I'm chosing a selection that addresses Price's essay, since no one will be using it and I don't want to usurp anyone's ideas. Note the strong, consistant and unique voice (including the use of humor), the varying of sentence structure, and the occasional use of advanced vocabulary to good effect. Note also the precision with which the student presents and then challenges Price's essay using its own evidence and logic, and how the writer turns Price's humor and style around to support the writer's critique.

Questioning the Questioner

Jennifer Price is concerned. Sort of. In her essay, "Looking for Nature at the Mall: A Field Guide to the Nature Company," Price is concerned about a number of things, but she is especially worried that the Nature Company sells "whimsy" and "authenticity" instead of "tangible, secure, rocklike, stable, self-evident, definable, real things." (p. 188, 191) You know, nature. Or "nature," as Price and her co-conspirators in the contrarian collection Uncommon Ground often refer to it. "Nature," in quotation marks, is something that is "constructed, like a movie." (p. 191) So if "nature" is "constructed...to tell a story that appeals to a definable audience in a certain time and place," why should Price be concerned? Apparently, she fears that patrons like herself will fell "uneasy" and start to doubt that they in fact can consume nature at the mall rather than engage it actively out in the wilderness.

And therein lies the contradiction at the heart of Price's ruminations. If she, like the other contributors to the collection,wants readers "Rethinking The Human Place in Nature" as the book's subtitle declares, shouldn't she see the Nature Company as the perfect launching for such revisioning? Shouldn't she be encouraging all of us to visit the Nature Company with her questions in hand and rethink our place in nature in the belly of the beast? Shouldn't she recognize that the unease felt by her friends is just what the motivational doctor ordered for getting them off their butts and working to apply their new insights to making the world a more liveable place instead of merely purchasing nature at the mall or "appreciating" it up in the Flatirons outside Price's house in Boulder ("Yuppieville") Colorado? And finally, shouldn't she answer at least one of her damn questions already and join them? I should think so.

Back to Composition Assignment for Oct. 10

Back to course page

© 2001 Michael Lewis Goldberg: intellectual property information

MLG HOME

Back to Top