“Knowing Our Place,” by Barbara Kingsolver, demonstrates the prominence of nature in society. According to Kingsolver, humans need nature and to know their place. Kingsolver claims that we need nature because we need to take a step back and realize that life is as simple as nature. Kingsolver lives off the land in copious places and finds peace within writing. She believes that she needs nature to think straight, not cell phones or cable TV. Kingsolver states, “People need wild places” (40). This quote, at the end of the piece, acted as a final statement. The italicization of need emphasizes the importance of wild places. Wild places are needed so humans know their place, as nature was here first. Humans have separated themselves from nature. People have separated themselves from nature because of the advancement in technology. Instead of looking at passing trees and blue skies, people are looking down at their phones or at a TV. Although, throughout the essay the tone is not angry, it is calm and tranquil like nature. Kingsolver would like to make …show more content…
Kingsolver discusses the impact that children will no longer know that “trees breathe out what we breathe in” (38). This matters to Kingsolver because of her own children. She does not want the absence of nature in her children’s lives or for them to fall into the traps of society. Nature and land are a story of us, humans live on the land and yet the humans kill and take away the land. There is a need for protection of the land according to Kingsolver. Humans have killed the land by deforestation for decades. Pollution by our cars and technology have also killed the land. As a society, we have a lack of appreciation for all nature does for us, as the trees keep us breathing and give us their lives so we can write. Trees are only a subtle topic of nature, but are demolished constantly for the building of corporations that only produce pollution to kill off more