In
the works “The Birthmark” by Nathaniel Hawthorne, “The Yellow Wallpaper” by
Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” by William
Wordsworth, all exhibit different natural struggles a human can face. The
Hanway Lecture an event I attended, discussed the human caused struggles which nature
faces. Although the central idea of these literary works and The Hanway Lecture
seem quite opposite, they are much more similar than many may first assume.
These all support the argument that we must combat issues that threaten human
or environmental nature or bad consequences will result.
The Hanway Lecture was a great
experience which really opened the audience’s eyes regarding the dangers of
climate change. As humans, we have truly caused great harm to the world we live
in. It is now our job to use our resources and find a way to counter our prior
mistakes. Dr. Richard Alley specified some of the results we will face due to
our harmful effect on the environment. He explained that global warming changes
the timing of events in our globe, which can cause major harm and severely
impact all types of life. We will experience rising sea levels, an increase in hurricane
numbers, and less water stability which can increase droughts as well as
floods.
In “The Birthmark” by Nathaniel
Hawthorne, a brilliant scientist named Aylmer married a beautiful girl named
Georgiana. He believed she would have been perfect if it wasn’t for a
hand-shaped birthmark located on her cheek. Although he considered this
birthmark an imperfection, it contributed to her beauty. Many other men would
have killed to be able to kiss this birthmark, but Aylmer failed to appreciate
her body. Similar to Aylmer, Georgiana also failed to appreciate her unique
birthmark. Instead of standing strong and appreciating her beautiful self, she
allowed her ungrateful husband to remove her small imperfection. The surgery
done by Aylmer removed “the best the world could offer” by erasing the
birthmark and killing his wife.
In “The Yellow Wallpaper” a woman’s
husband, who was also her doctor, undermined her as well as her severe mental
illness. Being alone most of the time with her depression while also being
forced to stay inside her house, caused her to eventually go insane. She
developed an obsession for the yellow wallpaper in her room. She believed it
represented a woman creeping behind the main pattern. She later concluded that
she was the trapped woman and continues to help other women escape. Her husband
and doctor John’s lack of care and treatment along with the narrator’s
isolation completely compromised her human nature. If her husband medicated her
mental illness and treated her with respect, her sanity would have been
restored. Instead, his harm to the narrator’s human nature depleted her.
Similar to “The Yellow Wallpaper”,
the narrator in “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”, suffered from depression. He
would often feel lonely, wandering like a cloud. He found solitude in the
beauty of nature, specifically daffodils. When he felt “vacant, or in a pensive
mood”, he would return to himself by imagining daffodils fluttering in the
breeze, along dancing lake waves. The narrator in this poem would combat the
threat to his human nature by visualizing the amazing nature of the environment.
Dr. Dan Richter discussed in the
Hanway Lecture that we are currently trying to pass new bills in congress to
combat the threats to environmental nature. We will find a way to combat this issue
just as the narrator in “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” combatted the threat to
his. If we fail to counter climate change, we will experience major problems
just as those in “The Birthmark” and “The Yellow Wallpaper” experienced when
they failed to blockade their threats.
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