Assignment #4: Analysis of Wild Seed, Ã la Darwin or Leopold

Paper Length: 1 pp. single-spaced, no margin

Due Date: Saturday, May 22, midnight, by e-mail

For this assignment, you'll be doing something different, a comparative analysis across two texts.Â Each of the topics below gives you a quote from one text we've read recently (Darwin or Leopold) and asks you to use it as a starting point for a topic dealing with Butler's novel.Â The task, then, is to reflect upon how Butler's novel lets us think through the specific issue raised by the quoteâ€”artificial and natural selection, growth and decay, ethics and instinctâ€”for which a first step will involve thinking through the quote and the perspective it presents toward the relationship of the human and natural worlds.Â Read the quote carefully, attending to specific word choices as well as its general meanings.Â Pay attention, as you do so, to the context within which your quote occurs in the original text, and to the theoretical framework (evolution, ecology) that lies behind it.Â You are not simply writing a paper about Butler's novel, remember, but investigating how well the novel maps on to, explores, and/or extends the ideas given in the quote...and the reverse, how well the quote fits or describes what goes on in the novel.Â Do not, however, necessarily assume that the terms of one text map on to the other neatly; the authors may well be using similar concepts, even identical words, in quite different ways.

A second difference in this assignment is that it is asking you to think about Wild Seed as a whole.Â Even though you have space to draw only upon small parts of it, keep in mind the trajectory of the whole and, especially, how the novel ends as you shape your claim about specific characters and/or events.

Topics (choose one of the three options below):

1) "Man can only act on external and visible characters: nature cares nothing for appearances, except in so far as they may be useful to any being. She can act on every internal organ, on every shade of constitutional difference, on the whole machinery of life. Man selects only for his own good; Nature only for that of the being which she tends. Every selected character is fully exercised by her; and the being is placed under well-suited conditions of lifeâ€¦.How fleeting are the wishes and efforts of man! how short his time! and consequently how poor will his products be, compared with those accumulated by nature during whole geological periods." (Darwin, 113)

Using this quote and Darwin's theory as a basis for your discussion, consider how Butler's novel presents the alternatives of artificial and natural selection. What are the apparent advantages and disadvantages of both, as seen through specific scenes and through the specific arguments and behavior of the main characters? How would Doro and/or Anyanwu (you can use either or both of them) assess this metaphor and its accuracy in describing natural selection? Which of their alternatives would you argue the novel presents as preferable in the end, and why?

2) "The affinities of all the beings of the same class have sometimes been represented by a great treeâ€¦.The green and budding twigs may represent existing species; and those produced during each former year may represent the long succession of extinct speciesâ€¦.From the first growth of the tree, many a limb and branch has decayed and dropped off; and these lost branches of various sizes may represent those whole orders, families, and genera which have now no living representativesâ€¦.so by generation I believe it has been with the great Tree of Life, which fills with its dead and broken branches the crust of the earth and covers the surface with its ever branching and beautiful ramifications." (Darwin, 134-35)

A key element in Darwin's theory is the interplay of evolution and extinction. Examine how Darwin presents his ideas on this topic through this particular quote and explain its general relevance to his theory. Consider, then, the applicability of his model to Butler's novel. What role is played there by death and extinction in the evolutionary process? What role do necessity and chance play in this process? How do Doro and Anyanwu (you can use either or both of them) feel about and react to the presence of mortality? Make sure that you are working from specific examples in the text as you discuss the topic.

3) "An ethic may be regarded as a mode of guidance for meeting ecological situations so new or intricate, or involving such deferred reactions, that the path of social expediency is not discernible to the average individual. Animal instincts are modes of guidance for the individual in meeting such situations. Ethics are possibly a kind of community instinct-in-the-makingâ€¦.The land ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants, and animals, or collectively: the land." (239)

How might Aldo Leopold's comments about ethics be applied to Butler's Wild Seed? In particular, what sort of balancing does the novel attempt (and/or manage) to map out between between individual and communal ways of knowing and behaving? You can work with Anyanwu or Doro or both, considering what Anwanyu and/or Doro draw from each source as they try to make their ways amid the rapidly changing historical circumstances that confront them? How closely do her/his/their views correspond to Leopold's sense of this interplay, i.e., to his definition of ethics, and his discussion of what a "land ethic" would entail?

*******************************************************************************

Course Portfolio

The portfolio for this class includes two parts: 1) a collection of all the written work you have done (response papers and longer essays, along with my comments on the latter), and 2) a reflective essay describing your experience in the course. The project thus offers you a chance to pull together and review your work for the quarter, as well as an occasion to put that work into perspective. Your portfolio should therefore contain:

1) a comprehensive table of contents

2) all of the writing you have done for this class, organized by type and by date (12 response papers, 4 analytical essays, any previous drafts of revised essays)

3) a three-page self-reflective essay

The self-reflective essay can take a number of forms. It may, for example, be a narrative about your overall intellectual experience in this courseÃ¢â‚¬"why you took it, what problems and challenges it presented to you along the way, and what you did to address them. Or it may discuss more specifically the writing that you have done this quarter, what you learned from that writing, and what you now take to be your strengths and weaknesses as a writer. Or it may discuss how your understanding of the relationship between literature and the environment developed and changed as a result of the work that you did during the quarter. However you choose to focus the essay, the object of this exercise is to encourage you to reflect upon your experience in the course and to engage in some evaluation of that experience.

The portfolio counts for 1/7 of your total grade. The response papers will be evaluated on the basis of completeness, timeliness of submission and quality of involvement; the reflective essay will be evaluated on the basis of responsiveness and thoughtfulness according the scale below:

Fully responsive and very thoughtfully undertaken = 9

Responsive, but less completely thought through = 7

Marginally responsive, or not well thought through = 5

Unresponsive = 0

The portfolio should be submitted in a large folder or mailing envelope. If you wish to have it returned, you must put your address on a mailing envelope and provide sufficient postage for everything to be mailed back to you.

The portfolio is due in my office (Padelford A-101) by 4 PM on Wednesday, June 9.

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English 355/Comp Lit 396/ Enviro 450: Living in Place: Literature and the Environment

Prof. Gary Handwerk Spring 2010

Assignment #5: Comparative Analysis of Abbey, Lopez, Head

Paper Length: 1 pp. single-spaced, no margin

Due Date: Monday, June 6 (midnight) by e-mail or before 5 PM in A-101 Padelford (box inside main English Dept office)

This is, again, a comparative paper, so the stipulations about the last paper apply here as well. As before, your first step after selecting a topic should involve thinking through the focal quotes and how they represent the relationship of the human and the natural worlds. Pay attention, as you do so, to the context within which your quotes occur in the texts.

1) "This is the most beautiful place on earth….The April mornings are bright, clear and calm. Not until afternoon does the wind begin to blow, raising dust and sand in funnelshaped twisters that spin across the desert…whirlwinds from which issue no voice or word except the forlorn moan of the elements under stress. After the reconnoitering dust-devils comes the real, the serious wind, the voice of the desert rising to a demented howl and blotting out sky and sun…." (Abbey, "Serpents," 17).

"Because it was a harsh and terrible country to live in. The great stretches of arid land completely stunned the mind, and every little shoot that you put down into the barren earth just stood there, single, frail, shuddering, and not even a knowledge of soils or the germinating ability of seeds could help you to defeat this expansive ocean of desert. And people, mentally, fled before this desert ocean…." (Head, 111).

Starting from two descriptions above of arid landscape, discuss the significance of the desert as the natural setting for Abbey's memoir and Head's novel. What does it mean for each of these writers to inhabit the desert environment? What values or principles does this particular natural setting impose upon (or encourage in) the people who live there? Where do the two authors' views converge and where do they diverge, and why is this the case?

2) "This is the most beautiful place on earth….The April mornings are bright, clear and calm. Not until afternoon does the wind begin to blow, raising dust and sand in funnelshaped twisters that spin across the desert…whirlwinds from which issue no voice or word except the forlorn moan of the elements under stress. After the reconnoitering dust-devils comes the real, the serious wind, the voice of the desert rising to a demented howl and blotting out sky and sun…." (Abbey, "Serpents," 17).

"Many were ill at ease with arctic whaling, because of the threat to their lives presented by the unpredictable sea ice; but also in the regions where they hunted they found a beauty more penetrating and sublime than any they had ever known….What they saw made the killing seem inappropriate; but it was work, too, security for their families, and they could quickly put compassion and regret aside." (Lopez, 5)

Both Abbey and Lopez praise the extraordinary beauty of the landscapes that they inhabit, a beauty that both characterize repeatedly as sublime. What exactly do they mean by describing these landscapes in this way, that is, what makes these landscapes particularly beautiful? How does the explicit threat these landscapes also offer affect the human sense of their beauty? What effects do they see that beauty having upon people who actually live there for an extended period? Does the landscape, that is, change its inhabitants and, if so, how?

3) "It is helpful to imagine how the forces of life must be construed by people who live in a world where swift and fatal violence, like the ivu, the suddenly leaping shore ice, is inherent in the land. The land, in a certain, very real way, compels the minds of the people" (Lopez, "Migration," 202)

Both Lopez and Head stress the danger of the landscape that they are describing—elements of nature that, as Lopez says, "compel the minds of the people." How and where in these two texts do you see this "compulsion" at work? What effects does that compulsion have upon the views of nature that the two books present?

4) "If a man thought small, through fear of overwhelming odds, no amount of modern machinery would help him to think big." (Head, 111)

"Perhaps, she thought, this man still had tribal customs which forced him to care about children. Every protection for women was breaking down and being replaced by nothing" (Head, 115).

"Woman and machinery and the land are all spoken of in the same way—seduction, domestication, domination, control. This observation represents no new insight...into the psychology of development in Western culture; but it is not academic. It is as real as the scars on the faces of the flight attendants I interview in Alaska…" (Lopez, 398)

Working with one or both of the quotes from Head and the quote from Lopez, discuss the relationship between modernization and gender. What does modernization mean in the context of the societies that these two writers describe? What are the particular impacts that it has upon gender and about gender relations, and, in turn, upon human relations with nature? What are, for each author, the distinguishing good and bad features of this social, cultural and economic transformation?

5) One additional topic will be added, a comparative account of Stephen Weart's chapter on global warming and one or more of the literary texts from the last section of the class.

General Advice:

With a comparative paper, it is the "so what?" question that tends to be both hardest and most important. Finding similarities or differences (the "what") is a start, the foundation to everything else, so having an interesting basis for comparison and/or contrast is crucial. This in turn will help you understand the "why," the "therefore"s, the narrative or explanatory logic, of each text. But you need to go on from there to discuss why the particular parallels or differences that you have found matter, how they help us better understand the two texts you are comparing and, through them, the issues that these texts present.

Remember, for this last paper, put YES or NO along with your name on the end of the paper—YES if you plan to pick it up or have it mailed and want comments, NO if you don't.

ENGLISH 355A/COMP LITERATURE 396A/ENVIRONMENT 450A LIVING IN PLACE: LITERATURE AND THE ENVIRONMENT ANALYTICAL ESSAY ASSIGNMENTS
*Assignment #4: Analysis of Wild Seed, Ã la Darwin or Leopold* Paper Length: 1 pp. single-spaced, no margin Due Date: Saturday, May 22, midnight, by e-mail For this assignment, you'll be doing something different, a comparative analysis across two texts.Â Each of the topics below gives you a quote from one text we've read recently (Darwin or Leopold) and asks you to use it as a starting point for a topic dealing with Butler's novel.Â The task, then, is to reflect upon how Butler's novel lets us think through the specific issue raised by the quoteâ€”artificial and natural selection, growth and decay, ethics and instinctâ€”for which a first step will involve thinking through the quote and the perspective it presents toward the relationship of the human and natural worlds.Â Read the quote carefully, attending to specific word choices as well as its general meanings.Â Pay attention, as you do so, to the context within which your quote occurs in the original text, and to the theoretical framework (evolution, ecology) that lies behind it.Â You are not simply writing a paper about Butler's novel, remember, but investigating how well the novel maps on to, explores, and/or extends the ideas given in the quote...and the reverse, how well the quote fits or describes what goes on in the novel.Â Do not, however, necessarily assume that the terms of one text map on to the other neatly; the authors may well be using similar concepts, even identical words, in quite different ways. Â A second difference in this assignment is that it is asking you to think about Wild Seed as a whole.Â Even though you have space to draw only upon small parts of it, keep in mind the trajectory of the whole and, especially, how the novel ends as you shape your claim about specific characters and/or events. Topics (choose one of the three options below): 1) "Man can only act on external and visible characters: nature cares nothing for appearances, except in so far as they may be useful to any being. She can act on every internal organ, on every shade of constitutional difference, on the whole machinery of life. Man selects only for his own good; Nature only for that of the being which she tends. Every selected character is fully exercised by her; and the being is placed under well-suited conditions of lifeâ€¦.How fleeting are the wishes and efforts of man! how short his time! and consequently how poor will his products be, compared with those accumulated by nature during whole geological periods." (Darwin, 113) Using this quote and Darwin's theory as a basis for your discussion, consider how Butler's novel presents the alternatives of artificial and natural selection. What are the apparent advantages and disadvantages of both, as seen through specific scenes and through the specific arguments and behavior of the main characters? How would Doro and/or Anyanwu (you can use either or both of them) assess this metaphor and its accuracy in describing natural selection? Which of their alternatives would you argue the novel presents as preferable in the end, and why? 2) "The affinities of all the beings of the same class have sometimes been represented by a great treeâ€¦.The green and budding twigs may represent existing species; and those produced during each former year may represent the long succession of extinct speciesâ€¦.From the first growth of the tree, many a limb and branch has decayed and dropped off; and these lost branches of various sizes may represent those whole orders, families, and genera which have now no living representativesâ€¦.so by generation I believe it has been with the great Tree of Life, which fills with its dead and broken branches the crust of the earth and covers the surface with its ever branching and beautiful ramifications." (Darwin, 134-35) A key element in Darwin's theory is the interplay of evolution and extinction. Examine how Darwin presents his ideas on this topic through this particular quote and explain its general relevance to his theory. Consider, then, the applicability of his model to Butler's novel. What role is played there by death and extinction in the evolutionary process? What role do necessity and chance play in this process? How do Doro and Anyanwu (you can use either or both of them) feel about and react to the presence of mortality? Make sure that you are working from specific examples in the text as you discuss the topic. 3) "An ethic may be regarded as a mode of guidance for meeting ecological situations so new or intricate, or involving such deferred reactions, that the path of social expediency is not discernible to the average individual. Animal instincts are modes of guidance for the individual in meeting such situations. Ethics are possibly a kind of community instinct-in-the-makingâ€¦.The land ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants, and animals, or collectively: the land." (239) How might Aldo Leopold's comments about ethics be applied to Butler's Wild Seed? In particular, what sort of balancing does the novel attempt (and/or manage) to map out between between individual and communal ways of knowing and behaving? You can work with Anyanwu or Doro or both, considering what Anwanyu and/or Doro draw from each source as they try to make their ways amid the rapidly changing historical circumstances that confront them? How closely do her/his/their views correspond to Leopold's sense of this interplay, i.e., to his definition of ethics, and his discussion of what a "land ethic" would entail? ***************************************************************************** Course Portfolio** The portfolio for this class includes two parts: 1) a collection of all the written work you have done (response papers and longer essays, along with my comments on the latter), and 2) a reflective essay describing your experience in the course. The project thus offers you a chance to pull together and review your work for the quarter, as well as an occasion to put that work into perspective. Your portfolio should therefore contain: 1) a comprehensive table of contents 2) all of the writing you have done for this class, organized by type and by date (12 response papers, 4 analytical essays, any previous drafts of revised essays) 3) a three-page self-reflective essay The self-reflective essay can take a number of forms. It may, for example, be a narrative about your overall intellectual experience in this courseÃ¢â‚¬"why you took it, what problems and challenges it presented to you along the way, and what you did to address them. Or it may discuss more specifically the writing that you have done this quarter, what you learned from that writing, and what you now take to be your strengths and weaknesses as a writer. Or it may discuss how your understanding of the relationship between literature and the environment developed and changed as a result of the work that you did during the quarter. However you choose to focus the essay, the object of this exercise is to encourage you to reflect upon your experience in the course and to engage in some evaluation of that experience. The portfolio counts for 1/7 of your total grade. The response papers will be evaluated on the basis of completeness, timeliness of submission and quality of involvement; the reflective essay will be evaluated on the basis of responsiveness and thoughtfulness according the scale below: Fully responsive and very thoughtfully undertaken = 9 Responsive, but less completely thought through = 7 Marginally responsive, or not well thought through = 5 Unresponsive = 0 The portfolio should be submitted in a large folder or mailing envelope. If you wish to have it returned, you must* put your address on a mailing envelope and provide sufficient postage for everything to be mailed back to you.* The portfolio is due in my office (Padelford A-101) by 4 PM on Wednesday, June 9. *************************************************************************** English 355/Comp Lit 396/ Enviro 450: Living in Place: Literature and the Environment Prof. Gary Handwerk Spring 2010 Assignment #5: Comparative Analysis of Abbey, Lopez, Head Paper Length: 1 pp. single-spaced, no margin Due Date: Monday, June 6 (midnight) by e-mail or before 5 PM in A-101 Padelford (box inside main English Dept office)** This is, again, a comparative paper, so the stipulations about the last paper apply here as well. As before, your first step after selecting a topic should involve thinking through the focal quotes and how they represent the relationship of the human and the natural worlds. Pay attention, as you do so, to the context within which your quotes occur in the texts. 1) "This is the most beautiful place on earth….The April mornings are bright, clear and calm. Not until afternoon does the wind begin to blow, raising dust and sand in funnelshaped twisters that spin across the desert…whirlwinds from which issue no voice or word except the forlorn moan of the elements under stress. After the reconnoitering dust-devils comes the real, the serious wind, the voice of the desert rising to a demented howl and blotting out sky and sun…." (Abbey, "Serpents," 17). "Because it was a harsh and terrible country to live in. The great stretches of arid land completely stunned the mind, and every little shoot that you put down into the barren earth just stood there, single, frail, shuddering, and not even a knowledge of soils or the germinating ability of seeds could help you to defeat this expansive ocean of desert. And people, mentally, fled before this desert ocean…." (Head, 111). Starting from two descriptions above of arid landscape, discuss the significance of the desert as the natural setting for Abbey's memoir and Head's novel. What does it mean for each of these writers to inhabit the desert environment? What values or principles does this particular natural setting impose upon (or encourage in) the people who live there? Where do the two authors' views converge and where do they diverge, and why is this the case? 2) "This is the most beautiful place on earth….The April mornings are bright, clear and calm. Not until afternoon does the wind begin to blow, raising dust and sand in funnelshaped twisters that spin across the desert…whirlwinds from which issue no voice or word except the forlorn moan of the elements under stress. After the reconnoitering dust-devils comes the real, the serious wind, the voice of the desert rising to a demented howl and blotting out sky and sun…." (Abbey, "Serpents," 17). "Many were ill at ease with arctic whaling, because of the threat to their lives presented by the unpredictable sea ice; but also in the regions where they hunted they found a beauty more penetrating and sublime than any they had ever known….What they saw made the killing seem inappropriate; but it was work, too, security for their families, and they could quickly put compassion and regret aside." (Lopez, 5) Both Abbey and Lopez praise the extraordinary beauty of the landscapes that they inhabit, a beauty that both characterize repeatedly as sublime. What exactly do they mean by describing these landscapes in this way, that is, what makes these landscapes particularly beautiful? How does the explicit threat these landscapes also offer affect the human sense of their beauty? What effects do they see that beauty having upon people who actually live there for an extended period? Does the landscape, that is, change its inhabitants and, if so, how? 3) "It is helpful to imagine how the forces of life must be construed by people who live in a world where swift and fatal violence, like the ivu, the suddenly leaping shore ice, is inherent in the land. The land, in a certain, very real way, compels the minds of the people" (Lopez, "Migration," 202) "Because it was a harsh and terrible country to live in. The great stretches of arid land completely stunned the mind, and every little shoot that you put down into the barren earth just stood there, single, frail, shuddering, and not even a knowledge of soils or the germinating ability of seeds could help you to defeat this expansive ocean of desert. And people, mentally, fled before this desert ocean….…." (Head, 111). Both Lopez and Head stress the danger of the landscape that they are describing—elements of nature that, as Lopez says, "compel the minds of the people." How and where in these two texts do you see this "compulsion" at work? What effects does that compulsion have upon the views of nature that the two books present? 4) "If a man thought small, through fear of overwhelming odds, no amount of modern machinery would help him to think big." (Head, 111) "Perhaps, she thought, this man still had tribal customs which forced him to care about children. Every protection for women was breaking down and being replaced by nothing" (Head, 115). "Woman and machinery and the land are all spoken of in the same way—seduction, domestication, domination, control. This observation represents no new insight...into the psychology of development in Western culture; but it is not academic. It is as real as the scars on the faces of the flight attendants I interview in Alaska…" (Lopez, 398) Working with one or both of the quotes from Head and the quote from Lopez, discuss the relationship between modernization and gender. What does modernization mean in the context of the societies that these two writers describe? What are the particular impacts that it has upon gender and about gender relations, and, in turn, upon human relations with nature? What are, for each author, the distinguishing good and bad features of this social, cultural and economic transformation? 5) One additional topic will be added, a comparative account of Stephen Weart's chapter on global warming and one or more of the literary texts from the last section of the class. *General Advice:* With a comparative paper, it is the "so what?" question that tends to be both hardest and most important. Finding similarities or differences (the "what") is a start, the foundation to everything else, so having an interesting basis for comparison and/or contrast is crucial. This in turn will help you understand the "why," the "therefore"s, the narrative or explanatory logic, of each text. But you need to go on from there to discuss why the particular parallels or differences that you have found matter, how they help us better understand the two texts you are comparing and, through them, the issues that these texts present. Remember, for this last paper, put YES or NO along with your name on the end of the paper—YES if you plan to pick it up or have it mailed and want comments, NO if you don't.
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