The Representation of Urban Wilderness and Wildness - Essay Example

  The Representation of Urban Wilderness and Wildness The essay refers to two texts; Lorrie Moore’s, ‘Four Calling Birds, Three French Hens’, and Barry Lopez’s "The Open Lot”. In Four Calling Birds, Three French Hens is a story depiction by Lorrie Moore. The story is an epic as it works as one-act play that exposes inherent dramas and complexities in everyday human lives. On the other hand, The Open Lot, the author takes the audience through the scope of shrinking geese flocks that migrate from snow and travel to Grand Canyon together with musicians. In the presentation, the story’s thematic focus is on the relationship between nature and humanity. It critically examines the depiction of urban wildness and wilderness. This paper will critically examine the representation of urban wilderness and/or wildness as stated in the Open Lot by Barry Lopez and Four Calling Birds, Three French Hens by Lorrie Moore.  The patterns of The Open Lot from various events give a critical sense for vastness for where the author lives. She is conscious about the appearance of the streets and the tunneling carrying the tree roots and water mains. This is linked to the meandering gophers’ chambers. The author passes an awareness of the tiers of human life in urban regions coupled with anger and curiosity for ascertained creatures (Tydeman, 2013). Furthermore, the former allows Barry to describe the destructive impacts of both industry and hunting in urban regions. He classifies the human connection effect as negative on creativity landscape (Kelly, 2009). The author proceeds to explore the theme and develops the scope of how landscape shapes and defines storytelling and the narrative itself. Barry makes adverse comments on his previous encounters as he traveled into northern wilderness known as the Yukon and Alaska in North America. He uses humanity and natural concepts to define the practice and concept of developing borders. The subsequent input in The Open Lot is the portrayal of various elements of relationships across humanity and animals. He explains the exploitive relationship between rodeo animals and humanity. In another context, he defines the relationships variety through scientific, exploitive, and sympathetic means (Moore, 2012). The scientists develop with intensity and brevity while large whales are stranded on an Oregon beach. The considerations for moral value to scientific animal research continues in the company of research teams of scientists in investigating possible oil exploration effects on seals on North America. Barry adds on the historical relationship aspects between nature and urban life. In this context, he explores personal reflections on the youthful relationships with senior mentor figures that increased nature appreciation. On the other hand, another aspect explores and narrates the manner in which urban life has manipulated and destroyed into serving its solicitation for status, control, and power. According to Seaman (2002, pp 89), “Everything is held together with stories. That is all that is holding us together, stories and compassion.” That is why the final collection allows him to turn around the destructiveness as central image on grounds for commentary on the survival of nature. He also defines how it continues to survive in the wake of human destruction and encroachment. The reviews on this narration focus on the exploration and documentation of the author’s different approaches that humanity interacts with nature and urban individuals while the community seeks to survive. The author outlines the interactions regarding science, contemplation and exploration, and control and domination of urban lifestyle on nature. Occasionally, he adds on how the interactions include perspectives and conflict with each other. He writes of the interactions across the past relating to the ancestors and the present society. In this case, he found opposing information throughout history on how human beings continue behaving with regard to the determination of exploitation. According to Barry (2002, pp 67) “Conversations are efforts toward good relations. They are an elementary form of reciprocity. They are the exercise of our love for each other. They are the enemies of our loneliness, our doubt, our anxiety, our tendencies to abdicate” Across these contemplations, the central thematic contention of the author is that while urban life lives in mutual benefit and harmony with nature, there is a higher likelihood for sustainability in the end. The Open Lot is a collection of pieces and essays with consistency in the overwhelming nature of Lopez' subsequent environmental works. Other explicit journalistic elements are impressive as compared to the current works since they draw connections. According to Seaman (2002, pp 83), “The range of the human mind, the scale and depth of the metaphors the mind is capable of manufacturing as it grapples with the universe, stand in stunning contrast to the belief that there is only one reality, which is man's, or worse, that only one culture among the many on earth possesses the truth.” The author focuses on the gems that accumulate as sediment in modern thinking for the humanity place and community position in nature. The author’s viewpoint is extensively radical without allowing chance for ideological notions. It also embraces the dignity for most human life as they acknowledge the tragedy of modern industrial life. The Open Lot is a Barry Lopez composition with rich sustainability of the landscapes that he effortlessly considers as prime. The Open Lot collects environmental indicators written between the past centuries and reflects on a wide scope of publications that include wilderness and domestication of nature. According to Kelly (2009, pp 78), “Would the last animal, eating garbage and living on the last scrap of land, his mate dead, would he still forgive you.” As an eminent natural writer, Lopez takes time to travel across the west and explore the great diversity and abundance of the nation's pristine settings. Lopez has a writing trend that blends science, history, and philosophy through a first-person narrative with beautiful, inspiring and insightful perspectives. The resultant landscape and narrative has relations to the storytelling and nature intersection. The white geese reflection has reference to the numbers of migrant bird populations in northern California on Tule Lake. The Open Lot aptly exemplifies the literary proficiency by Lopez leaving the reader with a sense of respect for the nature world. The Open Lot contains thorough research on environmental interaction with urbanization, great variance, theme and subject. However, Lopez abides by humility prior to the natural world brilliance as evident throughout the text. Part of the strongest pieces in the literary piece is the depiction of whales. . According to Kelly (2009, pp 98), “Would the last animal, eating garbage and living on the last scrap of land, his mate dead, would he still forgive you?”He mentions the mass of 41 sperm whales beaching at the Oregon coast. The passing knowledge of birds recalls of the mass destruction cortés fashioned on impressive avian populations for Tenochtitlan. He also mentions the touching tribute to the mentor-like friends while in the search for ancestors where he is overwhelmed with the vanished Anasazi. According to Seaman (2002, pp 23), “No culture has yet solved the dilemma each has faced with the growth of a conscious mind: how to live a moral and compassionate existence when one is fully aware of the blood, the horror inherent in all life, when one finds darkness not only in one’s own culture but within oneself.” People’s greatest dreams involve finding a place across the extremes of civilization and nature for a possible lifestyle without having to regret. Whenever one exceeds this point, the interior landscape becomes one exterior landscape metaphorical representation where the truth continues to reveal itself through paradox and contradictions (Kelly, 2009). While the Anasazi developed complicated culture, the audience is bewildered. The measures of stone transformed into examiners of fragments through such dust. Urban lifestyle has caused more harm to the environment that it has benefited them by the acts in search of order throughout the chaos. This is a distinguishing aspect between the compelling narratives with few failures of imagination, science reductionism, politics fascism, and religion fundamentalism. The national literatures are critical as they continue sustaining humanity with illumination. They always accomplish sustainability through written aspects of both sources and readers with the understanding of reasons making human heart come together for regular development of human history. On the contrary, Moore's writing style adds to the wit through a sense of meaning of the earth interacting while modernity is subjected by urbanization (Kelly, 2009). To embrace the effect where an individual’s life was at crossroads, it had to establish a way for which there is an exploration of the truth in her environmental stories. The story leaves the deepest imprint that loops around illness. It also outlines the loss shreds of the relationships by thread, its characteristics, and how it has hollow survivors who are engulfed in sadness. Similarly, the main survivors relate to grief like baby birds that undergo desperation. According to Moore (2012, pp 27), “No culture has yet solved the dilemma each has faced with the growth of a conscious mind: how to live a moral and compassionate existence when one is fully aware of the blood, the horror inherent in all life, when one finds darkness not only in one’s own culture but within oneself.” This shows that Moore's stories are wildly smart, ambitious, and brutal. She addresses a difficult love between men, war, lost children, blindness, and the bones parade during visits to the cemetery. She personalizes the boredom and gentleness of intimacy between two individuals and the question that echoes are what is it to love and know someone? This is a response to her husband’s multiple affairs happening in the spring. She shows where rage can fold an individual’s personality like origami. The author twists fateful thinking where other characters are acting out on a similar range. According to Moore (2012, pp 67), “She made a fist but hid it. She got headaches, mostly prickly ones, but sometimes the zigzag of a migraine made its way into her skull and sat like a cheap, crazy tie in her eye.” In Four Calling Birds, Three French Hens, Lorrie Moore makes many aspects appear like folly in criticizing the rare things that did not work in the society. The characters are finely drawn. However, the plot of the story is not characterized in academic or literary fiction as she is willing to focus on the potentially saccharine or maudlin Dying Kid Territory alone. It is a place of her flourishing. The dialog is both snappy and funny as they develop the main point. This raises the question, why did it feel like it was important to read the text? This line works to the benefit of the story while it manages to characterize Aileen in a memorable way. Of course, the shoulders of Aileen do not remain around her ears (Seaman, 2002). It was certainly not due to stiff joints from alcohol consumption. Conversely, it was acceptable for Moore to toss away. Moore creates a clear establishment of control of her craft through which criticism become inevitable, as it is both niggling and small. The self-help is decent even though the birds blow the collection from the water. This shows that the author looks for accuracy in fiction but it is not compatible. According to Seaman (2002, pp 56) “No matter what terror the earth could produce - winds, seas - a person could produce the same, lived with the same, lived with all that mixed-up nature swirling inside, every bit.” There is a heart behind the fictions, but there is also a sense that Moore is in favor of her voice, her sense of humor, and her way of speaking (Kelly, 2009). According to the story, she developed fictions but had headaches when the migraine zigzag made its impact in her skull while settling as a cheap tie in her perception. She insisted on things ventured on limbs, and lived dangerously. She had carefully stepped across the levels of bereavement including anger and Haagen-Dazs but made progress. According to Kelly (2009, pp 56), “She had already – carefully, obediently – stepped through all the stages of bereavement: anger, denial, bargaining, Haagen-Dazs, rage. Anger to rage – who said she wasn’t making progress?” It is through her terms that she minimizes her experience. Aileen agrees with the therapist but restricts herself to one condition that there is a guaranteed cure by the Christmas time. Midwestern urban settings have reminiscent aspects of the zaniness an there is a sense of individuals linking and not making it (Moore, 2012). That is how the public view Lorrie Moore’s piece. In the story, the narrator states that the environmental images are nice but have no impact on the plot advancement. Moore presents the stories’ characters as a drift through the connection fringes of one another while digging their aspects back to redevelopments from loss. According to Kelly (2009, pp 47), “Every arrangement in life carried with it the sadness, the sentimental shadow, of its not being something else, but only itself.” Such situations are outlined as her writing focuses on human interaction with the environment. There is the plot in Four Calling Birds, Three French Hens that are sometimes dramatic, but usual occurrences are deceptively banal, with undercurrents of swirling aspects of confusion. All the human emotions appear among the stories. There is a sense that people have joy in times of the impossible or hard times. The stories occasionally make the audience enjoy the wilderness occurrences. Four Calling Birds, Three French Hens also illustrates Aileen mourning her cat's death named Bert with grief out of loss proportion with reference to her loving husband. The story appears among the collection's gravity in displaying Moore’s strengths and passion for the environment in dialogues, unexpected imageries, and insight depth as found in the unusual places. Aileen mourns Jack, her husband, and the cat while in real sense the cat could not mourn for her (Seaman, 2002). She embraces an ability of finding humor through tragedy in humorous situations, without lessening the intended impact of the story. It is impressive how he develops different story from all the others. It is evident that Lorrie Moore is a short story writer within environmental literature America since many audiences laugh aloud after a heart-rending scene brings tears to their eyes (Kelly, 2009). The joy of reading Lorrie Moore stories is felt on the thematic conclusions of the beautiful capture and wonderful moments of the daily lives of the American urbanization. Most of its characters deal with the level of tragedy, either big or small. According to Seaman (2002, pp 92), “‘I really don’t think that’s true,’ she said a little wildly, perhaps with too much fire and malt in her voice. She now spoke that way sometimes, insisted on things, ventured out on a limb, lived dangerously.” In conclusion, the approach in the two books attributes parts of the unfavorable temperature changes to human activities. It also triggers the use of climate models that are employed in estimating the climatic impacts of a broad range of natural and human-induced factors. This explains the recent approach of passing new measures towards enhancing the environmental protection agency's powers in ensuring environmental regulation compliance. This is evident through giving more power on levying fines to businesses for breaking such laws. Other punitive measures need a combination with other incentives like tax reforms for them to gain political viability as well as the violating regulations costs exceeding the compliance cost. The weakness of ministry and the combination of various labor constraints coupled with vague legal jurisdictions and the limited ability of punishing virtual guarantee. The two authors agree that it is the responsibility of all people to enforce air, soil, water, and other regulations on the environment through central government approval. Stronger environmental protection focus needs to be capable of enforcing the painful punitive measures on various firms conflicting with the Beijing's laws. Such efforts will enhance environmental regulation aspect.       References Kelly, A. 2009. Understanding Lorrie Moore. New York: Univ of South Carolina Press. Moore, L. 2012. Birds of America: Stories. New York: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Seaman, D. 2002. In Our Nature: Stories of Wildness. New York: University of Georgia Press. Tydeman, W. E. 2013. Conversations with Barry Lopez: Walking the Path of Imagination. New York: University of Oklahoma Press. Read More