...example in Annie Dillard’s “Living Like Weasels”, it seems my perception of what she was focused on was not the same as what the instructor was trying to get me to see. These readings are not black and white so you have to use some creative thinking to understand them and it is apparent my creative thinking is out in left field. This has shown me that I really need to work on this area, I can write all I want but if I can’t understand what someone else has wrote that is going to hinder me not only in this class but future classes and outside of school. Development plays into the above, for example; as the writer changes from describing a weasel to using the weasel as an object to try and get an underlying message across the reader has to be able to analyze this in order to develop their own opinion of what the writer is trying to convey. It is the writer’s ability to persuade the reader to believe in their thesis....
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...overwhelming point in our lives and thought to ourselves, “I wish I could live a life with no regrets or decisions to be made?” Annie Dillard wrote about just that idea in her essay “Living Like Weasels.” Annie Dillard is an American author from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania who is known to write about nature in an attitude similar to Naturalists of the 1880s to 1930s literary era; she is also compared to several Modernist writers such as Emily Dickinson and Ernest Hemingway. Dillard published an essay called “Living Like Weasels” in 1982 in which she contemplated the idea of humans living instinctively as animals do, as a result of an accidental run in with a wild weasel. This essay contains several...
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...Living Without Worry and Fear Freedom is defined as a state in which somebody is able to act and live as he or she chooses, without being subject to any undue restrictions. Jeffrey Borenstein has said, “Freedom is that instant between when someone tells you to do something and when you decide how to respond.” However, Anne Dillard suggests a simple and unsophisticated way of life and uses the world of the weasel for motivation to convey this message. Since our ability to think and reason makes us who we are as individuals, it is odd that Dillard marvels at the value of “mindlessness.” Yet, in Anne Dillard’s essay, “Living like Weasels” she uses her encounter with a weasel to demonstrate how we would obtain more out of life through living carefree and without a worry. This freedom translates to a beauty hard for many to see and we should remain grateful for our conscious ability and the fact that our presence provides this beauty to the world. Dillard evaluates the rodent’s way of life, which in reality is pure freedom. This weasel is free to do as it pleases and is not involved in taking on mental activity. Further, the weasel has no human responsibilities and approaches life with no thoughts other than survival. If we approached each day without being mindful, our actions would not be distorted by our biases or motives. Dillard observes, “I might learn something of mindlessness, something of the purity of living in the physical senses and the dignity of living without bias...
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...“Living like Weasel” is a narrative essay written by Annie Dillar in which she tells the readers about her first encounter with a weasel in a forest. When Dillar first looks at the weasel, she freezes and gives us an insight of her racing mind. First of all, Annie makes practical and effective use of the structure to illustrate the positivity of her arguments. She begins her essay by clearly stating what a weasel is, how his nature is like and where he lives. In the first paragraph she states “He sleeps in his underground den, his tail draped over his nose. Sometimes he lives in his den for two days without leaving.” After Dillar tells the readers about the weasel she begins describing the nature around her. Her detailed and clear descriptions...
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...Living Life by Your Own Moral Compass Annie Dillard's essay entitled "Living Like Weasels" is a journey into the way human beings might live contrasted with the thoughts of how weasels live. In this beautifully written essay, Dillard describes her chance encounter with an ordinary weasel and how it helped her receive understanding into the difference between the way human beings live their lives and the way wild animals go about theirs. She does this by offering up vivid descriptions and images concerning her quick, but thought provoking run in with the reclusive weasel. Dillard is attempting to show us that we can discover a lot about the true way to live by observing nature's other creations. Yet, at the same time telling us that the way we live is totally up to us, which leads me to my personal interpretation. One could argue humans that lived during the Neanderthal period were similar to that of a weasel. Throughout time the mental capacity of the human has grown to be far more complex and sophisticated than earlier times. With that being said the weasel as we know acts off of pure instinct, whereas the human mind needs to process and articulate each move we make. People often search a definite answer on how to live their lives, as if there is a road map or instructions that will lead you to resolution. Actually, the truth is we, humans, are blessed with an ability that separates us from any other creature; the capacity to intelligently choose to live as we please...
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...fear, of such a simple yet powerful aspect of our natural lives, people try to fend it off, not even seeing that it is an inevitable act. They try to believe that there is a way to fend off the ‘enemy’ and go against the tide of nature. However ever in the middle of death there is true beauty even in the unlikely of creatures. In two essays the most unsuspecting characters take on death in a different perspective from the way we as group sees it. In the story "The Death of the Moth" by Virginia Woolf and Annie Dillard’s essay, “Living Like Weasels” both touch on such insignificant creatures and the dynamic between life and death. While we cower at the face of death the moth and the weasel face death in a more valiant way. Both of these creatures that we do not even give a second thought in our day to day lives, live and die with more appreciation, and it is admirable. In “The Death of the Moth” and “Living Like Weasels” the speakers show the smallest of creatures living with strength even as they face death and how they reflect life in their small presence. It is comparable that we as a group lives with the same vigor as the moth, but once being on the brink of death is thrown into the mix we pale in comparison. Despite the moth’s insignificance to the day to day life, Woolf describes his energetic zeal and he zips around the small space with fascination “one could not help watching him.” Although Woolf watches with fascination in this little creature, she also sees his...
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...Not A Weasel Decision Stop. Pause. Breathe. We begin to evaluate our surroundings. Have you ever thought of doing something out of the ordinary to feel that adrenalin rush. You feel that fast flow of your blood passing through your veins. Your heart is beating three times the ordinary. Your thoughts go empty and a decision has to be made. Not thinking anything else but just left with a thought of what needs to be done. Instinct pursues you and you do it. Thrilling isn’t it? A taste of the wild creature’s freedom - a weasel’s perhaps. We are all creatures with the desire to move hastily using our first instinct. What makes human superior above all creatures is our ability to elect on conscientious decisions that is, human instinct. Annie Dillard’s “Living Like Weasels’s” does not perceive it that way. Dillard’s essay is an exploration of how to live life. She suggests living life in simplicity without any complications or restrictions. She also stated that we can do whatever we want. “We can live any way we want.” (Dillard 101) She is a writer of nature and looks at it for inspiration. She introduced the scenery by the Hollins pond also called Murray’s Pond, as calm and inhibits a portrayal of open mind allowing deep observation and connection to nature. She comes across a weasel with analysis of its characteristics and behavior, she thought of evaluating her own life. “I would like to learn, or remember, how to live.” (Dillard 100) She then suggests what we can learn from...
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...WRTG 2010 Essay One Textual Interpretation / Close Reading Although we are all familiar with the essay form, we may not be comfortable analyzing essays as arguments. However, essays, like all forms of writing, implicitly or explicitly take a stand, make an argument. To grow as critical readers – and thinkers – we must be able to analyze and make our own interpretations of what a given piece of writing is trying to teach us, to persuade us. For this reason, your first essay in WRTG 2010 asks you to develop an interpretation of one of the following essays: * Benjamin Franklin’s “Arriving at Perfection” * Annie Dillard’s “Living Like Weasels” - Zora Neale Hurston’s “Colored Like Me” As DiYanni explains in the Introduction to 50 Great Essays, an interpretation is not a summary; in fact, interpreting what an essay means can only happen once the reader has not only an accurate grasp of the content but has also gone further to observe details, connect those details, and make inferences about the author’s argument based on those details. Your interpretation, then, will not be a summary of your selected essay; instead, it will be your argument as to a primary meaning and persuasive purpose of the essay. As with any piece of writing, an essay can have multiple interpretations; thus, your interpretation should be arguable, debatable, forcing you to support...
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