Final Paper: Text Analysis
Upon
reading Wendell Berry’s “An Entrance to the Woods”, the reader can easily
succumb to the vastness of the natural world, as the title might suggest. More
striking about this piece is the pensive state in which the author find
himself, alone and contemplating his somewhat insignificant role in the
wilderness along the Red River Gorge in Kentucky, and furthermore, in the
universe. As he treks though the this unfamiliar landscape, the underlying
sentiments he expresses throughout the experience range from pleasant
excitement, to resentments towards the technological and/or synthetic world,
and back to a peaceful state of enjoyment. It is in that second phase of his
sentimental journey, the resentment, where we see his trepidation with his own
insignificance in the universe, and for that matter, that of all human beings
on Earth. Here we get a sense of deep ecology, one of the themes previously
discussed earlier in the semester. While avoiding any notions of radical change
to our anthropocentric views and lifestyles- seeing as he does drive back home
to his synthetic and material life- what Berry expresses explicitly is the
preference of a more simplistic life among nature in all its glory, history,
and albeit sometimes loneliness.
Wendell
Berry’s preference to a less materialistic kind of life is not uncommon and the
idea certainly does have merit. According to Berry, it would appear that our
role as capitalist consumers has allowed us ourselves to be consumed in that
very realm. He explains once he is settled in his campsite that at first he
finds it difficult to connect with this new space, not simply because it is
unfamiliar territory, but because his own sense of self is still consumed or being
held captive in the world from which he escaped. He writes, “though I am here
in body, my mind and my nerves too are not yet altogether here. We seem to
grant to our high-speed roads and our airlines the rather thoughtless
assumption that people can change places as rapidly as their bodies can be
transported,” (766). He feels that while he physically inhabits the space, his
mindset has yet to catch up with his body- his consumerist mindset is holding
him back, or at least delaying him from feeling truly present in that moment,
in that space.
He
further expands on this sensation of hesitation to connect in regards to the
senses. Modernization and technological advancements, while having simplified
many aspects of life in terms of labor and efficiency, have left us passing
through life in a furious rush- the consequence of which, aside from shortening
to travel time from point A to point B, has muffled our senses and left us in a
blur. “Our senses, after all, were developed to function at foot seeds; and the
transition from foot travel to motor travel, in terms of evolutionary time, has
been abrupt. The faster one goes, the more strain there is on the senses, the
more they fail to take in, the more confusion they must tolerate or gloss over-
and the longer it takes to bring the mind to a stop in the presence of anything,”
(766-767). In a manner of speaking, our senses have somewhat lost their
evolutionary keenness - Berry might say, especially referring to those of us
city dwellers- from our own personal consumption into the material and modern
world.
Later,
as his senses begin to catch up to his body’s physical presence, Berry begins
his process of complete emersion into this new and unfamiliar territory where
it is not the melancholy loneliness that troubles him, but rather the notion of
his insignificance in the space and the idea of that insignificance expanding
to all corners of the earth:
“Everything looks as it did before I came, as
it will when I am gone. When I look over
my little camp I see how tentative and insignificant it is. Lying there in my bed in the dark tonight, I will be
absorbed in the being of this place… Perhaps
the most difficult labor for my species is to accept its limits, its weakness and ignorance. But here I am.
This wild place where I have camped lies
within an enormous cone widening from the center of the earth out across the universe, nearly all of it
a mysterious wilderness in which the power
and the knowledge of men count for nothing,” (767).
While he may leave a footprint or
even some small token of remembrance behind, the winds of time and the ways of
the wilderness will make it seem as if he were never there at all as they
always have and always will (if we capitalist consumers would allow such a
natural phenomena to continue). This is where the idea of deep ecology comes into
play, that nature’s processes and phenomena will play out with all autonomy and
sovereign force where nothing is foreseeable or can be controlled by the hands
or desires of man.
And on that note, he comes to terms and
accepts his minute role in the world, in the sphere of all beings;
“And so,
coming here, what I have done is strip away the human façade that usually stands between me and
universe, and I see more clearly where I am. What
I am able to ignore most of the time, but find undeniable here, is that all wildernesses are one… Alone here, among
the rocks and trees, I see that I am alone
also among the stars. A stranger here, unfamiliar with my surroundings, I am aware also that I
know only in the most relative terms my whereabouts
within the black reaches of the universe. And because the natural processes are here so little qualified
by anything human, this fragment of the
wilderness is also joined to other times,” (768).
At
this point in his journey, Berry considers the immense differences between life
in world he knows and in which he lives and life in this world. He explores the
notion that through technological advancements, human beings have almost given
up all autonomy in their own means of survival. Unlike the man of the
wilderness, the modern man is completely dependent on all modernizations just
to make it through the day- cars, highways, cell phones and more consumerist
necessities- let alone go though life as a whole. “In comparison to the usual
traveler with his dependence on machines and highways and restaurants and
motels- on the economy and the government, in short- the man who walks into the
wilderness is naked indeed. He leaves behind his work, his household, his
duties, his comforts- even, if he comes alone, his words. He immerses himself
in what he is not.” (769).
And so a transformation must occur-
the modern city man cannot belong in the wild or the wilderness without leaving
behind or removing his former self from the space. He must be completely
stripped of all dependencies and burdens.
What
is interesting about this is the highway. The manmade highway acts as both an
escape and a trail to and from both worlds, the synthetic and natural. Berry
remarks on the importance of stripping one’s self of all conceptions of the
modern world, and yet the “roar” of the highway is a constant presence in his
experience. Herein lies the question of whether or not the two worlds are
completely separate if the (manmade) link between them is always present and
the “naked” man of the wilderness arrives with his camping equipment which is,
no doubt, from a capitalist business owner who is just dependent on the economy
as the men who designed and built those very cars and highways. Are the two
spheres so separate when one impedes and interferes with the processes of the
other? “The roar of the highway is the voice of the American economy; it is
sounding also wherever strip mines are being cut in the steep slopes of
Appalachia, and wherever cropland is being destroyed to make roads and suburbs,
and wherever rivers and marshes and bays are forests are being destroyed for
the sake of industry and commerce,” (770).
As
the journey makes it way to an end, Berry’s sentiments change almost
completely. Rather than the anxiety of the interfering synthetic realm and his
relative insignificance in the universe, he feels a sort of peace and even
relief with his presence in the wild. “Today, as always when I am afoot in the
woods, I feel the possibility of the reasonableness, the practicability of
living the world in a way that would enlarge rather than diminish the hope of
life... I am alive in the world, this moment, without the help of any machine…
I feel the lightness of body that a man must feel who has just lost fifty
pounds of fat,” (771). And so we can see that while he doesn’t necessarily call
for a complete reversal back to primitive life of the naked man in the wild,
Berry is very gracious of the wild and its power over him as his awareness of
all of his surroundings - his place in the wild, in the tech-savvy world, in
the universe, in life itself- continues to expand.
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