...The tone in “Living Like Weasels” is contemplative, because she goes in deep thought and reflects on how her and the weasel live their lives differently. Dillard claims that weasels live by mindless necessity without being bias. While people live by choices and hating essentiality. In the first paragraph, Dillard says “ I would like to learn, or remember, how to live. I come to hollins pond not so much to learn how to live as, frankly, to forget about.”Both of these quotes shows how even she is still pondering on how to live her life. She explains how sometimes it's not about learning how to live it's about forgetting how to live in general so we can learn from our instinct and create the purest form of living. This quote proves the tone because...
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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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...“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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...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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...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 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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...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 persistence...
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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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...Table of contents: -Introduction -Climate of the biome -Location of the biome -Adaption of living things in the biome -Food web/food chain in the biome -How do people affect the biome? How can people help the biome? -What biotic and abiotic factors help/harm the biome? -Conclusion -Glossary -Citations Introduction Have you ever seen a forest that rains a lot but it's not a rainforest? It is called the temperate deciduous forest. The meaning of deciduous in the temperate deciduous forest is falling leaves. I think it has that meaning because this forest has all four seasons,and the leaves fall and off every time of the year! My first body paragraph will be about the climate of the biome and the adaption of living things in the biome and my second paragraph will be about adaption of living things in the biome and the food web/food chain in the biome,and my last paragraph will be about...
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...Whether or not it is necessary or just for show or wants, it's going to happen regardless. In Dillard’s essay: “The weasel lives in necessity and we live in choice, hating necessity and dying at the last ignobly in its talons” (479). What is meant is that the weasel represents the other countries while in this quote Dillard stands for what Americans deep down believe in. Thus, truth being told Americans live their lives in ways that necessities aren't always put first or even prioritized at all. Dillard also states that: “We can live any way we want. People take vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience - even of silence - of choice. The thing is to stalk your calling in a certain skilled and supple way, to locate the most tender and live spot and plug into that pulse” (480). What the author mean with this is that it come show that one in America chooses their own unique way to live their life seeing as only one can choose the outcome...
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...Watchmaker Richard Dawkins attempts to use computer modeling to explain and defend various aspects of the theory of evolution by natural selection. Where Dawkins’ computer modeling comes into use in a significant way is discussed in Chapter 3 of his book titled, “Accumulating Small Change”. In it, Dawkins takes the reader through explanations of what cumulative selection is and how it builds up biological complexity in a meaningful, and relatively quick, way. He does this with computer modeling and continues on with various other examples of computer models to explain how genes work, what mutation looks like, and how it gets selected. The following is a look at how he uses computer modeling to these ends and what their limits are, essentially, what sort of questions they can answer. Dawkins begins Chapter 3 of The Blind Watchmaker by posing the question of how living things came into existence if not by chance. He explains that it was by a series of “gradual, step-by-step transformations” from entities simple enough to have come about existing by chance transitioning into entities which are incredibly complex and which could not have come to exist by chance alone (Dawkins 43). This transitional process is achieved through “nonrandom survival” and is known as cumulative selection (Dawkins 43). From here we are told about the difference between single-step selection and cumulative selection, that single step selection is a natural response to a random occurrence, which...
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...Many homes around the world have at least one cat living inside as a pet; in fact many homes have a few cats dwelling in them. People raise these animals for many reasons. Some want them for their companionship. Cats are soft, sweet, and lovable. People like playing with them when they are kittens and once they are older and calm love just snuggling with them. The reason these people keep cats is mainly for enjoyment. However, many other people keep cats to control the mouse or insect population in their house or on their farms. These cats usually do not come into much contact with their owners. Most just stay outside or in the barn where the mice are. But the question is where did cats originally come from, who first domesticated them, and who are their first ancestors? I think that all cats from the giant lions of Africa to the small house cat all came from the same ancestor. I will address and hopefully answer these questions and try to shed some light on the subject. I read many websites dealing with this issue. One was from the Feline Advisory Bureau and another was written by H. Ellen Whiteley. Both are considered experts on this subject. Ironically both art Also found in this area was another animal that many consider the species that the genus Felis descended from. This animal was called the miacis (4), a cat like meat eater whose fossils have been found in areas of North America, Europe, and Asia. These fossils were all found in the Eocene age, anywhere from the...
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...Propaganda Galore Propaganda techniques are used in many of today’s advertisements in order to persuade buyers to purchase their goods and services. Almost any commercial that you would watch today has some form propoganda buried deep behind the light humor and smiling faces. Companies like AT&T and Verizon have both released a swarm of commercials that has every type of propaganda. I have discovered two commercials for both of these companies that have great examples of how big business persuade buyers to purchase their products and services. My first commercial is by Verizon it is about how everything is not made to last and breaks very quickly and the fact that manufactures lie about the quality, functionality, or reliability of their products. The commercial starts with a random assortment of products breaking in everyday live. During this time the narrator is using negative words describing her frustration with the cheaply made things in life. After the random assortment of products break the narrator introduces Verizon as the most reliable network, thus giving the viewer a reason to switch to Verizon. One of the more evident propaganda technique used in this essay is plain folks. The producers of this...
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...the use of any of the techniques or the consequences of implementing any contained herein. "Give me five minutes to talk away my face, and I'll bed the Queen of France." ... Voltaire "I come to you with only words, Looks and money I have none, But should desire require it, My words will bear me out!" ... Speed Seducer's Creed INTRODUCTION WHY SPEED SEDUCTION? One of the toughest realities we have to face as men is, that for the most of us, getting laid is a form of gambling, and the game is strongly rigged against us. Think back to the last time you had a date. C'mon ... it wasn't that long ago, was it? Didn't you find yourself, either before or during the evening, wondering things like, "When should I make my move? Am I going to get some tonight? Will I get lucky?". And that's the bottom line...
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