Themes in Literature and Culture

Using any of the questions uploaded on the Essay Exam Questions sheet, please choose a question and respond. You will find it helpful to include a thesis statement, textual evidence, and specific examples that you explain fully to help you write this exam. Make sure to use MLA citation when necessary. Please copy/paste what question you are responding to at the top of your response.

Based on previous readings, which author do you most disagree with regarding the uses of nature and would want to have a discussion with? Explain why you chose this author and thoroughly develop a contradictory position towards them.
In Letter and Notes on the Manners, Customs, and Condition of North American Indians, George Catlin says, “And what a splendid contemplation too, when one imagines them as they might in future be seen, preserved in their pristine beauty and wilderness, in a magnificent park where the world could see them for years to come, the Native Indian in his classic attire…amid the fleeting herds of elks and buffalos…A nation’s park containing man and beast…” Given the views of authors such as Whitman and Catlin toward the relationship of man and nature, what do you believe is mankind’s role in nature? Are humans detrimental to nature, or do they have a role to play in the grander scheme of things?
In “Huckleberries”, Henry David Thoreau reminisces on a time when huckleberry fields weren’t private property. How does Thoreau’s solution on how to reconnect man with nature differ from his fellow transcendentalists? Whose solution is most likely to succeed?
In his work titled “A Thousand Mile Walk To The Gulf”, John Muir makes many observations regarding the role of humanity and religion, within our natural environment. What seems to be Muir’s opinion on the human / religious role in nature? Does he view religion as having a positive or negative effect on the natural order? What causes him to make these conclusions? Explore this aspect of the reading & provide examples.
In Woody Guthrie’s song “This Land is Your Land”, Guthrie refers to the land as something that was made for “you and me”. Who and do you think this is referring to? Naturalist? Industrialist? Everyone?
Identify specific kinds of language used by Whitman in his poetry. Do you think the specific language choices Whitman made in his poetry was effective? Or, do you think it distracts and diminishes his message? What is his message?
What are some similarities and/or differences between David Thoreau’s Huckleberries and Woody Guthrie’s This Land Is Your Land. Do they both express the value of nature and what it could possibly represent? Or, do you think they accomplish something else?
Although many of these excerpts are from the 19th century, these authors see the force humanity had and would have on nature. From reading these excerpts so far this semester regarding nature and humanity’s destruction of much of it, do you think we are in a place to come back and save the environment? Or have we gone too far?”

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