Author Archives: Lina Rau

Final Essay

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Lina Rau

Dr. Pressman

ECL 305

Final Essay

9 May 2024

The Ocean as an Archive in The Water Will Carry Us Home and The Deep

The Middle Passage is part of one of the most brutal chapters in human history and is marked by the transatlantic slave trade, which resulted in the forced migration of millions of Africans to the Americas. In Gabrielle Tesfaye’s short film The Water Will Carry Us Home (2018) and Rivers Solomon’s novel The Deep (2019), the ocean emerges as a medium through which the ancestral memories of the Middle Passage are explored and remembered. In both narratives, African pregnant women are thrown overboard and undergo a transformation into mermaid-like creatures. The ocean is in both narratives the place that at the end saves the souls of those thrown overboard, which suggests that the ocean is a place that collects the ancestral memories of the people that have endured the Middle Passage. Now that the ocean holds these memories in the form of preserving the lives of those thrown overboard into mermaids, it has become an archive which contains knowledge. The reimagination of the ocean as an archive serves as a mechanism for the preservation of cultural memory.

In Rivers Solomon’s novel, the role of the ocean as an archive is vividly portrayed through the experiences of Yetu, who is the historian of the wajinru. Her interaction with the oceanic archive bring forth the traumatic experiences of her ancestors: “The rememberings carried her mind away from the ocean to the past. These days, she was more there than here […]. Yetu was becoming an ancestor herself. Like them, she was dead, or very near it” (Solomon 2019, p.9). What is seen here, is that the ocean has a transformative force that lets Yetu merge between the present and past, until she “was becoming an ancestor herself” (p.9). The passage above, which is found at the very beginning of the novel, highlights the heaviness of the historical trauma that is stored deep in the ocean, as Yetu was like the ancestors “dead, or very near it” (p.9). Additionally, the role of being the historian must be a burdensome one, as Yetu finds herself more in the past than in the present. She carries the weight of the wajinru’s collective memory on her shoulders, suggesting that her role is not only to remember, but also to embody the history herself and to survive, “Remember now or you perish. Without your history, you are empty!” (p. 25).

By embodying the history and carrying the weight on her shoulders, more interestingly, it seems that Yetu is actively manifesting the concept of being an archive through her role as the historian by herself: “[Yetu’s] body was full of other bodies. Every wajinru who had ever lived possessed her in this moment” (p.22). She is given a sense of responsibility as her body is “full of other bodies”, which signifies that she is an archive that holds knowledge herself.

Her being an archive could nevertheless never work without looking at the ocean’s importance in that matter. As a historian, Yetu dives into the ocean’s depths to retrieve as many memories during the yearly painful remembrances as possible, “Despite the waves of pain rocking her into a catatonic trance, she continued. Images, stories, songs, feelings, smells, hungers, longings, tears – memories – left her mind” (p. 29). Despite of it being so painful, she nevertheless continues to look for more stories in the ocean. Concluding from that, the ocean is like a vast storage depot that provides all the knowledge that is needed for Yetu to continue her job – and from which can be learned. Considering that, Yetu and the ocean engage collaboratively with each other. Taking that into account, the ocean must be seen as the bigger archive providing every History and information needed, whereas Yetu has the vital role of being the ocean’s transmitter. Through Yetu, the ocean and its archive are given an active voice, through which the memories are remembered and put into words. Through Yetu, the transmission the oceanic archive’s knowledge to multiple generations if facilitated.

Moreover, the whole act of remembering every year must be seen under the premise of not forgetting what happened in past. It is the ocean that provides access to the supposedly forgotten stories. Whenever Yetu gets a flashback of a story, just like that one: “Yetu thought she remembered something about another young woman whose family was wiped out in an instant by disease […]” (p. 74), the reader has to remind oneself that the ocean has witnessed all of that trauma even before a historian could catch up on it.

A big significance must also be put onto the wajinru’s origins. Yetu explains:“Our mothers were pregnant two-legs thrown overboard while crossing the ocean on slave ships. We were born breathing water as we did in the womb. We built our home on the seafloor, unaware of the two-legged surface dwellers” (p. 22). Even though the passage confronts the horror of African pregnant women thrown overboard on slave ships, the ocean is not devalued as a site of trauma, but rather seen as a womb: “We were born breathing water as we did in the womb” (p. 22). The ocean is thus becoming a life-giving entity, where new identities can emerge and where the ones thrown overboard can continue to live as mermaids. Concluding from that, the ocean is not a passive force that just preserves the horrific past, it can also lead to the creation of new beings.

One important point that goes hand in hand with the above-stated is the ocean’s function of being the wajinru’s first caretaker ever: “When the History threatened to end Yetu, she went to one memory in particular: their first caretaker. In this remembering, there is a lone wajinru pup floating, alive and content. It was the ocean who was their first amaba” (p. 100). By saying that it was the ocean who first took care of them, it gets personified. That personification underlines the fact, that the ocean is not just a passive environment or the habitat where the wajinru live in. By protecting the first innocecent wajinrus (which make them be seen like little babies), emphasis on the ocean shaping the wajinru’s identity is put on. It was and becomes a special witness of time that has collected all the memories and traumas from the past to successfully establish new lives.

Lastly, the ocean does not only passively absorb all of the memories and voices from the ones thrown overboard, but also actively provides physical evidence and artifacts on the History. In the novel, Yetu talks about one specific memory that still has an impact on her: “In one of the rememberings, there was still hair caught in a comb belonging to the foremother” (p.20). Yetu has not only found a comb that belongs to humans deep in the ocean, but she has also found a comb which still has hair in it. The hair is a physical reminder, more even a symbol, of a past life that is preserved in the ocean. Even though the physical body might be decayed in the water, the hair of the person can still be detected in the middle of the ocean: it is the evidence of a person that has once lived and that has had a whole personality. The ocean is thus not only functioning as an archive when it comes to the wajinru’s memories, deep inside of it, one can also find physical objects of those memories and DNA – the Ocean is a living archive.

All of these examples from the Deep show that the ocean is indeed a living archive through which the cultural memory is preserved. It contains not only physical evidence in its archive, but also the deeply traumatizing memories that Yetu vocalizes and expresses through her work. Both Yetu and the Ocean (Yetu seen as the big archive’s transmitter), are important to preserve the history so that it never gets forgotten. These narratives deeply align with the depiction of the ocean being an archive in Tesfaye’s film:

The film starts with a compelling quote of the Water Spirit Omambala: “The Water Spirit Omambala brought us here. The Water Spirit Omambala will carry us home” (1:23 min.). Omambala thus emerges as a liminal figure that encapsulates both suffering and salvation. The Water Spirit’s ability to bring people back home, make it seen as if it has a dual role in the complex relationship that African cultures had with the ocean- it is a relationship that is presumedly based on the historical events of the Middle Passage and storytelling. Concluding from that, Omambala acts a guide and something that can be looked up to across the ocean, which suggests that the ocean is in fact a living archive that holds cultural knowledge.

Furthermore, the film opens with a symbolic scene where a human character engages in a ritual ceremony that is marked by colorful and bright painted art and painted skin, including painted hands (cf. 0:00 – 1:17 min). That segment is essential, as it vividly illustrates the cultural richness of African traditions, which is from big significance in the next part of the video. In the latter, the viewers are faced with an artistic paper world that is painted with watercolors, in which a man opens the lock of a door with a key he has in his hands (cf. 1:26 – 2:15 min). The image of unlocking a door stands as a metaphor of the often concealed or ignored African traditions, that are deliberately “locked” away by Westerners who do not want to face the brutal history of the Middle Passage. By visually unlocking these histories, the forgotten traditions are put stress on again and they are given importance. It is about these traditions, that are saved in the ocean’s archive and must never be forgotten.

Another recurring figure is the eye that is painted onto the hands of the woman in the beginning of the video and the artistic character of the man (cf. 1:13, 1:30 min). The eye, often regarded as omniscient, symbolizes deep knowledge about the history and culture being recounted. Concluding from that notion, there might be additional, untold stories existing in the deep that are not being recounted yet. The eye therefore represents a capacity to see literally beyond the surface of what is being presented as “truthful” or “meaningful”. If in that video only a singular history is documented, one can pick-and-choose which history is being told and which in particular is not. This pick-and-choose mentality has, one can assume, a severe impact on what archives are being built. It is thus an active decision on what to erase in the history and what to put out in order to build an archive. The archive that existed prior to this video has therefore erased the history and stories of the people that are presented now. The stories and traditions that are still hidden in the archive of the ocean, are now finally acknowledged and seen through the metaphor of the eye.

Another significant scene that underlines the point of the ocean being an archive is the scene, in which African pregnant women are thrown overboard and are turned into mermaids by the Water Spirit (cf. 3:37-5:06). The transformation above symbolizes the African women’s new existence that goes beyond mortality. As mermaids (which they now are), the women are not bound by the limitations of human life anymore and possess immortal qualities. That they now have immortal qualities is shown at 4:29, when the Water Spirit Omambala is nurturing the ones thrown overboard by fishes. The newly-transformed mermaids still have human-like features like dark hair and traditional jewelry (cf. 04:38 min). The mermaids now live deep in the ocean which is suggested by water background in the video (cf. 4:50). The scene above links to the ocean being an archive in the sense, that the mermaids’ new habitat is no longer earth, but the ocean. In their new existence, they are no longer victims of the Middle Passage, but have a new and vibrant form of presence. The voices, stories, traditions and identities of those thrown overboard are now preserved in the ocean, even though their stories might be forgotten on land. Their new existence makes them be an important member of the ocean which legacy continues. Even the portrayal of the two mermaids finding together to create new family (4:52 min), creates the sense of having an ability to have a second life under water which allows them to influence the present. The mermaids’ memories are and will always be preserved in the ocean’s depth.

Those mermaids also have the feature of the omniscient eye which is being talked about above (cf. 4:39 min). The omniscient eye on the mermaids, the man and the human in the beginning of the video, combines all words depicted in the video, meaningly the life above the water of the ones who survived slavery and the mermaids under water. All figures remember the culture’s richness; they are all closely connected to one another. The eye could therefore, apart from the analysis above, be an acknowledgement of the hidden archive in the ocean that is portrayed by the mermaid’s life under water.

As seen in both texts, the ocean does not only serve as the natural setting of both narratives, but also is an archival entity. Both stories engage with the ocean as being an archive through mermaid-like creatures that live deep down in the ocean after the traumatizing experiences on the slave ships. In The Deep, a special focus is put onto Yetu’s role as the historian, who is forced to endure those painful memories in order to save the whole wajinru community. Compared to that, in The Water Will Carry Us Home, a huge significance is put onto the Water Spirit that transforms the humans into mermaids. Nevertheless, in both texts, the ocean provides memories and voices, so that the culture is preserved.

Works Cited:

Solomon, R. (2019). The Deep.

Tesfaye, G. (2018). The Water Will Carry Us Home.

What I have learned in this class

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I do not even know where to start my reflection on what I’ve learned this semester. Even though I am an English major, none of my classes have ever helped me improve my writing skills as much as this one. But that’s not the only thing I’ve learned in the past few weeks.

My learning process certainly began in the first two weeks of the semester when we studied sirens and Christianity. Who would have thought that the beautiful image of Ariel I had in mind before taking this class would be changed forever?

Apart from that, I encountered so many different narratives about mermaids that I would never have discovered without this class. Mama Wati, Oannes, and others brought many new perspectives to the surface that I will never forget.

Through this class, I have learned a lot about how we perceive wilderness and the ocean. The narratives we’ve read have taught me how closely literature is connected to, for example, environmental crises—and that they offer lessons on life!

Literature and storytelling have always been important for diving into the archives of different cultures. Why did I grow up so narrow-minded as to forget about other histories? Thanks to this class, I now know that in the future, I want to incorporate narratives into my geography lessons when I become a teacher.

I could continue writing at length about the aspects I’ve learned in our class, but I feel I should stop before I start to get sad that my semester abroad is about to end. Thanks to everyone in that class, I feel like I have broadened my horizon. I got to know so many wonderful people and will surely keep the class atmosphere and even how to teach with such passion in my memories!

Final thesis statement proposal

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In Gabrielle Tesfaye‘s The Water Will Carry Us Home and Rivers Solomon‘s The Deep, the ocean emerges a medium through which the ancestral memories and traumas of the Middle Passage are explored and remembered. In both texts, African pregnant women are thrown overboard and underwent a transformation into mermaid like creatures. Both narratives use that story to reclaim African diasporan narratives through the use of the ocean. The ocean therefore must be recognized as an archive that holds knowledge. 

Week 14: Exploring the homeland in The Deep

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River Solomon’s The Deep has introduced the readers to only one interesting concept of a homeland that seems as if they are different even though they are not. On page 122, Yetu and Oori both discuss what relationship they have to their homeland. That dialogue between Oori and Yetu illustrates that a homeland can transcend geographical boundaries. A homeland must therefore be seen as a place that holds emotional feelings and collective memories, through which those living beings start to define a place as something that is part of one’s identity.  Oori answers Yetu’s question on defining the homeland as followed: “A Homeland is just a place” that “means something because of its history” (p.122). Furthermore, Oori argues that the place needs to be highly protected to not “just be another place” (p122). In comparison to that, Yetu’s “home-sea” is the deep ocean Yetu finds herself in. What I found interesting about that is that they approach the geographical place differently. For Yetu it seems that the homelands holds no emotional significance at all, whereas for Oori it is a place that if it doesn’t get “protect[ed] what is left of it there, [Oori] will have no homeland”. That quote suggests that only the active memories make the place be your homeland. Yetu just ties the homeland to its geographical environment. Nevertheless, the homeland for Yetu as well does have an emotional impact on Yetu. The deep is a a place that is filled with the Wajingru’s memories, their suffering, their lives. It is the place Yetu relives as a hisotrian. Yetu therefore clearly has an emotional relationship to the place that Yetu calls home-sea, too, just like Oori has. The only difference is, that Yetu is living through that emotions over and over again and that Oori compared to that, tries to protect the place to not lose the legacy of it. In general, a homeland is therefore something that always needs to be preserved and protected, no matter how in which way to do that. It always shapes someone’s identity and is not just a place where someone is born in. That was so interesting to see!

Resilience in The Water Will Carry Us Home

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Lina Rau

ECL 305

Prof. Pressman

14. April 2024

Resilience in The Water Will Carry Us Home

The Middle Passage is part of one of the most brutal chapters in human history and is marked by the transatlantic slave trade, which resulted in the forced migration of millions of Africans to the Americas. During the video, the viewers are faced with the African diaspora through the lens of African rituals, sculptures and drawings in clash with the slave ship “Brooks”. In the video it is depicted, that the Water Spirit Omambala has brought the people there and that the Water Spirit will also bring them home (cf. 1:23 min). The depiction of the Middle Passage that is facilitated by the above-mentioned Water Spirit Omambala, demonstrates the strength the Africans had, to be able to endure and go through it. By highlighting that, the video serves as a testament of the resilience of the human spirit of African people, and it raises questions on which particular histories are being told in today’s time.

During the 16th and 19th century, almost 13 million African people were kidnapped from their homelands and forced onto American and European slave ships. The Atlantic Ocean is famously known as the Middle Passage and is known for greed, exploitation and dehumanization of the African people who often faced unspeakable horrors on their journey across the ocean. It is believed that on the journey, nearly two million people lost their lives, as many starved, got sick or endured violence in the form of throwing humans over sea. The number of unreported cases is nevertheless, presumedly, higher. Those people who have survived the slave ships were denied basic human rights and had to live under white supremacy (cf. Equal Justice Initiative, 2022). The Middle Passage moreover makes the ocean look like something that can easily be crossed over like a road and lets oneself forget that it holds history and voices.

The film opens with a powerful quotation of the Water Spirit Omambala (cf. 1:23 min). Omambala, who has brought the African people here and who can also bring them back home, can be seen as the liminal figure of both suffering and also salvation. In general, Omambala brings a different perspective on culture and the ocean to the surface. Different groups of people have different perspectives on the ocean: it needs to be stressed that there is no singular relationship to the ocean, as it is based on history, culture and on storytelling. Needless to say, those perspectives change the way oneself treats the ocean. In this particular case, the Water Spirit’s dual ability to bring both salvation and suffering, lets the Middle Passage symbolically look like as if it is a journey of trauma and transcendence. Even though African people were faced with the unbearable on the slave ships, a slight spirit of resilience shines through: the African people were still showing endurance and strength during hard times.

Additionally, Tesfaye introduces her video with a portrayal of realism through a human character that engages in a ritual ceremony with colorful and bright painted art and painted skin (in particular her hands) (cf. 0:00 – 1:17 min). In the latter, an artistic world is shown through a paper world with stop motion animation that is painted with watercolors. The viewer sees a man that opens the lock of a door with a key he has in his hands (cf. 1:26 – 2:15 min). The importance of that aspect is, that it lets the viewers dive into a particular history that is often “locked” away. It is a history that is uncomfortable to be told and is thus hidden away by Westerners who do not want to face reality. But by unlocking that door into the history, a sense of faith and pride towards continuing the traditions is underscored. It is resilience that pushes African people to engage with the history that is formerly hidden: it is makes the people be even stronger.

Another recurring figure is the eye that is painted onto the hands of the human character and the artistic character of the man. Eyes supposedly see everything and are believed to know everything. Therefore, the eye also knows everything about that particular history that is being told. But if the eyes are believed to know everything, it can be assumed that there are even more histories that are not told yet and still need to be recounted,  existing deep in the ocean. That point is directly linked to the second part of the debatable claim presented in the beginning of the essay. If in that video only a singular history is documented, one can pick-and-choose which history is being told and which in particular is not. This pick-and-choose mentality has, one can assume, a severe impact on what archives are being built. It is thus an active decision on what to erase in the history and what to put out in order to built an archive. The archive that existed prior to this video has therefore erased the history and stories of the people that are presented now, leading to the assumption that a lot of other archives exist and are possibly lost in the ocean.

Another interesting aspect is the scene where enslaved people are pushed into the water (cf. 3:37f.). The Water Spirit turns the pregnant women that are thrown overboard into mermaids that are nurtured by fish (cf. 3:37- 5:06). By turning those who have tragically lost their lives into mermaids, the Water Spirit is giving them immortal qualities. It makes the impression that the voices and stories of those people are preserved and are not forgotten. It is those people Tesfaye endows extra values. Those people might be forgotten on land but are never in the sea; they are now resilient characters whose legacy continues on and whose voices can be heard through echoes through the waves.

At the end of the video, the perspective is shifted back to the real world and the character starts listening to something through shell headphones that are connected to the sand (cf. 5:07- 5:54). The shift serves as a bridge between the past and present and somehow connects back to live and to the spirits. By listening through shell headphones, a special tribute is given to the voices and stories of the past that have preserved now and will preserve in the future, which ultimately highlights strength and resilience once again.

To put that into a nutshell, Tesfaye has masterfully created a thought-provoking piece of art. The switch between art and reality invites viewers to unlock hidden truths and tribute those who have tragically lost their lives. Besides that, the Water Spirit Omambala stresses the resilience of African people up until today. By embracing traditions and performing rituals, the collective memory is honored and stories are told which are tried to be hidden up until today.

Works Cited:

Equal Justice Initiative. “The Transatlantic Slave Trade”, 2022.

Tesfaye, Gabrielle. “The Water Will Carry Us Home.” Vimeo, 10 May 2018, vimeo.com/269045173.

Week 12: The Water Will Carry Us Home

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One thing that really stood out to me in the short video “The Water Will Carry Us Home” is the portrayal of the drawing of the slave ship, in which millions of African people were brought to Western countries such as the United States, what in my opinion demonstrates the exploitation of water and the clash between slave trade and cultural heritage. In the first segment of the video, cultural rituals as well as drawings, instruments or sculptures (possibly gods) were presented (cf. 0:00 -1:17 min). The water spirit thus inherits knowledge and is of big significance for African cultures. By showing those cultures, the viewers are confronted with a feeling of safeness and possibly even liberation. When in the next segment the slave ship first got presented to the viewer, the perspectives kind of shifted (cf. 2:17 min). Water, through which millions of people got displaced from what they call home, now poses a threat to that culture who sacred water before. It is, as if that change shows the endured trauma of the slaves. I found it particularly interesting that the background music changed, too (it sounded melancolic or even menacing? cf. 1-17 to 3:55 min). What we can conclude from that video is, that the exploitation of water as a means of transportation during the time of slavery must be seen as a brutal act of Eurocentric selfishness. Slave owners not only kidnapped millions of people from their homeland, but they ultimately also disrespected and erased the ancestral roots of the African peoples. The juxtaposition in the use of water portrayed in the video really made me angry and I felt so bad for the sorrow and trauma people from African cultures have endured once again. With that being said, thank you for choosing that video for us, Professor!

Week 11: Sirenomelia

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This week’s Sirenomelia left me a bit confused. What stood out to me is the connection between humans and sirens that we have talked about in class. The portrayal of advanced technology in the form of satellite systems can be seen as the representation of “man made” things. Next there is the deep ocean with the representation of a siren that swimming around. When looking at those two representations the viewers have been confronted with a threshold/ liminal state between the two “different” worlds. But what is the real meaning behind the video? I came up with two different analyses about the core message of the video. The first is, that through technology, humans have learnt to find a way to conduct research on oceans and thus also on mermaids. The second analysis could be that the liminal state between humans and mermaids can never be crossed as long as humans are irritated by wrong narratives. What I mean by wrong narratives is the discussion we had about STEM and STEAM. As long as humans tend to believe in STEM instead of STEAM, the liminal state will never be crossed again. Humans will see mermaids as this indistinctive figure that only exist in a world of fairytales, whereas the siren (as shown in the video) is accepting the world of the humans, as she looking at human inventions like the bridge.

I am eager to hear more about that in class! My analysis might be wrong.

Week 10: The Ocean Reader: Theory, Culture, Politics

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Eric Paul Roorda’s The Ocean Reader: Theory, Culture, Politics was for sure an interesting read. Instead of categorizing the Ocean into the different oceans we know right now (e.g. the Pacific, the Atlantic, the Mediterranean Sea…), Roorda suggests to rather see the ocean as one place (cf. p 1). Moreover, Roorda critiques that we humans “have often seen it as a changeless space, one without history. Because the Ocean can’t be plowed, paved, or shaped in ways the eye is able to discern, it has seemed to be a constant, while the land has changed drastically over the centuries” (p.1). Looking at this statement made me think about the definition of wilderness once again. When wilderness is something the humans have constructed and thus put a certain value to it for their own enjoyment, Roorda’s statement suggests that humans have not put value to the ocean for a long period of time. As it was not socially constructed to be a place with a long period of history, the ocean was so to say ignored to be ”changeable” (p.1). Nevertheless humans have always tried to exploit the ocean and to conquer it through using it as a road or through exploiting it by fishing because humans have just taken it for granted (cf. p.4). Just like in times of imperialism, humans have claimed the ocean to be something for their own purpose without actually understanding how powerful it is. By capitalizing Ocean, a new value is put onto it: “The deviation from conventional style is intended to claim a formal name for that vast place within the realm of World History, as if it were a country or a continent […] To capitalize Ocean is to challenge the conventional wisdom that the seas can be taken for granted. They cannot”. (Taking that in for a bit longer, I really feel like through this class I really start to question every concept existent on this planet. I never wondered why Ocean was not capitalized even though it makes up the biggest area on the Earth?!).

Side Note:

This reading reminded me of Disney’s Moana. The semigod Maui stole Te Fiti’s heart out of a selfish desire for recognition and power so that Te Fiti was no longer able to create life. The Ocean was later filled with darkness and life outside of the water was destructed. I wonder at this point if there is Polynesian folklore that is teaching humans about the exact same thing above??!

Week 9: Blue Humanities

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In last week’s reading we have learnt that recreation at a sea has only become relevant, because humans have culturally produced the sea to be a place to go to take a break. I was reminded of that and saw correlations between the article “Blue Humanities” and last week’s reading. As being said in Gillis’ article, “nations turned away from the sea as a place of work that writers and painters turned their full attention to the sea itself. They turned it, as never before, into a place of spiritual and physical recreation […] they gave it new cultural status, a higher aesthetic power” (Gillis). What I found to be interesting about that, is that this transformation once again reflects broader shifts in societal values and attitudes towards nature and the environment. Apart from, it resembles people’s desires in an ever-changing world (the time of industrialization). Now that industries developed and people moved to the cities, they also got disconnected to the natural world. The sea thus got romanticized as a consequence and beach activities first got developed, “It was in the era of the thoroughly landlocked industrial revolution that the sea first became a part of mainstream mainland culture”. The middle class of the late 18th century was looking for an unknown natural place, far away from urban cities, to call their new place of recreation.

Another interesting aspect I found in the text is that the sea “became a symbol of eternity, a comfort to those who, having lost their faith in divine dispensation of everlasting life, came to see in its apparently timeless flows evidence of nature’s immortality and a secular promise of life everlasting”. Through what is shown above, one can argue that some of the late 18th century people started to lose their faith in religious concepts of eternal life. Looking at the sea and seeing the waves and tides come and go, gave the people a sense of security, knowing that now nature is immortal.

The connection between the “wilderness” and humans

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According to Cranon the term “wilderness” has shifted throughout the years and always need to be seen as human constructions that are shaped through e.g. historical events. Cranon therefore introduces us to the idea that the “wilderness” is a representation of the values we have attributed to nature at a certain period of time in history: “Far from being the one place on earth that stands apart from humanity, it is quite profoundly a human creation-indeed, the creation of very particular human cultures at very particular moments in human history.” (p.7).

More importantly, on the same page, people view “wilderness” as an untouched piece of land that has never been affected by anthropogenic influence when in reality, it is “not a pristine sanctuary where the last remnant of an untouched, endangered, but still transcendent nature can for at least a little while longer be encountered without the contaminating taint of civilization. Instead, it is a product of that civilization, and could hardly be contaminated by the very stuff of which it is made”. Thinking about that a little bit longer, it made me realize that we use this thought as an excuse to separate ourselves from nature, which ultimately leads up to us humans not living/ coexisting with nature. That might also be the reason why humans start to not care about nature anymore. Even though we humans seem to enjoy the beauty of nature and create e.g. natural parks of what we find beautiful, we do not leave nature the way it is. Instead, we humans destroy it every day and find excuses to not coexist with it again, as well as not looking for solutions for environmental problems.