Manipulating Nature By JumboMoos Discusses futile human attempt to control nature is. Uses "Prodigal Summer" as support.

Essay by JumboMoosJunior High, 9th gradeA+, January 2003

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Manipulating Nature

Ever since man took his first step onto the Mother Earth, he has been trying to force her to obey his rules. This is a major theme in the book Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver. As humans, we think we are of higher intelligence and therefor we have the right to control whatever we see fit. Humanity does not realize that the natural community has rules it cannot change, thus humans create their own rules and attempt to manipulate nature to benefit themselves.

Humans believe that they hold some kind of "special authority" over animals just because they can. In reality, humans hold the "same place held by a mockingbird...and a salamander" (215 Kingsolver). We are all a part of the natural scheme of things, humans, mockingbirds, salamanders and all. Each is living thing is as important as the next. Some claim authority over nature because of religion.

God gave humans "every herb bearing seed...and every tree in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat" (186). But God also says that to "every beast of the earth ,and to every fowl of the air and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat" (217). Humans are not the only creatures God is looking after; He's looking out for the salamanders, too, reminding us that there's life in them and that even "weeds and pond algae are sacred because they're salamander food" (217).

Humans do to the natural world as it suits them. In Prodigal Summer there is a family of coyotes that has been driven to the mountains by fearful farmers. Wherever they went "they'd have the hatred of farmers to contend with" (201). Because it...