Ben Franklin As the Antithesis of Wilderness

The Work

I really liked Ben Franklin's Autobiography Part II. His reasoning for believing in a deity and "that the most acceptable Service of God was the doing of Good to Man" resonated with me, and seemed to be the most inclusive ideology of the writers we've read so far. That aside, what really pulled me into his story was the comical approach he took in presenting the problem of achieving virtue. He also had a good natured way of dismissing the possibility of being truly virtuous.




The Antithesis of Wilderness

His detailed reasoning behind his beliefs and his orderly plan of attaining virtue are good examples of Ben Franklin's antithesis to Wilderness. He creates the "Articles of Belief and Acts of Religion" and the 13 Virtues. He has a chart that he uses to track each offense against the virtues. I would say this is the opposite of wilderness.

The funny thing is that Franklin fails miserably in the area of virtue. "I was surprised to find myself so much fuller of Faults than I had imagined, but I had the Satisfaction of seeing them diminish. To avoid the Trouble of renewing now and then my little Book, which by scraping out the marks on the Paper of old Faults to make room for new ones in a new Course, became full of Holes: I transfer'd my Tables and precepts into the Tables and Precepts of the Ivory Leaves of Memorandum Book. . ." (288). These little swiss cheese sheets of paper sum up Franklin's entire purpose of including the story.

Another good example of his desire to corral even human nature is seen in this great quote:


"In reality, there is perhaps no one of  our natural Passions so hard to subdue as Pride. Disguise it, struggle with it, beat it down, stifle it, mortify it as much as one pleases, it is still alive, and will every now and then peep out and show itself. You will see it perhaps often in this History. For even if I could conceive that I had completely overcome it, I should probably be proud of my Humility" (292).

I think the fact that Franklin tries to subdue what he calls "natural passions" shows his tendency for order vs. wilderness. You can see his control and sensibility in the way he used an old dish for years until his wife finally bought him a single china bowl and silver spoon. You can see it in the one reference to nature in the text. "And like him who having a garden to weed, does not attempt to eradicate all the bad Herbs at once, which would exceed his reach and his strength, but works on one bed at a time. . ." (287). Franklin took things-problems, ideas, people, politics-and worked them into something new. If he couldn't he made sure he understood why. At least that's how I see it.

Also, this really great blog helped me understand the topic. See the quote below for a snippet:

"Ben Franklin didn't invent electricity. He invented the lightning rod (in other words, he took the wild, natural existence of it, and contained it. He cultivated it.). . .Everything is invented. Language. Childhood.  Careers. Relationships. Religion. Philosophy. The Future. They are not there for the taking. They don't exist in some Natural state. They must be invented by people. And that, of course, is a great thing."  -Maira Kalman






The Source for the beautiful paintings of Benjamin Franklin's life is here.

Anne Bradstreet

Anne Bradstreet's poetry does deal with concepts of wilderness. I think we discussed in class the fact that she came to north America with John Winthrop, and wilderness was her environment. Because of this, she can't help but use the wilderness to create images and metaphors in her writing.

In Contemplations, she wonders at the natural world. She discusses the autumnal leaves, the tall oak's old age, the "swift annual and diurnal course," etc. She asks the sun, "art thou so full of glory that no eye hath strength thy shining rays once to behold?" (100.) In stanza 8 she mentions her feeling of awe , "Silent, alone, where none or saw, or heard, in pathless paths I lead my wand'ring feet, my humble eyes to lofty skies I reared. . ." (101.)

Bradstreet's A Letter to Her Husband, Absent upon Public Employment was obviously written during a period of wilderness in her life. She makes statements such as, "My sun is gone so far in zodiac, whom whilst I 'joyed, nor storms, nor frost I felt. . ." (108.)

Wilderness: Captivity and Escape

The captivity narrative authors covered in class describe wilderness much differently than Ambrose Pierce did in An Occurence at Owl Creek Bridge. Although the authors viewed their captors differently, Mary Rowlandson and Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca both describe wilderness as a harsh, dangerous and sometimes frightening place. In contrast, Amrose Pierce uses wilderness to allow his protagonist to momentarily escape his own captors before he is ultimately hung.

In The Relation of Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca, the author describes the harsh climate and periods of famine. "From October to the end of February every year. . .they subsist on the roots which I mentioned"(31.) Among them we underwent fiercer hunger. . .we ate not more than two handfuls of prickly pears a day, and they were so green and milky they burned out mouths. . .Not being accustomed to going [naked] we shed our skins twice a year like snakes. The sun and air raised great, painful sores on our chest and shoulders. . ." (33). He speaks well of the people despite their strange customs. He seems to have more respect for the wilderness and the people able to live within the harshness of the wild.

Mary Rowlandson describes her experience in A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson as "the vast and desolate wilderness" (121.) She also underwent incredible hunger and cold, losing her six year old daughter to a fever (123) and feeling intense fear of the tribes people. She even went so far as to compare their dancing in the night to hell.

The Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge portrays the wilderness as an escape. As the planter swims down the stream and notices the vibrancy of the amplified form of nature in his dream, he has hope. He reaches to bank and rolls in the sand, comparing it to "diamonds, rubies, emeralds." In the end, we learn that he is actually preparing to die, travelling inwardly toward his family for one last embrace with his wife, through the tunnels of the wild. He notices the vibrations of life all around him as he prepares to depart this world.

An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge

An Occurance at Owl Creek Bridge uses elements of nature and wilderness throughout the story to express the journey and realizations of the protagonist on his way to death. The one thing in the story that isn't natural-the bridge- is the place where he meets the soldiers and is ultimately hung. As he stands on the plank of wood, he looks down at the water. "He looked down at his "unsteadfast footing," then let his gaze wander to the swirling water of the stream racing madly beneath his feet. A piece of dancing driftwood caught his attention and his eyes followed it down the current. How slowly it appeared to move. . ." The "unsteadfast footing" seems to signify his situation and frame of mind, the water swirling sees to signify his fear. As he sees the driftwood flowing slowly down the river, we gain a sense of slowly moving time as he awaits his hanging.

His interaction with nature or wilderness is amplified after he had "fallen into the stream." He swam for his life and the whole time, he saw nature in a vivid and , at times, abstract way. "He felt the ripples upon his face and heard their separate sounds as they struck. he looked at the forest and on the bank of the stream, saw the individual trees, the leaves and the veining of each leaf-saw the very insects upon them. . . " He saw down the river, which seems to represent his life in some way, and reached the sandy bank. "It looked like diamonds, rubies, emerald; he could think of nothing beautiful which it did not resemble. The trees upon the bank were like giant garden plants." He later travels a road "as wide as a city" bordered by nothing civil. Overhead he saw "great garden stars" as he traveled to his home as fast as possible.

His wilderness is a journey and an essence of the precious life he knew he would lose. I think the representation of wilderness does line up with my definition of wilderness because it is a journey that he takes during his last moments of life. In other ways, it doesn't line up with my definition since my most basic definition is simply an untainted natural place.


I included the video we watched in class for anyone who may not have seen it before.