"Living like weasels" Choose a poet and completely analyze one of their essays. From the book, "Teaching a Stone to Talk" by Annie Dilliard.

Essay by loveeHigh School, 12th gradeA+, August 2008

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Teaching a Stone to talk. (Living like weasels; by Annie DilliardComing upon a wild weasel, Annie Dillard and the weasel shared something she often still thinks about. Weasels live with necessity, while humans live in choice. She gives you a different approach in life, in the eyes of a common animal. Living in choice is something we all would like to do, like the way all weasels should. A weasel is unpredictable, but obedient to his instinct. They bite their prey at the neck, either splitting the jugular vein at the throat or crunching the brain at the base of the skull, and does not let go. One man could in no way pry off a tiny weasel deeply astringent in his hand, and so walked half a mile to find water. Dangling the weasel from his palm, he soaked him off like a stubborn label. A weasel doesn’t just attack anything; a weasel will live as he’s meant to, but submissive to every moment of perfect freedom.

It’s important to grasp your one necessity and not let it go, hanging onto it wherever it may take you. Then even in death, no matter where you are going or how you may be living, you cannot part.

In life, whether it’s in your instinct or your choice, grab onto your on necessity no matter what it may take. If we chose to live wild as weasels, mute and uncomprehending, we’d all end up “down”, where the mind is singled. Choosing to live as a weasel with necessity is something we can all chose to do. In this case, the stubbornness of the weasel is something humans could try and follow. Living in poverty, chastity, silence, is all done by our choice. Follow your calling in a skilled and supple way, locating the best way to follow your calling. This would be yielding as the way a weasel would, and not fighting. No matter what your necessity may be, seize it and let it seize you up from aloft even.

Dillard composed her essay by drawing in the reader through self-reflection and comparison, giving the reader a personal approach to the subject. The purpose of this essay was to show that the stubborn actions of weasels are something we as humans could choose to follow. Annie Dillard went from describing the eventful scene to describing the experience in her mind to show how to live. She satisfies her readers through her thoughts, describing each detail perfectly, allowing her readers to envision the scene.