Native Hill

A detailed Summary of Native Hill

Wendell Berry's "Native Hill" is a wake up call to remind us how selfish and arrogant we as people have lived that has resulted in the slow destruction of the world. Berry wants us to understand the connection we have with the world. We need to first identify all the many things that we are doing wrong to damage the relationship that we have with the world, and then realize that we have a partnership with the world, a partnership that will not work if we don't do our part. Not only do we depend on nature, but nature also depends on itself. If we forget this, we will continue to commit a slow suicide and destroy both the earth and ourselves.

Wendell Berry often dreamed of what this country looked like in the 'beginning', before the white people drove their plows into it and initiated the destruction. "My people's errors have become the features of my country." So much damage has been done over time, it is no longer the same land first-comers saw, it is now almost impossible to imagine a "pristine America", and what the shape of the land was. Berry wanted to plant in our minds the thought of what was once here and realize that it is gone forever. This makes us think of the world in the 'beginning' and the endless possibili

Before we change the world, we have to change our attitudes, our priorities, and ourselves. "We have lived by the assumption that what was good for us would be good for the world. And this has been based on the even flimsier assumption that we could know with any certainty what was good even for us...We have been wrong. We must change our lives, so that it will be possible to live the by contrary assumption that what is good for the world will be good for us." Arrogance and 'gluttony' have become the typical ways we behave towards the world. The world has no voice when it comes to humans. We do what we want to do to the world when we want to do it, thinking it's all good for the world because it's all good for us, and that's where we're wrong. It was so funny and true when Berry said "...flimsier assumption what we could know with any certainty what was good even for us". We are so caught up in ourselves as people, we just assume that we know everything, when the truth is, we don't know half of what we think we know. Therefore, us plowing into the ground, cutting down trees, etc. is like me trying to teach a little boy how to play hockey. I don't know 'anything' about the game, but out of personal pride, I'm just going to act like I do. After 'attempting' to teach him, I would feel a little satisfaction that the little boy was happy about learning the game. But when he gets to play in the game, he will not do well and will suffer from my awful teachings. We don't know all about nature, the potential it has and all of its possibilities. So when we do these things to

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Approximate Word count = 1070
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English