The Worth of One
Life has many different aspects and facets that create its various struggles and triumphs. In questioning its meanings, one encounters all of them. Annie Dillard's nonfiction narrative, For The Time Being, addresses many of these aspects from her point of view and the eyes of specific individuals and humanity as whole. In most works about life, death is an unavoidable topic, and it comes into play at multiple points throughout the narrative. A prominent cultural aspect that has a strong impact on the work as a whole is the worth, or cost, of the loss of an individual life and the significance, or insignificance, of mourning.
The section beginning on page 58 within the second “Evil” chapter lists, with an impassive tone, many lesser known genocides and mass murders, which displays the selective nature of any given person's capacity for mourning, despite the “four thousand prisoners” killed by Emperor Qin, and the “million men, women, and children” intentionally starved to death “quite recently” in Ireland. Despite the mind-numbing “seventy-two million victims” killed by Communist China, their deaths are relatively unknown to the average reader and largely go un-mourned. Dillard has the mass murders and genocide become more and more recent, ending with the “eight hundred thousand Tutsis” killed in 1994, confirming the general ignorance humanity has of death on a broad scale.
In the following lines, Dillard makes the work provoke an attempt to reconcile the belief in the tragedy of an individual death and the mourning that follows along with the fact that each death attributed to the multitude of genocides and mass killings that have occurred throughout human history belonged to the same concept of individual as the singular deaths that are mourned for lengthy periods of time. The narrative forces the acceptance of the fact that these mass deaths are comprised of smaller, more intimate, and personal ones. According to Dillard, any loss of knowledge of an individual life’s worth is “dangerous”, which illustrates that it is a conflicting aspect of culture found within humanity. On page 59, the previous statement is in a way contradicted, agreeing with the idea that in general, mourning these mass deaths causes less pain that it would “to break a leg”.
The aspect’s cultural nature is more clearly shown in the next lines as Dillard refers directly to views “here in the West”, marking it as a different culture. She questions if the separation of cultures also separates whether or not we mourn a tragedy, citing a damaging sweep of the bubonic plague “as recently as 1894” that killed millions in Asia, yet is not nearly as known to the majority of humanity as the infamous yet older outbreak in Europe. She drills rhetorical questions, asking if how important a human life is seen to be can “weaken with” the distance between the mourner and the ones who have passed. The introspection and inquiring continue as questions are asked that attempt to gauge the reach of humanity’s sympathy for other humans, affirming that of course they care about individuals such as “your children”, then beginning to list lesser known peoples, “Ingush”, “Buryats”, “Bashliks”, and culminating in another mind-numbing number, first with the “5.9 million” people still alive and the “80 billion” who have passed, contributing to overall tones of questioning and conflict.
The cultural aspect of mourning remains present through the non-fiction narrative in its entirety, crossing even into differing subheadings. On page 118, in the section “Now”, death is again said to “blindside” most people, especially “in the West”, which displays the somewhat inane nature of such surprise, as death is a universal experience. Within the next lines, Dillard uses morbid imagery and an impassive tone to show death in an unaffected view, discussing how in the heat, corpse “bellies pop” and the method which is used to determine if a corpse is “truly dead”, involving a toe blister which either “explodes” or “pops the skin” depending on whether the subject is alive or dead. On page 119, the subject of humanity being much larger than the individual is brought up again, as humanity is compared to a “living tree”. Many different groups of animals are listed, as it is argued that “a herd” is seen as one living organism, and it is brought to question why the individual is so highly regarded in humanity. Again, “the West” is brought up, this time criticizing its high view of the individual, at times over the “abstract ‘humanity’” that opposes it, which shows the contradictive nature of the subject. It is soon after stated that religion “challenges” the idea of the individual even existing, citing the Buddhist teaching to “vanquish” the idea that any given person has a self. On 120, the idea of the human race being a “tree” is revisited, as Dillard compares “dead loved ones” to the dying branches on a tree that are killed as the organism grows, showing that death is a part of life and not necessarily something to be so caught up with. Yet at the end of the section, Dillard again turns around on her words and causes the questioning and contradictions to deepen, as she ponders if the tree is worth it if so much “pain” and “waste” must be involved to grow it. This is admittance that the pain of a personal death is abhorred to endure.
The cultural aspect of the significance of mourning an individual passing makes Annie Dillard’s For The Time Being question thoroughly whether or not how death is viewed from culture to culture is logical or correct. Life and death are intrinsically connected, and one cannot exist without the other. Yet at the same time, there is life in an individual and life to be found in a species as a whole. Dillard’s narrative questions extensively on these two topics, and the aspect digs deep into both of them and creates deep tones of questioning and contradiction involved in topics that would at a first glance appear to be as clear cut as night and day.
The section beginning on page 58 within the second “Evil” chapter lists, with an impassive tone, many lesser known genocides and mass murders, which displays the selective nature of any given person's capacity for mourning, despite the “four thousand prisoners” killed by Emperor Qin, and the “million men, women, and children” intentionally starved to death “quite recently” in Ireland. Despite the mind-numbing “seventy-two million victims” killed by Communist China, their deaths are relatively unknown to the average reader and largely go un-mourned. Dillard has the mass murders and genocide become more and more recent, ending with the “eight hundred thousand Tutsis” killed in 1994, confirming the general ignorance humanity has of death on a broad scale.
In the following lines, Dillard makes the work provoke an attempt to reconcile the belief in the tragedy of an individual death and the mourning that follows along with the fact that each death attributed to the multitude of genocides and mass killings that have occurred throughout human history belonged to the same concept of individual as the singular deaths that are mourned for lengthy periods of time. The narrative forces the acceptance of the fact that these mass deaths are comprised of smaller, more intimate, and personal ones. According to Dillard, any loss of knowledge of an individual life’s worth is “dangerous”, which illustrates that it is a conflicting aspect of culture found within humanity. On page 59, the previous statement is in a way contradicted, agreeing with the idea that in general, mourning these mass deaths causes less pain that it would “to break a leg”.
The aspect’s cultural nature is more clearly shown in the next lines as Dillard refers directly to views “here in the West”, marking it as a different culture. She questions if the separation of cultures also separates whether or not we mourn a tragedy, citing a damaging sweep of the bubonic plague “as recently as 1894” that killed millions in Asia, yet is not nearly as known to the majority of humanity as the infamous yet older outbreak in Europe. She drills rhetorical questions, asking if how important a human life is seen to be can “weaken with” the distance between the mourner and the ones who have passed. The introspection and inquiring continue as questions are asked that attempt to gauge the reach of humanity’s sympathy for other humans, affirming that of course they care about individuals such as “your children”, then beginning to list lesser known peoples, “Ingush”, “Buryats”, “Bashliks”, and culminating in another mind-numbing number, first with the “5.9 million” people still alive and the “80 billion” who have passed, contributing to overall tones of questioning and conflict.
The cultural aspect of mourning remains present through the non-fiction narrative in its entirety, crossing even into differing subheadings. On page 118, in the section “Now”, death is again said to “blindside” most people, especially “in the West”, which displays the somewhat inane nature of such surprise, as death is a universal experience. Within the next lines, Dillard uses morbid imagery and an impassive tone to show death in an unaffected view, discussing how in the heat, corpse “bellies pop” and the method which is used to determine if a corpse is “truly dead”, involving a toe blister which either “explodes” or “pops the skin” depending on whether the subject is alive or dead. On page 119, the subject of humanity being much larger than the individual is brought up again, as humanity is compared to a “living tree”. Many different groups of animals are listed, as it is argued that “a herd” is seen as one living organism, and it is brought to question why the individual is so highly regarded in humanity. Again, “the West” is brought up, this time criticizing its high view of the individual, at times over the “abstract ‘humanity’” that opposes it, which shows the contradictive nature of the subject. It is soon after stated that religion “challenges” the idea of the individual even existing, citing the Buddhist teaching to “vanquish” the idea that any given person has a self. On 120, the idea of the human race being a “tree” is revisited, as Dillard compares “dead loved ones” to the dying branches on a tree that are killed as the organism grows, showing that death is a part of life and not necessarily something to be so caught up with. Yet at the end of the section, Dillard again turns around on her words and causes the questioning and contradictions to deepen, as she ponders if the tree is worth it if so much “pain” and “waste” must be involved to grow it. This is admittance that the pain of a personal death is abhorred to endure.
The cultural aspect of the significance of mourning an individual passing makes Annie Dillard’s For The Time Being question thoroughly whether or not how death is viewed from culture to culture is logical or correct. Life and death are intrinsically connected, and one cannot exist without the other. Yet at the same time, there is life in an individual and life to be found in a species as a whole. Dillard’s narrative questions extensively on these two topics, and the aspect digs deep into both of them and creates deep tones of questioning and contradiction involved in topics that would at a first glance appear to be as clear cut as night and day.