Eiseley
In "The Brown Wasps," Loren Eiseley discusses, rather beautifully, the attachment of animals and humans to things that they know and love. Even though these things may not be there any more, in the mind they are always there to comfort.
There is a lot of beautiful symbolism and comparison in this essay. The author compares the nature of humans and animals alike, showing how they are the exact same when it comes to holding on to memories and past places. The pigeons, like the old blind beggar, will always be at home in the subway no matter whether it stands or not. In their minds it is the only home they know. Eiseley's tree will always stand, and he will always be in it's cool shade, even though he saw with his own two eyes that it had not lasted as long as his father promised it would. This tree is bound to him in his memories. It has meaning to him. He uses the brown wasps as an extended metaphor to show that animals and people will always return to the things that they hold dear to, like the wasps to the memory of a buzzing nest, or the old men to the "comfort" of a hard subway bench. To die in this place is to die comforted, knowing that you were with something important to you when you left the world.
The "black hole" in this essay, the part that makes the essay as powerful as it is, is where Eiseley talks about how this thing, these memories, are a part of life and how every living feeling thing is connected to some memory or place. He says, "This feeling runs deep in life; it brings stray cats running over endless miles, and birds homing from the ends of the earth. It is as though all living creatures, and particularly the more intelligent, can survive only by fixing or transforming a bit of time into space or by securing a bit of space with its objects immortalized and made permanent in time (Eiseley 240)." Such a powerful statement about the nature of living things. We must secure a piece of something and immortalize it to go about existing. We must have this comforting idea or feeling in our minds to survive. While I am not sure I agree with this, it is an absolutely amazing idea beautifully portrayed by the author.
Question: If you were lost and alone, what thought or place would comfort you?
There is a lot of beautiful symbolism and comparison in this essay. The author compares the nature of humans and animals alike, showing how they are the exact same when it comes to holding on to memories and past places. The pigeons, like the old blind beggar, will always be at home in the subway no matter whether it stands or not. In their minds it is the only home they know. Eiseley's tree will always stand, and he will always be in it's cool shade, even though he saw with his own two eyes that it had not lasted as long as his father promised it would. This tree is bound to him in his memories. It has meaning to him. He uses the brown wasps as an extended metaphor to show that animals and people will always return to the things that they hold dear to, like the wasps to the memory of a buzzing nest, or the old men to the "comfort" of a hard subway bench. To die in this place is to die comforted, knowing that you were with something important to you when you left the world.
The "black hole" in this essay, the part that makes the essay as powerful as it is, is where Eiseley talks about how this thing, these memories, are a part of life and how every living feeling thing is connected to some memory or place. He says, "This feeling runs deep in life; it brings stray cats running over endless miles, and birds homing from the ends of the earth. It is as though all living creatures, and particularly the more intelligent, can survive only by fixing or transforming a bit of time into space or by securing a bit of space with its objects immortalized and made permanent in time (Eiseley 240)." Such a powerful statement about the nature of living things. We must secure a piece of something and immortalize it to go about existing. We must have this comforting idea or feeling in our minds to survive. While I am not sure I agree with this, it is an absolutely amazing idea beautifully portrayed by the author.
Question: If you were lost and alone, what thought or place would comfort you?
posted by Lesley at 3:33 PM
1 Comments:
Thinking of my mother would definitely comfort me if I were lost and alone. Actually, being a freshman here at UTA, I've felt alone and thought about my family. It really gave me a warm, fuzzy feeling inside.
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