12th Grade: Nature

            It is immediately clear by both the topic of the segment and the relativity of each piece that a general similarity between them is nature. Whether it is a negative depiction or a positive one, each piece shines light on to an idea about nature—more specifically—the connection between humans and nature. William Wordsworth’s poetry shows a type of unity between nature and humans by personifying daffodils by giving them human actions like dancing and “tossing their heads”. Through this we might be able to see a positive relationship between humans and nature. However, in many of the other pieces, the connection between humans and nature is a frayed and dangerous line that is continually crossed.

            First, we read about an avalanche in the “Snowfall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek” narrative that both has endangered and taken lives. Humans test their fate with nature by risking their lives for adrenaline and fun. There may be a unity between nature and humans in this piece although it is not a good unity but a forced one.

            We read and can see with our own eyes about how humans cause many types of disasters to nature in the other pieces by drilling for oil and fracking just to gain nature’s own beautiful resources. Nature hashes back at humans with their own disasters like hurricanes in which we can see the effect of them on the human population. So now this once-thought unity between man and nature is quickly being destructed and torn apart. Not only are humans purposely causing disasters to nature, we are also changing nature itself by putting pollutants under nature’s nose and it’s only a matter of time before Mother Nature sneezes all of those gases back out in our faces in a final fight between humans and nature.

            Finally, in “The Tyger” poem by William Blake, we see a depiction of our true selves and nature’s true self. Through “The Tyger” we can see a clear connection of how Blake describes the tiger and what attributes the humans and nature have. The tiger, humans, and nature: all beautiful creations of God on this planet. Yet, how can creations so stunning and exquisite also be so violent and destructive to others and themselves like the tiger can be? There are so many aesthetic places in the world that have been created in and by nature. There are so many unique animals on the planet created by God’s hands himself. There are over seven billion humans in the world, each beautiful and divine in their own way. Yet all of these things made in such a handsome image have also been given the ability to demolish one another.

            It doesn’t appear that humans will ever have a civil relationship with nature. At different points periodically in both of our existences we sometimes reach a point of calm and unity like the daffodils, but the calm never lasts long before one of us interferes with the other, trying to tear the other down viciously and violently. It is an inevitable, paradoxical relationship. Nature and humans.