Annie Dillard's Living Like A Weasel

Although Leopold’s love of great expanses of wilderness is readily apparent, his book does not cry out in defense of particular tracts of land about to go under the axe or plow, but rather deals with the minutiae, the details, of often unnoticed plants and animals, all the little things that, in our ignorance, we have left out of our managed acreages but which must be present to add up to balanced ecosystems and a sense of quality and wholeness in the landscape.

As time passed in the tundra of Churchill, Mowat is then experience with new adventures about learning more and more about the “killer” animals. After unloading into the cabin and viewing the wolves from afar. He begins to think with a new aspect about the wolves. “I has made my decision that, from this hour onward, I would go open-minded into the lupine world and learn to see and know the wolves, not for what they were supposed to be, but for what they actually were” (Mowat 77). Mowat is recognizing the stereotype and wants to disregard all the beliefs. He wants to view the wolves with an

Aldo Leopold is another American environmentalist who was dominant in the development of modern environmental ethics. Aldo was more for holistic ethics regarding land. According to him, “An ethic, ecologically, is a limitation on freedom action in the struggle for existence. An ethic, philosophically, is a differentiation of social from anti-social conduct.” He describes in his article that politics and economics are advanced symbioses in which free-for-all competition has been replaced by co-operative mechanism with an ethical content.” He thought that ethics direct individuals to cooperate with each other for the mutual benefit of all. Also he believes that community should be

Annie Dillard’s “This is the Life”, an addition to the publication of “A Journal of Art and Religion”, Dillard persuades the readers to ponder the purpose of their lives. Dillard provokes self-contemplation through asking and repeating rhetorical questions and phrases, illusions that support her point, and an inspirational didactic tone.

After the wolf leaves his home, the narrator calls his mother and tells her that a wolf just came to see him, and she tells him that “‘there’s one at mine too. I’m just now looking at him’” (Poissant 3). With this moment we realize that the lack of appreciation for the world around us is not just an individual issue, but a collective issue with the society we live in. The narrator wasn’t the first person to take a moment for granted, and will not be the last, as we as a privileged species do not recognize that we are fortunate to have things as simple as food on our tables and clothes on our bodies. The wolf in this story is acting as the world telling us that we cannot take anything for granted, or else it will be gone before we know it. This mindset will arguably be the demise of our species, as soon enough we will all be seeing wolves that will be take away our belongings. Only then will we come to appreciate everything we have in our lives.

I would like to live in a civilization where the human’s only option is to reach beyond what is to be expected, living a life that is easiest for them. If we were all to live like the weasel does, where their mind set is to be wild it will benefit us in the long run. In “Living Like Weasels,” Annie Dillard interprets that being wild is to be free: to go after your calling, focused on the need to succeed. She also suggests that mindlessness, is not allowing anything to get in the way of your one true goal, where chasing after your dream is your only option, the only means to your own

If everyone thought this way our wildlife, animals, nature, and environment would be in better the way you would want them to be treated. This saying is simply stating to people love to have nice things and when we get them we like to keep it that way. So in relation to Leopold we have a nice beautiful environment in which we should keep it that way. Think of our environment as a condition than what it is now. Aldo Leopold was right when he said “A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and the beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.”(Sand CountyAlmanac, pg. 224-225). It is important for people to reach and follow the values of Leopold explaining that beauty is not just scenery, stability does not mean unchanging for change is essential to nature and the natural world and integrity is wholeness, having all the parts. These three simple values will change our perspective of the

The concept of free will is essential in topics related to choice. The way people live their lives is constructed by decisions they make on a daily basis, such as whether or not to attend a college classes or what job to choose in the future. But in “Living Like Weasels”, Annie Dillard realizes that the concept of free will is not pure. Society has a tendency to drive an individual’s choice based on what is the norm. Through her observations of a weasel, Dillard makes a commentary on the relationship between people and free will. In “Living Like Weasels”, Annie Dillard uses the analysis of a weasel to remind society about the often overlooked power of free will embedded in human nature.

In "Living like Weasels", author Annie Dillard uses rhetorical devices to convey that life would be better lived solely in a physical capacity, governed by "necessity", executed by instinct. Through Dillard's use of descriptive imagery, indulging her audience, radical comparisons of nature and civilization and anecdotal evidence, this concept is ultimately conveyed.

The thesis of this article is that wolves, once endangered, have come back and started to flourish causing mixed feelings for locals and biologists. Wolves were once hunted because one, to protect livestock, and two, they were seen as pests and/or vermin. The government then put wolves under the endangered list to try to save them. Since then, wolf populations have multiplied.

Secondly, Dillard believes also that the lifestyle of a weasel, if lived and followed by a human, will deliver this person to a successful life. As Dillard references in the story, and also in the introductory paragraph, Weasels live on necessity while people are living on choice. By this, she is implying that weasels live their everyday lives day by day, they do not stress about what is to come next, the focus on what they need to get done at that moment, not what is down the road. Weasels intellectual ability allows them to base their actions off of instinct, rather than off of research, predictions and estimations. Weasels are able to figure out what the best option is for them at any given moment, they do not over-analyze what may be coming their way; weasels just live their lives the way they should believe: carefree. When Dillard describes humans as thriving off of choice, this really begins to make readers think that what she is saying is true. Everyday that a person wakes up, he/she is immediately bombarded with possibility and question. Should I make my bed? Which bottle of shampoo should I use? What shirt should I wear to day? Are some of the question people may ask themselves as they wake up and prepare for the day. We are able to make decision at every point in are life, and some decisions can make or break your career; one bad decision could even take away your family, house

This so-called balanced view was presented in a program in which the “most misrepresented issues concerned the economic impact of wolves. Ranchers were allowed to claim unsubstantiated losses, with no attempt to validate the accuracy of these claims” (Laverty, par. 2). In granting the balanced view sought by the legislature, the “program portrayed the salt of the earth rancher as a poor victim of the federal government’s whim to restore the ‘killers’” (Laverty, par. 2).

Without the proper knowledge needed to understand how the wolf works, the creature is inaccurately shown as a wild, vicious killer. As Mowat progresses through his research he learns about the wolves hunting abilities and begins to acquire new information and states,” I could hardly believe that the all-powerful and intelligent wolf would limit his predation on the caribou herds to culling the sick and infirm when he could presumably, take his choice of the fattest and most succulent individuals” (Mowat 126). The way the government and people portray wolves as mindless killers is not only false, but it is far from the truth. Wolves are instead intelligent creatures that have the ability to choose and pick the right kill. Also, as Mowat researches their eating habits he finds that “the wolves of Wolf House Bay, and, by inference at least, all the Barren Land wolves who were raising families outside the summer caribou range, were living largely, on mice” (Mowat 107). During the summer the wolves weren’t even that cause of the deaths of caribou. Instead they found new resources to live off of when the caribou leave so they can continue to survive. This information is an exact contrast to the

Annie Dillard’s essay “Living Like Weasels” exhibits the mindless, unbiased, and instinctive ways she proposes humans should live by observing a weasel at a nearby pond close to her home. Dillard encounters about a sixty second gaze with a weasel she seems to entirely connect with. In turn, this preludes a rapid sequence of questions and propositions about “living as we should”. Unfortunately, we tend to consume our self with our surroundings and distractions in life, which is not a problem until we are blatantly told. How have we strayed so far from our once instinctive lifestyle?

“The Land Ethic” written by Aldo Leopold was critiqued by J. Baird Callicott. “The Land Ethic” in short explained the idea that humans are not superior to animals or species on earth, but humans should live on earth as simple members. (Leopold, 2013) Callicott found three things that lead to the confusion, contempt, and contempt of Leopold’s writings.