Norman Maclean’s Young Men and Fire Essay -- Young Men

Norman Macleans Young Men and FireI now feel brave enough to think forth and bear humankinds torments and its joys, to grapple with the hurricane. (Faust, lines 464-66) Have the gates of death been opened unto thee? Or hast thou seen the doors of the shadow of death? Hast thou comprehend the breadth of the earth? . . . Decl ar if thou knowest it all. (Job 3817,18) Human beings are prideful creatures, and we have good reason to be. We have subdued a planet, changed the descent of rivers, watered deserts, written poetry to make angels cry, and wrapped the world in a network of electric impulses and digital displays. We have created and killed not one alone many gods. We can make a cloud rain by shooting heavy metal into it, and we can create a lake by burbling concrete in a canyon and damming a river. Most days, it seems that we human beings have everything under control and that if we miss wild nature, well, we can grow it in our gardens. (We can even genetically enginee r the plants and animals.) Every so often, however, the universe spins out of our control. Forest fires rage. The earth quakes. Chaos descends like a great moderne Zeus hurling thunderbolts and reminding us that nature is not ours to manipulate. In a great universe shaped by raw power and force, human beings are only small, easily crushed, organic structures. We need the reminder. Chaos and destruction are natures great gift to human kind because the realization of our frailty and insignificance leads to enlightenment. We learn something well-nigh ourselves, how we are here, where we want to go, and what we have to say about it. Chaos spoke to Darwin in the shaking of the earth A bad earth quake at once destroys the oldest associati... ...pe of bringing a frightening force of nature under control. Science, too, is a method of telling a story about nature. In the struggle to make sense of the raging universe, we sometimes discover art, an art purged of all pretense by the extreme elements of which it was born. When all is said and done, the hap that brings us death also brings us an opportunity to find hope and compassion, and a chance to transcend our own blindness and limitations and find peace. Works Cited Darwin, Charles. excursion of the Beagle. impudently York Penguin Books, 1989. Goethe, Johann Wolfgang. Scientific Studies. New York Suhrkamp, 1988. . Faust. New York Anchor Books, Doubleday, 1990. Maclean, Norman. Young Men and Fire. Chicago U of Chicago P, 1992. Pope, Alexander. Essay on Man. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 3rd ed. New York Norton, 1960.