Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Critique of The Deer at Providencia by: Maitreyah Bell


Ann Dillard’s non fiction essay The Dear at Providencia, expresses that pain and suffering are interwoven into the tapestry of life are inescapable no matter how unexplainable they are. Dillard makes these points by reflecting of memories in an order that connects general themes. She describes scenes from her personal experience in order to insinuate the connections between hardship and longevit y.  She is writing for any one who feels empathy for suffering.
This reading insinuated the connection between life, suffering, and the necessity of both.  On Dillard’s journeying through the Napo River Valley, she came upon a cultural confrontation with her understanding of cultural normalcy. Like other metropolitan people she too possessed a slightly separated understanding of meat and where it comes from. So when she came to witness a deer being painfully restrained in order to make the flesh more palatable.  This made me feel that human nature is naturally empathetic and does not enjoying inflicting pain on another life form , but through the disassociation between meat and living being it easier to do with animals as we please.
The text is well written because it provokes the reader to think out side the normal frame of reference. Dillard allows the reader to draw their own conclusion and, simultaneously leads the reader into drawing the conclusion she wants. She accepts that death and suffering are apart of the Napo Valley culture when she states “It ha given up ; now it will die(Dillard, 149).” She also draws a subtle distinction that the deer trapped in the rope continued to struggle for its life   but the man considered ending his own after being burned twice. I feel she was make the point know that blaming God for ones fait does no create a desired affect on the human psyche. 

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