I have a thesis and a general idea of where I’m going with this essay. I was able to draw from material I really enjoy, but I think I have to narrow down my claim a bit more and figure out what bits I will draw from each text. This is what I have so far:

The Western World first began the detachment from the natural world in Feudal Europe, and this separation from nature was further widened by the creation and romanticisation of the wilderness through America’s newly created National Parks. The Western World fails to understand that it is possible to coexist with the natural environment without separating humans from nature. The Western World’s separation from wilderness is what caused wilderness to be invented.

I will be building on my close reading on Melusine which discusses the origin of the Western World’s separation from nature. Then, I will discuss/close read parts of The Trouble with Wilderness as well as a silent black and white short film created by the U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service called Natives of Yosemite in order to further my argument about how the romanticization of nature and the removal of Native Americans from land to be used as “wilderness” furthers this issue. The short film I want to dissect ironically is called Natives of Yosemite, but it does not include any Native Americans, it mostly lists some stats about the biggest trees and the Wawona Tree. Contrary to the literal tree being closer to man and its invention of the car with it being carved out as a tunnel, the commodification of the natural world is what separates man from nature, subsequently leading to the justification of environmental destruction.

A somewhat ambitious addition to this project could be the inclusion of Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma to further back my claim that the Western World becoming separated from nature is what drives environmental destruction (industrial food system, capitalism, etc). This would of course make my thesis more complicated.

Texts:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFWQjZIQPec U.S. Department of the Interior, NPS

Melusine

The Trouble With Wilderness