that sky was enormous and black that did not look the moon. Therefore, she illustrates a clear picture of the event in the readers’ minds by using concise and easy grasped details. The author describes the events in such a way that readers can visualize the event in their mind, even those who have never seen an eclipse.

The author is able to keep the audience interested by using her anecdotes by referring to Emperor Louis of Bavaria. She uses unique ways to compare the dragon and with the moon. The comparison of the moon to the dragon helps the author to draw a clear picture of the sun been swallowed by the beast. She describes the relation of the moon and the eclipse in the following sentences by constantly using the pronoun “it.” She describes the clown’s head painting on the chamber that she didn’t anticipate to look at but is something that you will at no time fail to recall. There are no thinkable means to predict how an event will disturb you even if you know the event or not. When your emotions take over, the event immediately becomes a total eclipse. This results in making the unknown known, and the event will have completely changed.

In Dillard’s essay, there are overlap and intertwining of imageries, melodies, and memories, which makes Dillard’s essay a woven masterwork. It is hard to describe a linear narration in the essay since the author repeats the same observations together with words repeatedly. Dillard’s essay should also be recognized as an eclipse itself rather than relation to the intricate and broken experience. The main task of this paper is to intensely and completely understand Dillard’s moral exposure about human relationship of one another and our world by determining the moments of the eclipse in the essay. Dillard writes “there is a difference of what you know and what you see in the eclipse… Generally, it is difficult to refrain your mind from the possibilities of blinding you. What you experience during an eclipse might be more convincing than any theory you have ever experienced.” Behind her words, Annie banks on the readers to find the true meaning of her explicit vocabulary. To feel how Annie felt on the night of her total eclipse, one must use his/her own life experience. Dillard uses confusing structure and vocabulary that help her in engaging and inspiring the reader to find an example of a complete eclipse in their life. She stresses that abnormal events make lasting memories compared with the normality.

The appearance of sun is used as a symbol of illumination while the eclipse is used as a symbol of blindness to humanity. The author came to realize that her personal experience was wrong and pointless after a keenly observing the eclipse. Using similes and metaphors, Dillard is able to describe the sliding of the moon over the sun is causes creation of darkness. The authors stated that there is a visible final hole where the sun fits. The author continues her anxiety memorizing and overlooking their association with understanding and similarly with death after thoroughly describing the eclipse. During the darkness of the eclipse, Dillard quotes that they are people in the world since their minds had forgotten everything, and they had lost time in their minds. She continues saying that even though they loved the planet together with their lives, they got light wrong and could not remember any of the light-years. Dillard want to open the readers eyes and see the new world and opportunities that are around them.

The narrator shows an internal change that each person can undergo by conveying her personal experience. The author considers herself dead together with all the individuals in a while climbing the Yakima valley. On the hillsides along the Euphrates, Dillard was able to “remember” her a false way of living during the last minutes of the eclipse. After the partial eclipse, Dillard “forgetful of almost everything” during the total eclipse. Since she had almost forgotten everything Dillard only knew that the blue sky is not supposed to be in the ring of the light. She cannot remember how the sky is supposed to appear, even though is unfamiliar to her. Dillard quotes that her hands looked like silver while the sky appeared to was navy blue. She uses a metaphor to describe how the grasses on the hill look like. At this point the narrator wants to show how she had undergone some problems which were no important. After the eclipse Dillard changes her life which is evident in her opinions and views.

The section that follows in the essay is a pivot for the literary. Dillard says that they were tempted to abandon these regions since they had had enough, and they were tired of the burden. She argued that they shouldn’t burn their hands any more than they had since the price of the gold had risen abruptly. The price of gold had risen, which made the people wonder why they are burning their hands anymore. Dillard states that they were not interested in digging deeper into finding new territories Dillard could not exit the hole since the value of the chance of retaining her knowledge was at the greatest peak. In her essay, Dillard states that at this point, they were still to reach the dark moments. Neither we have the gold, nor we have reached the bottom of the hole. Once more, she picks her recollection of the total eclipse.

In the context of the whole essay, the feeling of distorted orientation is created by distorted and impossible images, which encourages the readers to hold their disbelief. There is little connection to scientific comprehension of the event, which makes the readers familiar with the event. Dillard’s experience demonstrates an internal experience rather than a two-minute phenomenon. Without this cognitive progression and change, the piece would be neither interesting nor aesthetically enjoyable.

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek written by Annie Dillard is a very mysterious novel. She goes through life examining many different things one would not typically pay attention to. She wants for us to go through life the way she does, by observing everything, whether it be big or small, and realize what is happening in our surroundings before it is gone. Pilgrim of Tinker Creek is a novel which consists of short passages which relate to one of her seven themes. The dissolution of the present is a big theme throughout her novel. “The wind is terrific out of the west; the sun comes and goes. I can see the shadow on the field before me deepen uniformly and spread like a plague. Everything seems so dull I am amazed I can even distinguish objects. And suddenly the light runs across the land like a comber, and up the trees, and goes again in a wink: I think I’ve gone blind or died. When it comes again, the light, you hold your breath, and if it stays you forget about it until it goes again”. This is a perfect example of the dissolution of the present. Dissolution of the present in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek could be described as the ending or disappearance of present events, such as the sun setting into night. Annie Dillard uses the coming of night as an example of people not paying attention to what is happening around them. The shadow spreading like a plaque over the field is an analogy one would normally not think of, but it is the perfect example. She is paying attention to every small change that is happening as the sun goes down and all of a sudden the sun has set and it is dark outside, which she compares to being dead or blind. She then talks about how people typically only pay attention to a change for the first few moments it is happening and then forget about it once it is constantly there, like the sun and night. Meaning we only acknowledge the beauty of nature when it is fresh in our minds, but really, this beauty should not be taken for granted and we should be engaged in the beauty around us. It is not just in this passage but all throughout the novel that Annie Dillard is trying to emphasize every action in nature has beauty in it, there is just the choice of whether or not we want to look at it from a fresh view point.

The idea that the beauty of nature is being ignored is what Annie Dillard is trying to address throughout the novel. She comes to the realization that we only pay attention to natures changes when one event ends and another starts, this being the ending of the present. Annie Dillard devotes a whole chapter to the present and shows us all the ways the human population takes nature for granted. She starts off with a sentence saying “Catch it if you can,”. This is the most intriguing sentence throughout the whole novel because she is hinting towards what she wants us to do. She is saying capture the present and what is happening while you can, rather than when it is gone. “Over head, great strips and chunks of cloud dash to the northwest in a gold rush. At my back the sun is setting, how can I not have noticed before that the sun is setting? My mind has been a blank slab of black asphalt for hours, but that doesn’t stop the sun’s wild wheel. I set my coffee beside me on the curb; I smell loam on the wind; I pat the puppy; I watch the mountain,”. Here, Annie Dillard again brings up the sunset but she is realizing that she did not notice the sunset right away like she did earlier in the novel. She forgets that the sun is setting and realizes that just because she forgot does not mean the sun will stop its routinely cycle. After this realization she starts to observe her surroundings again carefully and takes time to absorb everything happening around her. Her novel seems to suggest she notices the sun changing more than anything else, maybe because this is one of the most beautiful events nature has to offer yet we take advantage of it. Although she loves the sun, she still enjoys even the small things that nature has to offer and uses them to remember things about her past. “The color patches of vision part, shift, and reform as I move through space in time. The present is the object of vision, and what I see before me at any given second is a full field of color patches scattered just so. The configuration will never be repeated. Living is moving; time is a live creek bearing changing lights. As I move, or as the world moves around me, the fullness of what I see shatters. This second of shattering is an augenblick, “Verweile doch” Last forever!” Who hasn’t prayed that prayer? But the augenblick isn’t going to verweile. You were lucky to get it in the first place. The present is a freely given canvas. That it is constantly being ripped apart and washed downstream goes without saying; it is a canvas, nevertheless”. Here, Dillard is talking not only about the events around her but also the colors. She is trying to explain that whatever events are happening will occur again but they will never happen in the exact same way, making each time they happen unique. This gives her another reason to the readers as to why we should pay attention to our surroundings and not ignore the beauty around us. When Dillard says the present is a canvas she is suggesting that everyday we are given a new beginning and picture that is going to be different from yesterday’s which will not last forever. The present is always ending is what Dillard is suggesting with this quote. But it will always be there for us to observe, just forever disappearing. “These aren’t still shots; the camera is always moving. And the scene is always just slipping out of sight, as if in spite of myself I were always just descending a hill, rounding a corner, stepping into the street with a companion who urges me on, while I look back over my shoulder at the sight which recedes, vanishes. The present of my consciousness is itself a mystery which is also always just rounding a bend like a floating branch borne by a flood. Where am I? But I’m not. “I will overturn, overturn, overturn it: and it shall be no more”. Dillard is once again talking about the present constantly changing. Whenever Dillard notices something changing around her the next second she notices, it is gone or changed in some sort of way. The present is always a mystery and she suggests you won’t know what is going to happen next or even notice the change that has happened unless you are paying attention to what goes on around you. The quotes are all leading back to the same idea that we need to be paying attention to our surroundings and not taking the beauty that we have in this world for granted.

In today’s society nature is very well taken advantage of. We are distracted by technology and many other things which draw our minds away from anything that is happening around us. Like Annie Dillard said, one second it is light outside and the next it is night and it feels as if you are bind because you do not realize what has happened and do not care to acknowledge it because it is a normal occurrence. The presence is always ending and we don’t care that we are missing the beauty of it. Annie Dillard’s reasoning of telling the readers to take advantage of the beauty around them is relevant in present day. It is true that no one is taking advantage of what we have in the outside world.

Annie Dillard wants readers to take away more than just that she thinks they need to pay attention to their surroundings but also not to let anything in their lives be taken for granted. She uses nature as something being taken for granted because it is one of the most common things we don’t pay attention to or realize the changes happening until after they are gone. Like the sun setting we only realize it is gone once it is dark or when the vibrant colors of the sunset are in the sky and then suddenly it is dark and no one cares to realize the beauty of how quickly something can change. She is hoping people will realize from reading her book nature and its beauty is not something that should be taken granted for rather we should take what we have in the outside world to distract us from technology. Annie Dillard is trying to emphasize every action in nature has beauty in it, but people are choosing to ignore the beauty when they need to look at it with a fresh pair of eyes, everyday.

Do many people wonder what is the meaning of life? What is our purpose? There comes a very important time in our lives when we must sit down and ask whether we are living our lives or if we are just being content with what we have. There are also times in our lives when our instincts will tell us to do something that defies logic, upsets our plans, and may seem crazy to others. What defines us is whether we listen to our instinct or conform like the rest of society. Fear of failure leads us to decide to go the safe route instead of risking it all and fulfilling our dreams. Every human comes from a different background and has different experiences throughout their life. Everyone is different and we all strive to uncover the secrets to the meaning of life. In reality, we are given the desire to live the way we want, unlike animals. What makes us unique isn’t something that should be overlooked. We can dictate our own lives, yet we still look for a life of fulfillment.

Annie Dillard’s essay conveys the message that we should live more carefree. She believes we should change our lifestyle and live in the way a weasel does. As she is observing the weasel she develops an admiration for the weasel’s way of life. As she mentions, “The weasel lives in necessity and we live in choice…” She enjoys the thought of going through life wild and careless like the weasel. Dillard sees the wild weasel as having the freedom to live carelessly and solely by necessity; whereas the way humans choose to live can identify necessarily with material things. In one passage Dillard describes the neighborhood in which she found the weasel. She refers to the suburbs as, “a remarkable piece of shallowness.” Reading this made me think of how superficial things appear on the outside and how materialistic people can become. We don’t need many of the things we consider necessary in order to survive

I see her argument as a way to make our choices disappear and live without prejudice. She states, “I would like to learn, or remember, how to live.” She is on the hunt to feel alive. As humans, we debate and calculate every move we make. “The weasel lives in necessity and we live in choice, hating necessity and dying at the last ignobly in its talons.” Every action of ours has consequences, while weasels simply act without having their actions premeditated. We live our lives with caution, afraid of taking risks. Dillard believes that “we might learn something of mindlessness..” This way of life would allow her to not make choices and would make her feel liberated. Living a life free of consequences from our bad decisions sounds like an amazing way to live and animals don’t have to face these daily challenges, allowing them to be free.

Anne Dillard’s, “Living Like Weasels,” offers a statement all throughout the entire piece contrasting the behavior of weasels with the behavior that all individuals ought to attempt to live by. Ordinarily, one does not connect the weasel with being intelligent or a good example among different species, however, the effortlessness and startling quality of the creature in this setting is the thing that makes Dillard’s article so convincing and genuine. In the main sentence of the article, Dillard says that the weasels are “wild.” Rather than explaining herself immediately after, Dillard spends the whole article examining how it is critical to be wild like weasels. The reader feels intrigued by Dillard’s statement and wants to continue pursuing to discover the real purpose of the piece.

The purpose that she is attempting to send to the readers is to discover something you cherish and hang on to it. Dillard utilizes the weasel metaphor to shield how it is significant that everyone discovers what he/she wants to do throughout everyday life and that they stay with it. The audience of this reading learns through the weasel to never underestimate anything and to genuinely take in every one of the open doors that might be given in a circumstance. We should pursue the weasel’s activity as Dillard propels us to, and we should try to live our lives by collecting the encounters around us that make us generally happy as individuals. All things considered, with each minute comes another open door for us to exploit and never let go, and to live life under no one else’s account but our own.

It is critical to pay attention to and appreciate the character of the ideas Dillard presents in this essay because in some ways they are very true. For instance, it is true that humans live lives of caution, with a certain fear that has been built up continually through the years. We are forced to agree with Dillard’s idea that we as humans “might learn something of the purity of living in the physical senses and the dignity of living without bias or motive” (63). To live freely we need to live our lives with less hesitation, instead of intentionally choosing to not live to the fullest in fear of the consequences of our actions because we live in a mindboggling world with a wealth of anger the whole way across the globe.

Our human life is upsetting, just with regular duties, decisions are displayed each day and quietness is a need that is not constantly an alternative. Every human could lead a progressively quiet life by organizing their duties and expelling negative and pointless things from their life. Small challenges ought to be made for an increasingly peaceful life, while tremendous objectives are set up to progress into an overall existence of serenity. Serenity gives an outlet to ponder life, de-stress and break reality. To achieve a real existence that incorporates peacefulness; decisions ought to be diminished and one ought to take a stab at internal peace. By carrying on with a progressively peaceful life, our minds will be dedicated to the sense of cleaner living. Dillard wants people to know that everything does not have to be perfect. People should not be uptight all the time. We are always focused on doing what is right and doing everything correctly, so we do not take time out to enjoy the life we have. Many people take things for granted every day and are so concerned with what lies ahead of us; we do not live in the moment. I believe what Dillard is trying to express to the audience is we need to start taking breaks and breathing. Simply just live in the moment, especially the ones we have.

Navajo people, as Smith writes, believe that there does in fact exist a world of higher powers. And yet, they have no idea of this unknown power or what it resembles. The one thing they do know, however, is that it is their absolute truth. Compare this to Joseph Campbell’s writings in “The Masks of God: Primitive Mythology,” where Campbell talks about a little girl playing with three burnt matches. Although she is completely fine at first, she suddenly “shrieks in terror (Campbell 22)” as one of the matches appears to turn into a witch. In this scene, the girl’s innate releasing mechanism, after a period of time, seemingly transforms a simple match into something more daemonic. Although the girl knows, in reality, that the match is not a witch, something inside of her psychological mind triggers a response that makes the girl respond in a matter that makes the match appear as if it is actually a witch. As her change in perception of the match changes, her perception of what appeared to be her absolute truth changes. In Anne Dillard’s “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek,” Dillard talks about the perceptions of those who used to be blind but are no longer. She references many different examples, showing how the blind interact with the world through their new tool of vision. While many rejoice in their new sense of perception, many do not like this new sense of vision and prefer to keep their eyes closed. Interested in this idea, Dillard attempts to shift her perception to gain a different form of sight. She talks about “another kind of seeing, which involves a letting go (Dillard 306).” Rather than searching, Dillard lets go of her senses in an attempt to shift her perception to gain this different form of seeing. Comparing Campbell and Dillard, I believe they would both agree that while there is one truth, there are multiple perceptions or ways of looking at the truth.

As human beings, we create symbolisms and stories to describe that which we cannot explain. Just as Whitehead states, “philosophy is akin to poetry (Whitehead).” In the same way that poetry can be viewed in many different ways, views on a subject can be perceived in many different ways. Smith talks about this idea when contrasting aborigines’ and anthropologists’ viewpoints on the aborigines’ life, coined by the aborigines as the term “the Dreaming (Smith 367).” From an anthropological outlook, the aborigines’ world is viewed as time being linear, while from an aboriginal outlook, their world was viewed as having cyclical time. The idea here is that aboriginal life can be looked at through two completely different lenses while maintaining the same truth. This ties into Campbell’s writings, where Ramakrishna talks about the seven floors of a building: “Some people climb the seven floors of a building and cannot get down; but some climb up and then, at will, visit the lower floors (Campbell 26).” As said by Ramakrishna, some people are stuck on a single floor of the building and have no floor mobility. I connected this with Dillard on how some people can only perceive the world using their eyes, or in other words, that these people are stuck on a single floor. Adding onto this, I concluded that in order to navigate up and down the floors of the building, one must be able to change their perception in order to access these different levels. I believe Dillard was attempting to shift up or down the ladder towards the ending half of her writings of “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek” where she talks about personally attempting to see the world from a different perspective. I believe that if one gets very good at meditation, they are rewarded with access to these different lenses of seeing the world. By having access to these different lenses, these people are able to combine their different perspectives on the truth they are trying to understand and are, subsequently, able to attain a better sense of its true idea.

The reason we can alter our perceptions in the first place is that we have the freedom to do as we, please. As Dillard talks about in “Living Like Weasels”, she states that as humans we can do whatever we want with our reality. Dillard talks about how “People take vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience–even of silence– by choice (Dillard 3).” Just like weasel yields to instinct, we have the freedom to yield to anything we want to. Some might wonder why we would yield to anything in the first place. This can be perfectly described by the weasel, who yields to instinct and nothing else. Because the weasel yields purely to instinct, it is free of bearing the hardship of choices which makes the weasel arguably freer than we are. What it comes down to, it seems, is our perception of the word truth. But because of the “Fallacy of the Perfect Dictionary (Whitehead 2),” as Whitehead points out, the definitions in the dictionary have infinite possibilities of meaning, so the idea of freedom goes beyond the boundaries of our dictionary. Thus, we must alter our perception to attempt to get a better understanding of this idea.

The pursuit of the truth, of discovery, is what makes us an intelligent species. Yet although this seems very simple, there are multiple perceptions of the same truth, which makes us wonder how we can alter our current perceptions to get a better understanding of the idea of truth. Through whole generations, the way humans act towards one another and the world as a whole has changed permanently. And yet, through these changes, through urbanization, through agriculture, humans have retained core thoughts and ideals that truly transform us from animals into humans. Questioning each other’s choices and the world around us is what strengthens our philosophical knowledge, and I firmly believe this constant questioning will continue for as long as humanity may exist.

The setting is in the hotel room in which the narrator sees different things like the picture of a clown, which she said: “It was a print of a detailed and lifelike painting of a smiling clown’s head, made out of vegetables” (Dillard 10). The power of perception came to mind when she said, “It was a painting of the sort which you do not intend to look at, and which, alas, you never forget. Some tasteless fate presses it upon you; it becomes part of the complex interior junk you carry with you wherever you go” (10). It says here that even a small detail like that can never be removed in our memories because we have perceived something different in the environment. Amazingly, the narrator remembers every single detail of the clown’s feature from top to bottom of the face with an accurate description. Another setting is a hill which is 500ft tall from the ground, and the Yakima valley can be observable from what she describes it as “a distant dream of a valley, a Shangri-La. All its hundreds of low, golden slopes bore orchards” (13). Seeing this view is just remarkable and worth it. It gives the best setting to view something awesome, like a total eclipse.

The character in this story is the narrator itself and us; she says, “all of us rugged individualists wearing knit caps and blue nylon parkas” (13). It shows that we are all the same; we humans are uniform in a way we never knew. It is the narrator’s way of telling us that when the eclipse happens, we are all looking the same, which is we are all dead. The narrator says, “It looked as though we had all gathered on hilltops to pray for the world on its last day. It looked as though we had all crawled out of spaceships and were preparing to assault the valley below” (14). The people gather together to see a beautiful yet terrifying of the total eclipse. She sees that it looks like the end of the world, and all of the people are witnessing it.

In the story, the conflict is about person vs. nature, wherein it reveals what is happening in the environment. The narrator experiences the change of surroundings while watching the eclipse and view it as contrasting as what she knew it was. “The sun was going, and the world was wrong” (16). The narrator thinks that the world seems so different when the sun is covered; it is like someone just turned off the light in a room. She perceives that there is a color that has never seen on Earth before; her mind is interpreting things and lost in the way.

The narrator uses different imagery in this story; the significant imagery used in the story are pinpoint at the beginning of the story. “Dillard’s essay is a woven masterwork in which images, themes, and memories overlap and intertwine. She circles back to the same perceptions, and even words, over and over again.” (Laurenzi). It is to emphasize and prepare to understand what is the feeling and experience the whole truth about the total eclipse. The clown painting, caged bird, and child’s bucket and shovel appear as actual material objects in the hotel. For example, the bucket and shovel become metaphors for mining gold and then, as grammar and lexicon, tools for mining remembered experience. “These central metaphors are determine within the course of the essay: the narrator matches each object absolutely with certain aspects of experience. She writes that watching the end of the eclipse was ‘like seeing a mushroom cloud,’ and that there is no use speaking of such a vision for, as she puts it, ‘no people, no significance. This is all I have to tell you’” (Bartkevicius). The narrator merely seeing death and end of the world, grieving in the loss of the Earth and also human life: as she said in her story that she sees are all dead, and everything seems so wrong.

Symbolism of the gold miner and also the color gold or yellow are mention a few times in the story. The narrator remembers an article to which says that “In South Africa, in India, and South Dakota, the gold mines extend deeply into earth’s crust that they are hot…when the miners return to the surface, their faces are deathly pale” (Dillard 12). It is saying that in the deepest and darkest place is where we can see the gold. “The ‘golden slopes’ are soon overhung by yellow clouds where ‘hillside orchards had lighted up.’ The fact that the orchards make things golden could easily suggest Yeats’ ‘golden apples of the sun’ The Sun is a symbol of divine perfection; it corresponds with gold and is, after all, the central interest of the speaker’s journey to Washington” (Wilde). The sun symbolizes the gold in which the narrator significantly connects it, and when the total eclipse happens, it became dark like the place where the gold miners are. The symbolism and imagery that mentioned in the story are all leading to the experience of the total eclipse.

The narrator perceives that observing a total eclipse is like dying. Grass is life and death; organic, complex as nature. Color is interpretation and perception that people often use to understand things. The author’s story has various powerful and repeating images and that are made with significant style and develops a confined unclear sublime of experience itself, it shows a small grip of the intense universe that is inaccurately believed to know so well. The narrator develops the images of “winter-killed…dead grasses” (Dillard 18), the avalanche, the vegetable clown painting, and the eclipse itself, and the darkness it shows is organic-the natural world itself. The world is death itself; a part of life is a structure of experience that is colorless and can only perceive by an individual’s eyes. The color is a perception of reality; it is a painting or a photograph. We become aware that as the color fades, it will vanish in time, with memory, like a print in a photograph.

We can see that how we perceive things can build a solid ground on what we believe and gives us an understanding of what is happening around us. The story teaches us how deep the perception of an event may change everything we know. When we set this imagery and symbols together, we consider its appearance of perception and sense the narrator’s view of experience. Sometimes, we are unobservant that everything we see is only a perception, an analysis of reality, we find ourselves working as a camera when colors contrasting to each other and our minds are infrequently experiencing change, we came across what can be expressed in our bucket of lexicon, our spectrum of colors that change the further in-depth we discover ourselves, only to be colorless as we emerge and the black lens cap on the sun appears. There are only to things to perceive when watching a total eclipse; it is either you die or save yourself by grabbing that lifesaver.

At some point along the way in our lifetime, we may take a step back and reflect on how we have been living our lives. Many people attempt to search for an answer to a very emotive question: how do we truly live our lives? Annie Dillard’s personal narrative entitled “Living Like Weasels” explores a way in which human beings should live. Her encounter with an ordinary weasel enabled her to gain insight into the difference between humans and weasels. They locked eyes for an instant in complete surprise, but following their instincts, the weasel fled. The aspect which prevents humans from living the purest life possible, which weasels retain, is our minds. While humans live by making choices to avoid risks and the fearful, weasels do not question and simply act by instinct. Dillard asserts that freedom of choice does not mean we are necessarily free. For that reason, we should learn from the tenacious creature and connect ourselves to live by intuition over our desires. Dillard demands us to aspire to a life where we embrace the present and cherish moments of surprise when there is no time to think, but just to react. A life reliant on instinct and present happiness rather than worrying about the future will reciprocate a fuller life. Typically, we do equate weasels as role models. However, the simplicity and unexpectedness of this animal within this context are what make Dillard’s argument convincing.

Annie Dillard’s narrative “Living Like Weasels” connects back to the American Dream. She understands both the constructed and natural world. Whereas the constructed world is built from human choice and consciousness, the natural world is unplanned and exists in unconsciousness. For those that live in America or come to America for the American Dream, their reality is ultimately a life focused on useless things and burdened with worries and struggles; this is something the hairy and ferocious specimen lacks. When Dillard immersed herself in the natural world, she experienced its inherent beauty and functionality of it. Humans could be free from the useless focuses, societal expectations, and norms — which seize the splendor of the world — like weasels if they discerned the value and adopted their instinctual way of life. Similar to what Thoreau experienced at Walden Pond, Dillard informs us to distance ourselves from mainstream society to “discover ourselves”. When we do not conform to the burdens of society and live relentlessly in pursuit of a passion that our instincts guide us towards, life becomes more meaningful. In essence, Dillard presents the weasel to compel us to simplify our process of decision-making and our lives. I agree with this because when I was younger, I mistook complexity for sophistication. However, simplicity is indeed a very sophisticated way to live because living in the moment and following my instincts feels truest and makes me happy.