Blog by aaron kleefield

When I was a child, i used to be drawn to to exciting things happening around me in nature much like theDillard describes in chapter 4, The Fixed. I was captured by her elaborate description of the preying mantis and its habits. "When a mantis has crunched up the last shred of its victim, it cleans its smooth green face like a cat (Dillard 56)." Furthermore, her description of the relationship between the male and female preying mantises seemed to on some levels resemble a stereotypical human relationship bewtween man and woman. She stated, "The mating rights of mantises are well known: a chemical produced in the head of the male insect says, in effect , No dont go near her you fool, shell eat you alive. At the same time a chemical in his abdomen says Yes by all means, now and forever yes(Dillard 59). On both a scientific and spiritual level man and animal are one a never ending quest love and lust, and fortunately for us guys canniblasm is no longer practiced. Lastley I found her representation of Fish holding some sort of Godliness to be very interesting when looking at them on the level of survival. She stated in chapter 11, Stalking, "To say that holiness is a fish is a statement of the abundance of grace; it is the equivalent of affirming in a purely materialistic culture that money does grow on trees(Dillard 188). " I have always taken fishing for granted as a hobby realise that for so many civilizations they used it as a means of survival and counted on fish for living day to day life. Dillard embodies the fish as being christlike for playing such a large role in people lives.