Understanding Life Through Nature in Annie Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

Annie Dillard makes an attempt to really understand why life for some causes death for others. This feeds into a deeper understanding of nature, spirituality and life in general. There is this sense of mortality that really bleeds through the pages. Ultimately, she makes the point that if we open ourselves up to the beauty in nature, whether negative or positive, we can really then fully understand life and death, pain and pleasure, being and desire. Because of her dialogic tone and narrative voice, we are able to connect with her on a level of friendship and really see the points and concepts she is trying to get across. Though there is bleeding and mortality, there is also an immortality that binds itself to the truth.

Life for some causes death to others is a common theme in the book. It is interwoven into different narratives and Dillard tries to bring this inconvenient fact into a type of understanding. The beginning of "Winter" talks about the starlings being shipped from Europe and overtaking the landscape in Virginia during the winter months because it was warmer there. She quotes, "the stink - 'will knock you over' - the droppings and the lice" (38). Though these starlings are mere birds that cannot really help the way they smell, the humans feel they cannot live with it. The people end up commissioning the Wildlife Bureau to exterminate these birds in Radford. The birds live on, even with their efforts. It is the concept that one species feels like it cannot live while another lives at the same time. The birds are just trying to live out their lives in their environment; it is a shame that it has become an inconvenience to humans. Her point is though death for some makes life for others, there are certain lives that cannot be taken away because the environment and world needs these lives there for a certain reason. This concept is also seen in "The Fixed" with the mantis narrative. For the life of some to go on, they have to use the corpses of others to live. They were in captivity, it was the only biological and logical way to at least let some of them live or all would die (56-57). Its not really that death allows for life of others, but rather life is merged between the two in order to be prolonged in some way.

Her understanding of nature, spirituality and life in general is really striking in this set of essays. Her sense of what is mortality really is captivated and pulled through in different stories. In "Spring," Dillard relates the mistreatment of the newts to an understanding of the way we mistreat nature, but other people (110-111). The children were disturbing, holding newts captive, and throwing them around. They did not seem to have any respect for the way the newts lived, whether it be out of ignorance or indifference to life but their own. Though when she told the boy the one was a "baby," he immediately cradled it in his arms and put it back in its rightful place. By this she is showing once people are taught how different people or species relate to them, they are more likely to accept the species way of living and not interfere, but appreciate their new understanding of nature and life. In "The Present," even so much as the trees can lead to a better understanding of nature, the self and life. The giant trunk brought her to a memory of her dancing then night away (100-101). It is a tunnel to the yellowy light above, a tunnel that goes in different directions and branches out into the light. It is about finding your own way up and around to find what you are looking for and remember certain aspects of life that you don't want to forget. At the end of "Fecundity" Dillard gets a main theme across about life and death, "The blind man is Freedom, or Time, and he does not go anywhere without his great dog, Death. The world came into being with the signing of the contract" (183). Just by using this fact of nature, the blind man and the dog, she has a deep understanding of what exactly is life and death and the relationship existing between them. Freedom or time cannot go anywhere or exist without death. Life in itself began with a contract that death must occur. I mean if you had all the time in the world what would be the point of life? There would be no rush, no challenges. Mortality is not only a contract but allows freedom and time to exist. Though we think of mortality as a bad thing, in a sense it actually provides us with a freedom and challenge that we cannot get if we were immortal.

Dillard's dialogic and narrative tone is very helpful in connecting with her as a person. She talks, in these essays, as a friend and story teller. She makes you want to listen. For example, she starts off the first essay (Heaven and Earth in Jest) with "I used to have a cat, an old fighting tom, who would jump through the open window by my bed in them middle of the night and land on my chest" (3). Though there is not a real complex meaning to this sentence in particular, it really hooked me to this set of essays because I once had a cat that would jump up on me in the middle of the night. Many people can relate to this, not only by the event. But saying to "once have" implies that it has been lost, as most people have lost something in life. This immediate dialogic connection and informal tone really sets the stage for all the essays. Not only does it reel you in, but the beauty of her dialogue with you just sticks in your mind and makes you more aware to what she is saying.

Though bleeding and mortality are primary themes in the book, there is also the truth that remains buried underneath the layers. This is the truth of nature, being, spirituality and the self. Within the stories, "Intricacy," to me, I felt had the most obvious truth and important truth. She goes off into little segments saying "You are God...You are a retired railroad worker...You are a starling...You are a sculptor...You are a chloroplast" (131-132). What exists in nature and spirituality all is a part of you and you are a part of them. This brings to mind a better understanding of the underlying truth in all of these topics, that they are all connected when you really deeply and truly try to understand. You can see yourself as the mantis, the Eskimo, the starling and so on because life is so deeply connected. Through this truth it is obvious she is suggesting that we try to spend more time with and in nature to really understand life's questions and reasons because we can get a good idea from what already exists.