Dickinson and Wilderness

I did a bit of research on this poem because it wasn’t really clicking with me and I saw a website use the term “wilderness of the mind.” I think that describes this poem perfectly. To me, it sounds like Dickinson was struggling with something mentally and has finally overcome it. The wilderness that she was going through in her mind, created something more beautiful, a better wilderness. She doesn’t mean the physical place of wilderness. This contrast with my idea of wilderness. I thought of wilderness as a way to escape, but to Dickinson, the wilderness was what she was trying to escape from. She had to make something out of her wilderness, while I think that wilderness should be something that just is. This also contrasts with Whitman’s ideas of wilderness. He views wilderness as a way to escape society. You need it to remain sane. It was just the opposite for Dickinson. She was trapped within her own wilderness. She had to see the “Sun” for everything to change for her. She had to escape from the wilderness not escape to the wilderness. 

Whitman and Wilderness

Walt Whitman considers wilderness an escape from the troubles of society. He uses it as a simple way to enjoy life. There are countless instances where Whitman is just sitting back and enjoying life and he is doing it while being surrounded by nature. Take part 5 for example, he is enjoying while going on and wilderness is contributing to that. He feels like he is away from the pressures of society. Wilderness also shows that we are all equal through the use of wilderness. He does it with the question “what is grass?”. He points out that he doesn’t know any more than a child would. Society forgets that we are all the same but wilderness will quickly remind us that we are. You can also see why he likes to separate from society and be with wilderness in part 32. He doesn’t have to deal with other human beings in nature. It is his escape.

His definition matches up pretty well with my own. Just like Whitman, I think of wilderness as an escape. It allows us to be away from society. We can just be where everything is free and uncontrolled. Sometimes we need that escape.

Fuller and Jacobs/Douglass

To a certain degree, I agree with Fuller’s statement. Women were definitely not high up on the totem pole in society, but the slaves were still a good ways under them. Women didn’t have as many rights or freedoms as men do, but they had a lot more privileges than slaves. If you look at Jacobs’s narrative, all she wanted was to be with her kids but she was denied even that simple thing. Women are able to be with their kids and have a roof over their heads, for the most part. Jacobs had to spend quite a few years in extremely terrible living conditions. She had to crawl around for exercise, there was no sunlight, and there were bugs that ate her up. At least most women had better living conditions than that. Women were able to live in a certain peace of mind, they at least didn’t live in constant fear for their life like Douglass did. Douglass watched as his own brother was murdered. There wasn’t a second thought about it. His brother didn’t have the justice he deserved. At least women were considered human beings. Slaves were not. Women didn’t have as much freedom, but they definitely had more than slaves.

Rip Van Winkle and Fuller and Wilderness

I think that Fuller would disagree with Rip Van Winkle’s idea about wilderness. Van Winkle uses wilderness as a way to escape his wife because he didn’t like her nagging. Fuller would say that he didn’t understand his wife. She would probably say something about him not even consider what she’s saying or how she’s feeling. He’s only thinking about himself when he escapes into the wilderness. By doing that, he’s only reinforcing Fuller’s idea that women are the same as slaves. He just expects her to do all the duties of a wife without thinking about her as a person. Van Winkle is only thinking about himself and not about his wife. When he discovers that he’s slept for a hundred years, he is actually relieved that his wife would be dead. That is no way to treat your wife. Fuller would probably be disgusted with Van Winkle’s actions and thoughts.

Ironies and Contradictions

There were countless instances of ironies and contradictions within this semesters reading. I think a good portion of these results in everyone battling within themselves about ideas. We read things as the time was changing and people had a new way of thinking. Ones writing isn’t going to be consistent always because his/her own thinking isn’t consistent. Everyone was trying to decide what exactly they believed in.

A big example of someone contradicting themselves is Anne Bradstreet. You could see it when you look at her two distinctive voices that we talked about. In certain poems, like “In Memory of My Dear Grandchild Elizabeth Bradstreet, Who Deceased August , 1665, Being a Year and a Half Old,” you could clearly see her Puritan beliefs and up holdings. There were other poems, like “To My Dear and Loving Husband,” that strayed away from those beliefs.

You could probably find ironies in all the rest of the readings from this semester. There was also contradicting views that made it ironic as well. Look at the two captivity narratives for example. In Rowlandson’s, she referred to the Native people as “savages” while Cabeza de Vaca considered them friends. Similar things happened to both of them, but they have such contradicting views.

Benjamin Franklin’s ideas on going to Church contradict hugely with most other people’s. He didn’t think that you had to go to Church to be a good person and have good morals. If you didn’t go to Church, that meant you were going to Hell, at least according to the Puritans. He believed quite the opposite. Going to Church did not define you as a person. What you believed and your actions did. 

Franklin and Wilderness

I agree with the idea that Benjamin Franklin’s ideas about virtue are the antithesis of the ideas of wilderness. Wilderness is untamed, it’s freedom, and most importantly it’s imperfect. Franklin starts off talking about virtues by saying “[i]t was about time that I conceiv’d the bold and arduous Project of arriving at moral Perfection” (284). By that first sentence alone, it contradicts everything that we have talked by in regards to wilderness. Perfection is not a term with associate with wilderness and you will never be able to make it perfect. It is completely fine that way it is without trying to be changed by mankind.

His virtues themselves also don’t line up with our definition of wilderness. One of the virtues is “Order” which says “[l]et all your Things have their places” (284). One of the beautiful things about wilderness is that there is no order to it. Another virtue is “Industry” which states “[r]esolve to  perform what you ought. Perform without fail what you resolve” (284). We also talked about wilderness being a state of mind. It is freedom and time to just enjoy life. With this virtue, Franklin is saying that you should be making the most of your time and always do something productive. With wilderness as a state of mind, I take it as allowing yourself time to step back and enjoy the simple things in life. Franklin is completely going against that idea.

There are a few virtues that go along with our definition of wilderness. The ones that go against it though are too big to overlook. I think the biggest problem with Franklin’s ideas in regards to wilderness is he wants to make something perfect. You should never strive for perfection because it doesn’t exist. Wilderness is a prime example of that. Wilderness is in no way perfect, but it is beautiful and amazing the way it is.

Anne Bradstreet and Wilderness

I didn't notice a lot of wilderness is Anne Bradstreet's poems. Most of her poetry has to do with her relationship with God and the important people in her life. There was only one poem that I noticed wilderness being mentioned. That poem is "Contemplations." She uses wilderness to relate back to God. She’s amazed at the entire wilderness she sees in her life because it is all God’s work. Take the oak tree she sees for example. “Then on a stately oak I cast mine eye, / Whose ruffling top the clouds seemed to aspire; / How long since thou wast in thine infancy? / Thy strength, and stature, more thy years admire, / Hath hundred winters past since thou wast born?” (lines 15-19).

This is different than how the other writers we have read looked at wilderness. With  Cabeza de Vaca, Rowlandson, and Jewett wilderness shaped their view. Bradstreet uses wilderness to reinforce her beliefs though. God created all these wonderful things that Bradstreet sees like “ [the] leaves and fruits seemed painted, but was true, / Of green, of red, of yellow, mixed hue” (lines 5-6). Everything around her is so beautiful. She even talks about how amazing that wilderness goes on living and growing even when humans are dying. A year for humans is basically just a couple of days for wilderness. She thinks that’s amazing. “Shall I then praise the heavens, the trees, the earth / Because their beauty and their strength last longer?” (lines 134-135). While some people would be bitter because wilderness gets a so much longer life, Bradstreet is amazed. All of the things around her Is God’s work and it’s all truly amazing and beautiful how it all lives in different ways.

Differences with stories and wilderness

                I think there is a drastic difference in the way wilderness is portrayed in the captivity tales and “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.” In one of them wilderness is holding the people in a prison and will be the ultimate cause of their destruction. On the other hand, wilderness is the freedom that will lead one man to everything he loves.

                In the captivity narratives, wilderness is holding Rowlandson and Cabeza de Vaca back, especially in Cabeza’s case. In Rowlandson’s case, she is more focused about the acts of injustice that the Indians are committing to her than the harm the wilderness is doing. In both captivity narratives, the people have to fight to find food. When they do find food, it is often times things that today we would never in a million years imagine eating, like raw meat. These people are fighting with the land in order to just survive. After Cabeza de Vaca was released from his captivity, he says “The joy we felt can only be conjectured in terms of time, the suffering, and the peril we had endured in the land” (34). It wasn’t that he was glad to be away from the Indians, he was glad to be away from the land. Of course, Rowlandson would probably say differently, but the land was just as much her enemy as the Indians were.

                If you look at “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”, wilderness is completely different. The wilderness is actually Farquhar’s freedom. The people are the ones that are imprisoning him while if he just makes it to the land then he will be free. “…the railroad ran straight away into a forest for a hundred yards, then, curving, was lost to view” (Bierce 1). He knows that if he can just make it into the forest, he will free and can find his family. Eventually he does make it into the water and to the forest. He travels all the way towards the forest where he finally reaches his house where his wife is. “He stands at the gate of his own home. All is as he left it, and all bright and beautiful in the morning sunshine” (Bierce 6). The wilderness is so beautiful because he is finally home. The wilderness was his gateway to freedom.

                In one case the wilderness  is a danger for its inhabitants while on another man’s case it’s his only hope for freedom.

Wilderness for the indigenous Americans

The indigenous people from the Americans use wilderness in their tales as a form of inspiration. They connect wilderness to their heritage. It helps to remind them of who they are and where they came from. When the white people starting making advances towards them, the Indians used this stories containing wilderness in order to remind the people of what is really important. They also consider wilderness as a gift. Just look at the creation tales for example. In the Pima's story, the creator was a great man who gave them all of wilderness. He gave them water, light, and everything that need to survive. To these people, wilderness is life. That's something we take for granted nowadays. We consider life to be our technology and cars and jobs. We don't consider the water we need or the land we rely on. That was the Indians' everything and they knew that. To the Indians, wilderness was everything good and pure in the world. That's still how I look at wilderness. In modern day, wilderness doesn't seem to have that beautiful appeal anymore.

Wilderness within religious text

I'll have to admit, that I am not a religious person in any way. I didn't grow up surrounded by religion so I'm not as familiar with it as some people may be. I've never read the Bible and I only really know what I learn in school. With that in mind, I struggle with religious text and have a time with prompts like these. I do have to say, from what I do know and have so far read, it seems like wilderness is almost a negative. One story that comes to find is Adam and Eve. I only know the basic story line and I may be missing something, but Eve was punished for reaching out for the apple. I know that she wasn't supposed to touch it though. Also in Rowlandson's captivity story, she seems to give wilderness a negative view too. She associates Indians with the term heathens. She thinks the way they like is absolutely barbaric. It's understandable with the way she was treated, but that seems to be a common theme among Rowlandson's people. They don't respect the Indians or anything they do. They prefer the structure of their towns and laws. They fear the unknown, which is the wilderness. That's completely different than how I view wilderness. It's the opposite from the freedom and peace that I associate with wilderness.

Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge

In the story of "The Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge", you see aspects of wilderness as Peyton Farquhar attempts to escape. We find out he's not really attempting to escape because it's really just a daydream all along though. During the daydream though, you see the water that he falls into to escape. He falls into the water and everything is dark.Then he sees a light. "He opened his eyes in the darkness and saw above him a gleam of light but how distant, how inaccessible"(3). While everything else is dark and gloomy, the wilderness is light and holds hope for him. After he manages to escape the water, he goes into the forest. Once he gets through the forest, he gets to his ultimate goal. The forest leads him to his family, which was the only thing he wanted. "All is as he left it, and all bright and beautiful in the morning sunshine. He must have traveled the entire night. As he pushes open the gate and passes up the wide white walk, he sees flutter of female garments; his wife, looking fresh and cool and sweet, steps down from the veranda to meet him"(6). Again is that light from the wilderness. The wilderness for him holds freedom. It matches up perfectly with my definition. The wilderness doesn't hold him back. It's when he is surrounded by man made objects that he is held back.

Wilderness

To me, wilderness is not only a place but a state of mind. As a place, it's somewhere where everything is pure and away from all the bad things that go on in the world. In the wilderness, there is no unneeded murder, there is no war, there is no corrupt politics. Everything just flows smoothly together as it should. That physical place inspires a state of mind. It's a sense of freedom. It's become deattached from the world in a postive way. There are no rules or regulations, everything is free to just be as it simply is. Wilderness is something you can't control.

Hi, everyone.