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.