Stylistic nlysis on The Brown Wsps by Loren Eiseley - Essay Example

Eiseley shows how humns nd nimls try to cling or recrete n importnt or fvorite plce. "The Brown Wsps" offers prticulrly cler illustrtion of Eiseley's use of memory in his prose. It is difficult to know the genesis -- the prticulr present-dy experience -- of this essy; conceivbly, the sight of homeless people in the rilrod sttion brought into his mind their likeness to the "old brown wsps" he previously hd observed "creep[ing] slowly over n bndoned wsp nest" in midwinter. If so, memory soon gve him the nlogous imge necessry to his utobiogrphicl nrrtive-tht of cottonwood spling he trnsplnted to his yrd s child, shortly before moving from his Nebrsk home.

"I hve spent lrge portion of my life in the shde of non-existent tree," (p.4) he writes, erly in the essy; much lter, fter reflecting first upon prticulr field mouse tht cme into his prtment nd then upon the behvior of pigeons following the dismntlement of the Phildelphi El, he explins the mening of his striking prdox. For sixty yers the "tree hd tken root in his mind" s n imge of home -- even though, s he ultimtely discovers, the spling never grew into the lrge tree he hd envisioned. Wsps, field mice, pigeons, nd homeless people, like Eiseley himself, crry in their memories n ttchment to nonexistent plces.

s prt of the bstrction tht he drws from such ttchments, Eiseley seprtes himself (nd presumbly the destitute people in the trin sttion) from the other forms of conscious life: his memory of the tree "ws prt of my orienttion in the universe nd I could not survive without it. There ws more thn n niml's ttchment to plce. There ws something else, the ttchment of the spirit to grouping of events in time; it ws prt of our morlity." The essy of Loren Eiseley resembles n explosion of story/comment form, comprising not so much single nrrtive s set of frgments of nrrtives, incidents to be contemplted nd svored.

Bsing on the techniques to express the min ide of the essy through the nrrtive's voice this kind of essy my be referred to mysticl induction, or successive pproximtion. Repeting the thought to cpture n elusive ide, Eiseley ttempts to seek to define or express concept which lurks just beyond the limits of rticulte thought. The essy csts one loop fter nother to ensnre the fugitive. Ech ttempt flls short, but together they indicte directions nd qulities from which the reder comprehends the nture of the qurry.

In "The Brown Wsps," Eiseley declres tht every living creture needs sense of permnent home -- ressuring physicl locle. He evokes this sense of home with reference to derelicts who regulrly sleep in the sme unfrequented corner of rilwy sttion; pigeons hunting n out-of-service elevted trin pltform, once "food-bering river" (p. 232 ) to them; field mouse, displced by construction project, burrowing in one of Eiseley's houseplnts; himself, crrying in memory tree which he nd his fther hd plnted together.

Ech of these scenes, lovingly nd intrictely detiled, conveys n urgency to be home, to hve fmilir refuge. When t the end of the essy Eiseley impulsively returns to the site of the tree tht he nd his fther hd plnted nd finds it gone, he relizes tht his "roots," like those of the other cretures he hs described, "were ll prt of n elusive world tht existed nowhere nd yet everywhere" (p. 235 ). On behlf of himself, field mouse, severl pigeons, nd nonymous sleepers in trin