Pilgrim at Tinker Creek is a novel written by a famous American female author Annie Dillard. The book tells the reader about the world around the author and the feelings it awakes in her. One of the major topics revealed in the novel is nature. With the use of well-chosen stylistic devices Annie Dillard manages to portray the weather both looking horrible and beautiful.
The story is told from the perspective of the narrator, whose name is not mentioned, but the reader can connect her to the author. The narrator dwells near to Tinker Creek that is situated in the Blue Ridge Mountains, Roanoke, Virginia for a year. She observes the surroundings, changing of the seasons, describes vegetation and animal life around her and expresses her feeling, emotions, meanderings, comments, tangents, thoughts and poetic responses. In the first chapter Dillard prepares the reader for a journey through her own view: “It’s a good place to live; there’s a lot to think about.” (Dillard, 4)
With the changing of seasons, the narrator notices various alterations in the flora and fauna. Nature reveals for her in all its beauty and innocence. She points out that if the day is fine – everything around her seems to be good and pleasant: “Water in particular looks its best, reflecting blue sky in the flat, and chopping it into graveled shallows and white chute and foam in the riffles.” (Dillard, 5) With the help of visual imagery the narrator creates a peaceful picture of the nature. The colors she uses are blue and white. They both are very soothing and are the symbols of tranquility, harmony and purity. The description of sunset is breathtaking: “These gold lights veer and retract, shatter and glide in a series of dazzling splashes, shrinking, leaking, exploding.” (Dillard, 79) The enumeration of participles creates a tension and climax in the sentence. They year spent at the Tinker Creek helped her to see the beauty of the nature in every little thing of it. Even the observation of starlings bring her joy: “I stood with difficulty, bashed by the unexpectedness of this beauty, and my spread lungs roared.” (Dillard, 42)
On the other hand, Annie Dillard notices that the nature may also declare itself as a horrifying thing: “On a dark day, or a hazy one, everything’s washed-out and lackluster” (Dillard, 5) The narrator uses very strong epithets and comparisons with negative implication to express her feelings about the weather and the nature: “the wind is terrific”, “the shadow on the field [] spread like a plague”, “a horrible nature movie”, “a violent froth that looks like dirty lace”, “the waves are translucent, laving, roiling with beauty like sharks”. She is amazed as well as the reader, that the nature can be so different.
The more horrifying things can be found in the descriptions of the insects. The narrator observes and makes parallels to the other things she has in mind. For example, she describes the mantis and his gruesome habits, comparing it with a cat that usually associated with something lovely and warm: “When a mantis has crunched up the last shred of its victim, it cleans its smooth green face like a cat.” (Dillard, 56)
In literary theory, the nature is considered to be a mirror, a reflection of the authors’ inner feelings. That is why every day the narrator percepts the nature different. The deeper analysis of the text can show that the paragraphs with description of the nature’s beauty and horror are mixed up. It means that the feelings of the narrator are as changeable and impermanent like the weather.
In my opinion, the book Pilgrim at Tinker Creek is a good nature guide. All the descriptions of the nature and the feelings they awake help the reader to dip into the natural world. The depictions of different seasons teach a lesson that the nature and the weather can be different – not only gorgeous and beautiful, but also horrible and cruel. Don Scheese in his book Nature Writing: The Pastoral Impulse in America points out that Annie Dillard in her Pilgrim at Tinker Creek “learns that nature can be an effective basis for self-culture, and that immersion in nature can lead to the physical, intellectual, and spiritual rejuvenation of the pastoralist.” (Scheese, 123) This knowledge is transferred to every reader of the book and encourages learning how to live in harmony with the nature.
Moreover, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek can be treated as a good encyclopedia. Annie Dillard describes plants and different animals very thoroughly. She talks about frogs, dragonflies, water bugs, spiders, mockingbirds and so on. Her deep knowledge and a good ability of observation work in her favor. With a simple words and poetic comparisons she makes a story about a yucky frog gripping and mysterious: “Soon, part of his skin, formless as a pricked balloon, lay in floating folds like bright scum on top of the water: it was a monstrous and terrifying thing.” (Dillard, 8) The description is unpleasant, but it influences the reader in the magic way – it attracts the attention even more, starts the fire of curiosity and develops the imagination.
Works Cited
Dillard, Annie. Pilgrim At Tinker Creek. Pymble, NSW: HarperCollins e-books, 2007. Print.
Scheese, Don. Nature Writing: The Pastoral Impulse in America. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1996. Print.
