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.