building understanding…sea devil- mountain journey
Title The Sea Devil and A Mountain Journey (Plus the Lorax.) Your name: Jenna Traub
| Which Essential Question(s) is addressed in this piece of literature? | Content:
a) What happens in the text/movie/Talk? b) What is the main message/theme? |
Understanding:
How does the text answer the EQ? Answer in full sentences. Record relevant quotes and page numbers/lines if needed. |
|
A) How does arrogance affect our lives?
B) What motivates us in the face of despair and oppression?
|
a) In both the stories the author emphasize’s the conflict in society between humans and nature. Both the stories go through the men suffering through dangerous enviroments, showcasing that nature has the upper hand. The men are arrogant through out the story, leading them to poor decisions. Through different types of luck the men learned that they can not control nature, that they need nature but nature does not need them.
b) The main message the authors are trying to get across is how nature doesn’t need us, but we need it – nature is more powerful than we will ever be, and also how arrogance controls our lives, and leads us to poor decisions. |
Through reading the Sea Devil and A Mountain Journey, we learn how human’s arrogance leads us to poor decisions, like watching our society succeed in our new achievements and inventions that our destroying our planet and affecting how humans preform in the world today. Like in the Lorax, the Once-ler is arrogant because he wants to make some profit over a “thneed” so he destory the “truffula trees” which leads to a world confined in a ‘cage’ like enviroment with no nature, just plastic called Thneed-Ville. Specifically in the Sea devil we see him make a poor decision when he casts the net towards the two swirls because he thinks he can handle what is coming at him. “He saw the net shoot forward, flare into an oval, and drop just where he wanted it. Then the sea exploded in his face.” Pg. 36. In the mountain journey Dave’s poor decision was when first of all he doesn’t stop two miles back at the tree, “He knew as he stood on the summit that he should have made camp two miles back in the timber and crossed the divide in the morning.” Pg. 91. As we read these stories we learn that people’s arrogance can control the decisions we make and lead to scary and dangerous situations. We also learn how mother nature is in control and that no matter what we do, it comes back and claims it’s rights. “…looking up he saw the nightly plane from New Orleans inbound for Tampa. Calm and serene, it sailed, symbol of man’s proud mastery over nature.” Pg. 41. When the plane flies over the man’s head it represents how humans think they have mastery over nature but really, nature doesn’t need us, we need it. The plane needs the sky to fly, we need the trees to breath, the water to drink. In the nature video, Julia Roberts voices mother nature and says, she doesn’t need us and that “…our future depends on me.” Meaning that our future is depending on mother nature. This plane represents the seperation between nature and humans. In the sea devil we learn that through the time the man is struggling for his life, humans are motivated by the thought of death when in the face of opression and despair, but as we look at the mountain journey the man’s arrogance gets in the way and he, in the end, gives up and dies. Also watching the Lorax, when the Once-ler cuts down the last truffula tree he is done, he locks himself in his house and doesn’t come out because he is disgusted with himself. Often our decisions lead us to oppression and despair and instead of trying to fix the problem we lock ourselves up. In class we talked about doing something small to help save the enviroment. Take it from Dr. Seuss, “Change the way things are. I know it might seem small and unsignificant, but it’s not about what it is, its about what it can become.”- Dr. Seuss.
“Unless someone like you cares a whole lot, nothing is going to get better, it’s not.” Dr. Seuss
|
Hi Jenna – a very thorough, detailed analysis. Well-written.