It has been read in many texts of man’s conquering of different cultures and different animals, but do we ever read where man has truly conquered nature. We can show evidence where man has learned to co-exist with nature, but master nature? Man is a two-legged being meant for living on a solid surface; the land not the sea. While many may take delight in the unknown environment which is the sea, many find true horror in water’s depths, the many unknown “citizens of the seas”, and the realization that they must relinquish control to nature. For man to take a vessel, to try to bring flat land onto the surface of the water a person must always maintain a degree of respect for the fact that they are not in charge; there are forces that must be worked with to ensure a peaceful and pleasant boat ride – In Poe’s The Narrative of Gordon Pym, Poe shows through specific language and sentence structure a character who showed disregard for this fact and nature proves it’s point.
The character of Pym while under the influence of drink chose to follow his friend onto a boat and into a setting where he quickly realized that he was not the master (“…doubly timid and irresolute…” (10). Already we are shown that Pym realizes that his
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Sentence structure mimics fast shallow breathing as if the words being said are of those in severe distress, “if we held our present course”…“we had neither compass nor provisions” (10). These short statements/clauses, while giving the reader the experience of the hold that the terror of Pym’s situation has on him, also mimic the winds that are imagined whipping around the boat... Pym’s thoughts themselves mimic the possible thunder and lightning that is being experienced as Poe states of Pym’s thoughts “flashed through my mind”…”bewildering rapidity”…”paralyzed”