Nature in American Literature
The setting of a novel has the ability to set a mood for readers throughout the story, and in the majority of the stories read this semester nature is relied on heavily for this function. During the realistic, naturalistic, and modernistic periods in American literature, nature has been brought to life in different ways to illuminate the cultural views of that time. Willa Cather’s One of Ours, William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying, and Stephen Crane’s The Open Boat are all examples of texts that illuminate certain aspects of nature relative to their time. While reading these texts the question of whether nature is a natural power or God influenced can be raised, as well as if man controls the nature surrounding him or if he is controlled by it.
During the naturalistic period of American literature, nature is used to set the stage for a particular landscape or setting. In Cather’s One of Ours, the Nebraska prairie is highlighted heavily throughout the book. The reader is able to gain a clear picture in their head of the surroundings of characters by descriptions like, “all over the dusty, tan-coloured wheatfields there was a tender mist of green, -millions of little fingers reaching up and waving lightly in the sun… Along the roadsides, from under
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In Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying, the use of different perspectives each chapter allows for this to be highlighted. Throughout the book Darl is the only character that dwells on nature. He uses descriptions like, “the sun, an hour about the horizon, is poised like a bloody egg upon a crest of thunderheads; the light has turned copper: in the eye portentous, in the nose sulphurous, smelling of lightening (40)” to describe his surrounding. When Cash acknowledges nature he only seems to see what he is able to make from the wood nature provides. Besides these two, no one else in the novel highlights nature in their perceptions of the