The American Indian Wilderness
In the essay, "The American Indian Wilderness", Louis Owens presents a personal story to show a dramatic change in his point of view. His story revolves around a mind-altering experience in which he uses himself as the straw figure, allowing us to effectively see how he came to choose his new view and why it is better than the European view he once had. He successfully gains our trust and persuades his audience with three different personas: the unthinking, cocky businessman, the thoughtful and ashamed persona, and, at the end, the lecturing teacher. In the beginning, Owens uses the persona of the unthinking, cocky businessman. He is in the mountains to support and carry out "a plan of which [he] heartily approves." (para.2) He is at the extreme end of his way of thinking, believing that the Forest Service is right in their idea about wilderness. "At the end of those five days, not a trace of the shelter remained, and I felt good, very smug in fact, about returning the White Pass meadow to it's "original" state." (para.3) He shows us that he has no doubts and completely agrees that in order to restore the wilderness, he must carry out the plan. As he heads back down the trail, he says that his, "mind was on the winter [he] was g
In conclusion, Owens effectively uses persona's to gain the readers trust. His cocky, businessman persona shows us that he does have faults, while his ashamed and thoughtful persona shows us that he is willing to admit and change his faults if it betters the initial job he set out to do: protect the wilderness. His final persona, the lecturing teacher points out the right way of thinking about humans and their relationship to the wilderness. He convinces us that it's time to think about our actions and their effect. With this, Owens has effectively used three different personas to persuade his audience. Unless Americans, and all human beings, can learn to imagine themselves as intimately and inextricably related to every aspect of the world they inhabit, with the extraordinary responsibilities such relationship entails - unless they can learn what the indigenous peoples of the Americas knew and often still know - the earth simply will not survive (para.12). oing to spend in sunny Arizona," (para.3) showing that there was no internal struggle over the burning of the shelter and that he truly felt that he had done his job to better the wilderness. le to trust his judgment and assume that he knows better than us from his experiences. It's easy for us to adopt his way of thinking because of his knowledge and honest concern in doing what's best. Effectively, Owens now changes to his lecturing teacher persona, telling us of a better way to think, "In embracing a philosophy that saw the White Pass Shelter - and all traces of humanity - as a shameful stain upon their "pure" wilderness, I had succumbed to a five-hundred-year-old pattern of deadly thinking that separates us from the natural world." (para.11) This statement is incredibly strong and convincing. Owens has already provided us with an emotional connection to him and has shown that he is more knowledgeable because of his experience. We are willing to trust in his judgment and his knowledge, so we readily accept his interpretation of what is right for the wilderness. In his final statements, he influences us with a bang by stating at what extremes the European way of thinkin
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1449
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)
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