Name

English Language and Literature SL

Word Count: 299; 955

Rationale: Blog entry in terms of difference between people and animals

I explored the Teaching a Stone to Talk, a creative non-fiction narrative essay by Annie Dillard, following part 4 critical study, focusing on the essay, "The Deer at Providencia". My goal is to analyze Dillard's view on how animals and humans value their life differently. To enhance this goal to the readers of this tale, I imitate Dillard's writing style by using repetition and by relating my analysis to religious topic. This written task, titled "How Do You Value Your Life?" is written from Dillard's perspective. Furthermore, the blog format allows me to directly convey Dillard's ideas and thoughts about the fact that humans are selfish and they are not capable of think about nature and animals.

I achieved my purpose, which is to express Dillard's view on life, in terms of human and animals, by imitating her writing style. In Dillard's tale, she often contrasts the length of sentence, and use rhetorical questions, list of three, and repetition. Additionally, she often includes her own perspective on religion as well in her writing. For example, in my writing, I include some thoughts on religion by saying, "Many people say that they believe in God, and they respect God. But they don't". In this sentence, I also used repetition and made significant difference in the length of sentences.

In this written task, I wrote a blog entry from the author's viewpoint, because it is an effective way to convey Dillard's thematic idea on the topic, life. I helped readers of the creative narrative essay, Teaching a Stone to Talk to have deeper understanding of Dillard's theme. If people can realize the fact that humans are selfish, we should be admiring nature and animals more and behave well towards them.

Annie Dillard's Blog

Thursday, October 11, 2014

Posted by Dillard at 10/ 11/ 2014, 10: 21:03 PM

How Do You Value Your Life?

I bet many of you have thought about the meaning of life, and I'm also one of the many who keeps thinking about it.

WHY DO WE LIVE?

I hear a lot of news saying that the suicide rate increases every year and more than one million people die by suicide, every single year.

The short nonfiction narrative essay "The Deer at Providencia", excerpted from Teaching a Stone to Talk is one of my essays about the life. I would like to discuss it further by comparing two different things: animals and humans. I hope this blog helps you to understand my view on the meaning of life, and to better understand the essay "The Deer at Providencia".

So, what is the difference between people and animals? I used many animals in this narrative essay to enhance my idea that people value life differently from animals.

Let us take a look at the excerpt of my essay, "The Deer at Providencia". One day, I was reading a newspaper, and one particular article caught my attention. It was an article talking about a guy named Alan McDonald, who got badly burned for the second time. As I read on, I noticed that McDonald kept saying "God", like "Why does God hate me?" and "God couldn't do this to me again"(82-83). This bothered me so much. "God" is the one who gave you life. People shouldn't blame "God". I thought that he might be thinking about killing himself someday. Some of you guys might say, "How do you know?" But this idea came up in my mind because I know that humans are weak and fragile that they cannot endure their hurt and many give up in the end.

Likewise, the man I introduced above, the deer I saw in the "Ecuadorian jungle on the banks of the Napo River in the Amazon watershed" was reacted in totally different way (78). The deer was roped to a tree. My companions and I were looking at it moved "to slacken the rope and ease the pull on its throat and enable [it] to rest its

head" (79). I thought that the deer has given up trying to escape after seeing this go on. But, I was wrong. The deer kept struggling with its "three legs tightened inside the rope's loop", while one leg [was] free (80). All four of us were so amazed with the deer's perseverance that "we watched ... for fifteen minutes" (80). I thought that this would be impossible for human beings to do. People should admire those animals as "God" and learn from them.

I was surprised after looking at this deer and thought about how different animals are from people. They never give up, or even give think about it, while people in extreme situations often think about killing themselves. They think that suicide is their only way to escape from pain. They only know how to complain. The only word that McDonald's wife said was, "Man, it just isn't fair" (83). "Fair" is one of the most favorite words that people often use. But think about this way. Isn't that because you were not paying attention to your surroundings? People just don't know how to appreciate things that they have. "God" has given people everything that they need to live.

Human beings, including myself, are selfish. I am selfish. Once I used to live in "a place called "the farm"" (130), I liked the place so much that its beauty was "unspeakable" (136). However, I kept complaining about the noise, the people, and of course, about life. I did not appreciate the beautiful place, but I was feeling lonely and sad. People can never be satisfied with their surroundings and environment.

This is why I tend to admire nature and animals, like weasels, deer, swans, dogs, horses, snakes, roosters and even amoeba. But not people. They are so weak. I really don't like people as much as animals, people are selfish and greedy. They will never be satisfied with their life.

Animals are strong. People are not. Animals do not destroy the environment. They will never kill themselves. They are not selfish.

Now, what I want to bring up is religion, especially Christianity. As you all know, I often like to connect to religious beliefs.

Many people say that they believe in God, and that they respect God. But they don't. Killing yourself, or even thinking about killing yourself (which many do once in their lifetime) is a sin, in my opinion. Suicide is a crime against yourself. We should not put an end to our lives, which have been given to us by God. This is my religious view on Christianity.

live. But still, you should make the best of it and live on.

Here is my final comment. Animals are so distinct from humans. This is because humans are able to get anything they want before those animals try to get what they want or even what they need. While humans satisfy, animals are hurt. Their environment, destroyed and animals are killed. Be aware that there are many other things living on the earth, and think,

How do you value your life?

I will leave it to you at this point to answer.

As always, feel free to write comments, and your ideas about life!

Annie Dillard