Term Paper on "Literary Analysis on Annie Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek"

Term Paper 4 pages (1445 words) Sources: 0

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Annie Dillard

Metaphors of "Winter" from a Pilgrim at Tinker Creek -- the Author and her World at Rest, both in harmony with and against the natural world

Annie Dillard's Pulitzer Prize-winning book, A Pilgrim at Tinker's Creek, is set in Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains. The story is a kind of modern, female version of Thoreau's Walden. Dillard strives to live in the woods, alone, and reflects upon the changing natural world she spies from her relatively static vantage point in nature. Chapter 3 is entitled "Winter." Despite the chilling cold Annie Dillard must face in the mountains (although Dillard occasionally reassures the reader that the South, despite the frequent fierce mountain winds, is not so very cold in absolute terms) the chapter not only focuses on Dillard's struggle to survive the elements and the wilderness with few resources. Chapter 3 also includes the author's perceptions of the local animal populations struggle to cope without the help of civilization's comforts. She uses both literary metaphors and also facts about the animal world, gleaned from scientific as well as literary study.

Dillard notes that her attempts to survive alone, indoors, means she must "bloom" like a "forced forsythia," or like a delicate, fragrant, and hot house grown flower in all of its glory. Because she is exposed to warmth and sun artificially, against the nature of the climate, she is full of energy indoors, yet the outdoors strikes her carefully tended constitution as unduly harsh. This metaphor suggests that the winter is not keeping with the author's natural inkling for outdoors and warmth. (40) But still Dillard bears up. Thus, Dillard, by this metaphor, suggests she is a summer or spring person by nature who prefers to be free and unencumbered, but there is an incongruity between her inner nature, and the outer, winter nature of the harsh mountains. Still, despite her discomfort, Dillard refuses to 'tinker' with nature unlike some humans -- no pun intended upon the title of the book!

Even if she could, she suggests that this is dangerous The chapter begins with a tale of how the starlings came to America, an act of humanity interfering with the natural balance even more noxious than the use of chemical pesticides that Dillard eventually eschews to kill insects.

The need to bear whatever nature gives to one is underlined by the cautionary fable of a "wealthy New York drug manufacturer" and Shakespeare fan that decided to bring British starlings to America. The manufacturer was charmed by the Bard's reference to the starling in one of the plays. However, because the starlings lacked natural predators in North America, starlings now "compete with native birds for food and resting sites," and almost always win over the native birds because starlings have few natural enemies -- other than angry farmers armed with rifles! (38-39) What was a beautiful and beloved bird, properly controlled in its native England, became a pest and a nuisance to human beings and to native birds in America. Even their droppings become noxious waste, as the birds tend to move in large packs or hordes. (37-38) Being 'out of' one's natural environment, as Dillard is, can be dangerous -- but so can tinkering with that environment to make it more amenable to one's own status as a stranger.

Thus, when Dillard stresses that she still has some of civilization's aids to help her survive and admits she used to use carbon tetrachloride to kill insects and spiders and to protect her from their invasions, even in her rustic surroundings, she begins to realize her mistake, to tamper with nature. In her home, housebound and hiding from wind and snow, she sees herself as part of the animal world. She even finds compassion in her heart for the tiny spiders, and cannot kill them with her ready chemicals as she could before: "Even the spiders are restless under this wind, roving about alert-eyed over their fluff in every corner." Restless herself, she allows the spiders the run of the house so that they might kill the more noxious, smaller insects that bother her in the bathroom. (52) Thus, she finds some balance with her uninvited eight-legged 'companions' indoors.

The dependency of Dillard upon even the small spiders underlines the author's practical compassion and lessons learned about living with, rather than against… READ MORE

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