Respond to one of the following questions:
1. As with Pollan, evolution plays a large role in the text (see Prodigal pages 219 and 277-281). As articulated in the text, are God and evolution mutually exclusive? Why is Nannie's version of things distressing to Garnett?
2. Based on what you know about Deanna's character, why is she so bothered that Jerry knows Eddie is there (page 252-6)?
3. Deanna is the self-appointed protector of coyotes and all predators. Is she disturbing nature's own ways of dealing with upsets? What about Garnett and his quest for a blight-free chestnut tree--is this "good" for nature?
Use the comment link below to respond to one of the questions. Your response is due by 5 PM on Thursday.
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2.
ReplyDeleteDenna is fiercely independent. She wants people to know that she does not need anybody’s help, especially not from men. Her philosophy lies in strength, woman or not. She reminds Eddie every chance she can that she doesn’t need him, and she denies that she loves him. She knows that she does, but she also knows that love is dangerous, and she is going to keep her distance so that she doesn’t get hurt by him if one of his “disappearing acts” becomes permanent. She doesn’t waste her time trying to make him love her; she goes about her life and has her mood swings and doesn’t change any of her opinion, and Eddie takes it all in, not turned off by any of it. When she yells at him for not leaving when Jerry came in, he blames her anger on PMS, knowing it will make her mad. She tells him “Eddie. It’s not like I want to get married and live happily ever after” (page 257). She wants him to know she is a tough girl, not a stereotypical one in any way, not delicate at all. She wants everyone to know this, and the fact that Jerry found out she had a man staying with her angered her because she didn’t want him to think she needed a protector. Her anger did not really make sense to me, because everyone knows how tough she is. Their knowing that she had a boyfriend, or any company at all, only makes her more relatable to others. They rarely see her, and when they do, she is alone and they worry about her. Their concern makes her mad, because she is determined to fulfill her reputation of being a self-empowered, strong woman. Eddie helps ease her frustration by saying that they all know she is strong and brave, now she’s just having a bit of fun to go with it. Fun that she has deserved, too. Her character is so interesting; she very different from any woman I know.
Denna was upset that Jerry knew Eddie was there because the truth was out. She had an image to maintain but Jerry was getting to know her and her life. She lived in the cabin to exclude herself from the world. She is a very independent woman and like sto keep her personal life kept secret. She is scared of what people will think of her and judge her in a 'mean' manner. She states that she is shamed of herself and that others are too. She got mad that Jerry knew her secret and no longer had the image of her that he had. She is just afraid of how people will perceive her. She is somwhat self conscious.
ReplyDelete3) No, Deanna is not disturbing nature’ sway of dealing with upsets by natural selection. The coyote’s she is trying to protect were once plentiful in the Appalachia region, but now there are only a handful left, a direct consequence of hunting. Coyote’s have a niche in this environment, just as important as any other organism, especially as a predator. In nature there are less predators than prey for obvious reasons, so when one predator specie is killed off the rippling effects can be seen from an influx in prey populations. This can cause chaos for an ecosystem, because the high concentration of herbivores will eat the all the plants, or damage areas of plant growth. If anything Deanna is helping nature by protecting the remaining predators on Zebulon Mountain. Although it seems pointless to some, the reintroduction of coyote’s to the east coast could be vital to the sustainability that environment.
ReplyDeleteGarnett’s chestnuts aren’t harming the environment, because he hasn’t perfected them yet, but he is mostly working to recreate the environment he grew up in. He had a deep childhood connection with the chestnuts, because his grandfather named Zebulon Mountain after making so much profit from lumber sales. The American chestnut offered a fine source of nuts, shade, and lumber when they covered the mountain. Garnett is just trying to replenish the mountain, and return Zebulon into the way it was when he was a kid.
The text articulates that evolution and religion are NOT mutually exclusive. While Garnett's views push that they are, Nannie clearly believes in both a God and evolution. This is actually fairly common to scientists today; "God" may have put organisms on this Earth, but they evolve as "God intends" continually. This is also a common argument for those who just believe in evolution, those who believe in both, and those who believe in only religion.
ReplyDeleteGarnett is so distressed by this because he only believes in the religious aspect, and is a firm believer that the Bible is the direct word of God and if nothing specifically says that evolution occurs, he does not believe it does. Those who believe in "God" that much take his word to heart and believe he controls everything, so the thought of Evolution being a "helter-skelter" process really bothers him, as it does many people like that outside of book characters.
2. Deanna has created a world in which she is self-reliant, she does not need anyone, she is alone in nature. She does not have to explain herself to anyone, or try to be like everyone else. Before, Eddie came she hardly knew what she looked like, much less paid attention to how she might appear. “Two years alone had given her a blind person’s indifference to the look on her own face (pg. 2).” Deanna is more comfortable in the mountains and in nature then she is with society. One of the reasons she’s attracted to Eddie is because he shares a similar passion and prowress for natural habitats., he’s very unlike her ex-husband or the boys she grew up with, who could not understand her. It’s almost if all her life, she has been made to feel there is something wrong with her because she is different, because she is not like everyone. She has lost that in the woods, where she can disappear and lose herself to the inner workings of nature and ecosystems.
ReplyDeleteJerry discovering Eddie, makes her aware of the human world again, the social expectations and judgements. She no longer feels assertive and independent, but vulnerable as if she is being judged all over again. She begins to see her relationship with Eddie as it might look to outsiders... “That I’m half a foot taller than you. Nineteen years older. If we walked together down the street in Knoxville, people would gawk (pg. 256).” In a way, it’s almost as if she lashes out at Eddie because she recognizes that in herself, deep down she is still bothered what others think. Also, despite warning and reminding herself constantly that Eddie will eventually leave for good, it’s almost if nobody else knows about him—she will be able to forget him more easily, or pretend as if he was never even there. Jerry knowing about Eddie, makes Eddie more real, he is no longer only her guilty secret.
There is always a moral debate over how much influence humans should have over the environment or nature itself. Sometimes people forget that they are naturally a part of the environment, but there are also parts of the world where humans just don’t belong. Sometimes it’s hard for us to concede to this idea, because we want to be completely in control of our own lives.
ReplyDeleteDeanna understands and even states that the mountain she lives and work on would do much better without any humans ever interacting with it. She must realize how hypocritical this is, because not only does she live on the mountain, but also she protects the family of coyotes. This may seem unnatural, but humans already altered the coyote population many years ago. By this time, humans and coyotes have become part of the same ecosystem, and if one species decides to help another, that is almost natural.
Garnett and his chestnut trees is another case of humans altering nature, and he may even be changing it more than Deanna. Garnett’s goal is to introduce a hybrid chestnut tree into the mountain that would be resistant to a disease. While both Deanna and Garnett are trying to help one species, Garnett may be hurting the environment more. He is introducing an exotic species, while Deanna is trying to stabilize a native species. There is a clear alteration of nature in one case, and correcting it in the other.
Based on what you know about Deanna's character, why is she so bothered that Jerry knows Eddie is there (252-256)?
ReplyDeleteBased on what I know about Deanna's character i believe that she is so bothered that Jerry knew that Eddie was staying with her, because she is a very strong women that let's nothing get in her way of upholding the image of being strong.
She is extremely bothered by the fact that she knew deep down that Jerry Lind could have
seen Eddie and is trying to read Jerry to see if he had run into him while he was
unloading the supplies. She sees Jerry on the road and makes an effort to run and talk
to him. After accepting the offer for him to drive and get the list of supplies back in
the cabin, she tries to read weather he had run into him or not. Then once she thinks that
Jerry didn't run into Eddie he comes out and said that it was nice meeting her boyfriend.
She is a women that has done it all; had an affair with a married man, been married, and now loves and enjoys being on her own now. She wants people to think she is a tough women
who needs no one; who live a solemn life with the forest and its inhabitants, yet she says she does not care what people think of her because she is practically invisible. I believe
she is also slightly embarrassed by the fact that Eddie is twenty years younger than her.
She will not admit it to her self, but what would people think?
She says it to herself and to Eddie once Jerry leaves and she is furious that Eddie could not just step out of the cabin when he heard the jeep coming down the road.
3. This is a complicated question, and one that I'm not sure I have the right answer to, but I was intrigued by it in large part because of something else that I read in another class.
ReplyDeleteOn the surface, and in an immediate sense, I want to agree with both Deanna and Garnett's personal projects. Of course, I consider myself an environmentalist and conservationist, and I don't enjoy seeing species be displaced or go extinct, especially at the hands of humans. There is, however, another view that I find interesting.
I read a piece that related zoos to "biological arks" because they basically take animals out of the environment and preserve them in a specific way. Thus, when we see an animal in a zoo, it represents, to us, that animal's entire species. In reality, though, things are in constant flux in the world. Species come and go as a result of natural selection. It is easy to yeah, but we made so many of the problems, so it's our duty to fix them (which is also my personal view...I'm pretty sure), but what if we don't view ourselves as separate from nature?
There have been many mass extinctions throughout history, and except for the most recent one, they happened without any help from humans. In this vain, how can we separate ourselves from some giant meteor or ice age? Do we really have to care about extinctions, or is it just part of the natural process? Maybe we don't have a duty to try to preserve things in the way that some of us think that it should be. If Deanna wants it a certain way and Eddie another, who is to say who's actually right?
I think that both Deanna and Garnett are doing things that are admirable in many ways, and I get sentimental about things, too, so I get it. I do, however, find it interesting to play the devil's advocate...or at least somebody's advocate...on this issue.
The text clearly suggests that evolution and religion are not mutually exclusive. In essence, this makes sense. While many creationists believe that the universe and the earth and all life on it were created in six 24-hour days some 10,000 years ago, this is not actually what the Bible teaches. Nor does the Bible support the theory of evolution, or the idea that the first living organism developed from lifeless matter. Rather, the Bible says that God is the source of life but that every living thing brings forth its own kind of offspring. Wide diversity within a given kind may appear both in nature and in breeding experiments, but in no case does it ever pass beyond the limits to produce a new kind.
ReplyDeleteGarnett is distressed because Nannie believes in both the Bible and evolution when evolution is not a Bible teaching. Garnett is correct, evolution is not a Bible teaching. The belief that God brought into existence the first primitive life forms and that then higher life forms, including man, were produced by means of evolution completely goes against what is written in the scriptures. Again, however, wide diversity within a species is clearly possible. However, this is not the theory of evolution.
I'm not sure if Deanna is disturbing natures ways or not. On one hand what she does to protect the coyotes and their natural habitat is difficult and takes someone who deeply cares, so I agree with this. But on the other hand maybe these specific coyotes are no longer meant to exist. However it is viewed ethically, Deanna needs to do this for herself and not just to help the coyotes. She needs companions and an occupation so the predators she protects help her as well. As for Garnett, I think he should let nature take its course with the chestnuts. No matter how they had been removed in the past there is nothing he can do to change that and should appreciate the trees, but not interfere.
ReplyDeleteOne of the main reasons that Deanna is bothered that Jerry knows that Eddie is there is simply because Deanna is a private person. She likes her space and she likes her solitude. That is one of the reasons that she is living in a cabin in the woods. Also, she doesn’t want to be the source of gossip even though very few people know she’s there. “Other than Jerry and the guy who cuts my paycheck, there’s hardly anybody who remembers I’m up here. I’m that far gone” (255). She has been hurt too much by men in the past and doesn’t want to go through heart break again and she feels that if she gets too attached to someone then they will leave. He is incredibly self conscious about Eddie and about growing older, especially that she might be going through menopause and that she is 19 years older than Eddie.
ReplyDeleteDeanna is a strong and very independent woman. She feels that it is perfectly normal to be self-suffeciant and has created an interesting free life for herself. She doesn't need to explain to anyone for her behavior because of her strong character. Deanna became much more aware of herself as a woman when she moved to the mountains ad immersed herself with nature. I think she and Eddie share a strong bond because they both share the common interest of their natural environment and state of being; Deanna can really be herself. When Jerry found Eddie it made Deanna more aware of her surroundings and her actual life. Here I saw that she became more self conciouss about her life because she was feeling judged. Now that her secret is not a secret anymore she doesn't know how she will be looked at, and she seems afraid.
ReplyDeleteDeanna protects predators because she feels that humans are capable of upsetting a natural balance. Humans are the top predator in many ecosystems, but we eliminate other predators indiscriminately, such as the Predator Hunt Extreme competition mentioned on page 321. Other predators will usually only kill for food or to compete for territory. Deanna feels that protecting predators is therefore protecting a delicate ecological balance. She is not upsetting nature’s way of dealing with upsets because nature does not have a built in mechanism to deal efficiently with the human element of ecological balance.
ReplyDeleteGarnett is also performing a positive service to the environment. Invasive species have not evolved alongside of the other plant species that they displace and destroy. They therefore upset the balance to a greater degree than would otherwise be possible. Restoring some portion of that balance may or may not be effective, but it is a worthwhile goal that Garnett is pursuing. There is always the chance of an unforeseen consequence however.
Deanna’s purpose in life is to be detached from the human world. Her independent self-image is threatened when Jerry discovers that a man is staying with her. Deanna views herself as being a nature-lover who is free of need for human encounters. Any violation of this self-image brings out a defensive anger within her. She doesn’t want anyone to think that she might be dependant on the support of another person. Because Deanna has suffered from another human breaking her heart, she is much more protective over her independence. She is always careful to assure herself that she isn’t becoming attached to Eddie and that if he were to leave, she would forget him completely. Even though it is evident that Deanna is falling for Eddie, she refuses to admit it to herself making her angrily deny anyone who suspects she has a love for someone such as Eddie. When Jerry called Eddie Deanna’s boyfriend it worsened the situation. Deanna was not ready for someone to describe her as having a boyfriend and being in a personal relationship with another human. Being someone’s boyfriend entails being attached to him and that was something Deanna was not willing to accept about herself.
ReplyDeleteNo, God and evolution, according to the text, are a combined force. I feel that one of the messages this novel conveys lies within Nannie Rawley’s argument about the relationship between God and the theory of evolution. According to her, “He gave us the mystery of a world that can re-create itself again and again” (217). While Nannie tries to accommodate Garnett’s beliefs into her theory of evolution, Garnett dismisses Random Chance altogether. What he is forgetting, according to Nannie, is that God created plants and insects and animals to co-exist, to struggle for survival together, and that natural selection is part of God’s plan. She also argues that though God provided man with nature so that he might use it for his own means, he also “counseled that gluttony is a sin- and he did say flat out, ‘Thou shalt not kill.” He didn’t tell us to go ahead and murder every beetle or caterpillar that wants to eat what we eat… he did not mean for us to satisfy our every whim for any food in, in every season.” To hear this argument distresses Garnett because he does not want to believe that chestnut blight was God’s joke on us for being too greedy and controlling when it comes to nature. He does not wish to believe that all life forms ought to be given the same consideration, the same regard and recognition in nature. Instead, his belief lies in the idea that he (mankind) was deemed by God to be superior to other species, and that to exert this power is God’s plan.
ReplyDeleteDeanna is a proud and independent woman, who is not looking for large social interactions. She stops and becomes very tenses at the thought of other people on her mountain. She takes great pleasure in the solitude her job requires and does not seek anyone’s company because she believes she is better off without them. Deanna is so bothered by the fact that jerry knows Eddie is with her in the cabin because it is a change from the tough, self reliant individual who he has known her as. It is uncomfortable and uneasy for her to step into this role. She is also uneasy about the relationship she and Eddie have. It seems unnatural to her their age difference and also their personal goals. When she explains to him that her thesis was about coyotes and how people hunting them increases their numbers you can clearly see the stark divide in their passions. But it is undeniable she enjoys having his company. In chapter 11 she expresses how continent she is that her young partner fixes a fire before she has even thought about getting out of bed. The thought of warm fire on a cold morning fixed by another seems to be an unfamiliar but pleasing thought. She cares very much for Eddie but denies any permanent attachment to his presence. She seems perturbed by the fact that she doesn’t know the future or plan for their relationship and that he doesn’t seem to require plans.
ReplyDeleteDeanna has a very strong character and tends to (obviously) be very independent. She is comfortable on her own and this newfound companion seems to be giving her mixed emotions. She is happy with the company and the love-making it seems, but also has reservations in regard to his intentions and his age. She is very bothered by how much younger he is and the fact that he has no life plans right now. (Which I found to be odd because she is the one living day to day).
ReplyDeleteDeanna is so bothered by Jerry knowing Eddie because she wanted to uphold her image of independence. She fears having a man up in the cabin with her may suggest a weakness in her character, but Jerry seems glad to see her with company. Deanna also mentions that she is ashamed of herself and of the two of them as a couple. She sees Eddie as just a young boy and herself an aging woman. She is ashamed now even more because another person is aware of the situation. When it was just Eddie and she up in the cabin there was no problem because there was no one to judge them.
2. Deanna is a self sufficient person who doesn't rely on anyone. She's created this world with her cabin, her special spot, her hollowed out log, her mountain where she rarely if ever has to encounter other people. Deanna feels like Eddie interrupts her world, she feels perfection without him, and with him her world is broken. Each part of her world is tainted by him. Yet, as much as it bothers her that he taints each part, she secretly enjoys it. She doesn't want to share this secret pleasure. Deanna also talks about how she worries about how she’ll be perceived. Not only for having someone else living with her, but out of all people: Eddie. He’s not a typical man Deanna perceives a 40 year-old woman like herself to be with. He’s shorter than her, and younger. She states at one point that they would be gawked at if they walked down the street of New Orleans hand in hand. So Deanna is conflicted with not only Eddie intruding on her space, but the fact that she’s escaped society, she still feels the pressure of social norms upon her relationship. Lastly, she feels the pressure to stay unconnected and remain at a distance from him, because from the get go, Eddie has made it clear that this is just a fling. Eddie insists that he’s a wanderer at heart. Deanna feels that if no one else knows about him, then she can’t be hurt by him. When he leaves, she can convince herself to never think about him again. I think that one flaw in this marvelous plan they’ve concocted is that Deanna might be pregnant. She stated in this reading about how she hasn’t had her period for a couple months now, right in sync with when Eddie and Deanna first met. I hope that Eddie will choose to do the right thing, and put down his wandering soul to take care of her.
ReplyDeleteDeanna is a very powerful woman. She does her very best trying to retain that power by maintaining a good reputation. Even though she claims that she does not want anything to do with Eddie and is not in love with him, I believe deep down in her heart she knows she is wrong. It does not bother her what people think of her but in the same time she does not want to be seen in public with Eddie. People might accept younger women to be in love with older men, but maybe it is one society’s unwritten rules that women should not be in a relationship with men younger than them by seventeen years, but when it comes to love, I believe age should not matter. When Jerry dropped Deanna to her place she wanted Eddie to hide so Jerry would not see him. When she saw him sitting instead of hiding she outraged and started yelling at him. It seemed like Eddie was very confused but was calm at the time. He asked her “why does it bother you when people see us together? Do you not say that you do not worry what people say about you?” She got angrier and kept yelling more, then Eddie asked “is it PMS?” I believe because she is a powerful character, when Jerry saw Eddie in her house people might thinks he is there to look after her, and she always makes it clear that she can protect herself not needing anyone’s help. In a way I think she wants to show that she has control and she does not care much about Eddie. She wants him to believe that she does not need him in her life, but she does not want to continue this relationship because she does not want Eddie to break her heart in any way.
ReplyDeleteAs i have understood from the text, evolution and religion are not separate. According to the bible, god created all that inhabits the earth, both living and nonliving and he did not wish that man take over. He stated that "thou shalt not kill, therefore man has no right to decide and carry out such acts on this planet. Nannie seems to be caught up somewhere in the middle, believing both in evolution and also the bible which do not share the same views. Garnett objects to her beliefs saying that the bible doesn't support or suggest evolution which is factual. According to the bible, god put all beings on this earth to procreate itself, but there is nothing said about creating mutations or other creatures or species from that. Evolution says the exact opposite, that the species most well adapted to its surroundings will survive and thrive even if that means taking on helpful mutations to evolve the species.
ReplyDelete