Jack Turner"s The Abstract Wild is a complex argument that discusses many issues and.

             ultimately defends the wild in all of its forms. He opens the novel with a narrative story about a.

             time when he explored the Maze in Utah and stumbled across ancient pictographs. Turner tells.

             this story to describe what a truly wild and unmediated experience is. The ideas of the aura,.

             magic, and wildness that places contain is introduced in this story. Turner had a spiritual.

             connection with the pictographs because of the power, beauty, and awe that they created within.

             him upon their first mysterious contact. Turner ruined this unmediated experience by taking.

             photographs of the pictographs and talking about them to several people. His second visit to the.

             pictographs was extremely different- he had removed the wild connection with the ancient mural.

             and himself by publicizing and talking about them. This is Turner"s main point within the first.

             chapter. He believes that when we take a wild place and photograph it, talk about it, advertise it,.

             make maps of it, and place it in a national park that we ruin the magic, the aura, and the wildness.

             of that place. Nature magazines, photographs, and films all contribute to the removal of our wild.

             experience with nature. It is the difference between visiting the Grand Canyon after you have.

             seen it on TV and read about it in magazines, or never having heard of the place and stumbling.

             across it on your own during a hike. Unfortunately, almost every wild experience between.

             nature and the public has been ruined by the media. Through Turner"s story he begins to explain.

             the idea of the wild and its importance and necessity of human interaction with the wild.

             The second chapter contains two major ideas. The first is Turner"s defense and.

             explanation of the appropriateness of anger. Turner thinks that society wrongly taught the.

             people to repress and fear their emotions. Turner finds primal emotions to be necessary to our.