December 13th, 2014
Hey dudsons,
A shorter blog today because after this I need to go to sleep!
A long day today. I went to Chinese school and it's the last lesson of the year, but when we come back we have to do a big exam. What a fun way of entering the new year, right? *sarcastic tone*
Actually, I'll just give you guys a 600-word essay that I did, so it's a superblog! Please no plagiarism! It compares Suzuki's
It Always Costs and W.S. Merwin's
Unchopping a Tree essays. I hope you enjoy!
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W.
S. Merwin and David Suzuki both express their advocacy for better change and
amelioration for the environment in of their uniquely-styled essays. In Unchopping a Tree, Merwin accentuates his
emotions and sentiments towards his main argument and subject, which leads to
conveying profound feelings of sympathy, and perhaps even guilt and remorse to
his readers. However, in Suzuki’s It
Always Costs, Suzuki uses individual and scientific case studies to
elaborate and expound on his topic, but fails to sustain the emotional
connection to the reader. In spite of
this, Suzuki’s thesis is much more practical and judicious than Merwin’s
thesis.
Both
Suzuki and Merwin's essays articulate on protecting the environment and
ruminating about the choices humans decide to take. In Suzuki’s essay, he
explicates that one way humans can actualize this goal of protecting the
environment is to make more deliberate and conversant decisions, and weigh out both
bad and good benefits. Additionally,
Suzuki decries the
technologies that were detrimental and perilous to both the environment and
people, imparting to the readers that these are the consequences if they decide
to make uninformed and oblivious decisions.
On the other hand, Merwin is incontrovertibly more
straightforward, and suggests that humans should not cut down trees at all or
at least regulate the amount that humans do cut down. Furthermore,
Merwin writes about the acute and deleterious effects on organisms caused by
the cutting down of
the tree. While Suzuki implies that humans
make more informed actions to help the environment, Merwin allows readers to
reflect on their actions through strong emotional language, which creates a
sense of personal responsibility in the readers for damaging the environment.
In
each of their essays, Merwin and Suzuki both have a completely different
approach in writing. Merwin uses imagery
and his meticulous word choices
to depict a
visual scene for the reader. He wants to show the arduous and tedious process of unchopping a tree when
it is not a viable accomplishment, which embarks on his main argument: to not
cut trees down at all. He uses language of violation, such as “tight
echoless passages", to create a sense that it’s the readers who need to
revolutionize and alleviate the
damages of
the environmental world. Additionally, Merwin employs a metaphor
in his essay, but it actually conceals a
much deeper meaning in his essay. On the other hand, Suzuki's essay is
very practical and factual. This eradication of description and emotional tone
creates a sense of formalism and conformity, and although he fills the minds of
his readers with an abundance of scientific ideas, he only focuses on his main
argument: Technology always comes with a cost.
While Suzuki’s thesis is
practical and pragmatic, Merwin’s thesis is unfeasible. Suzuki’s main argument is that technology
always comes with a cost, and humans have to be vigilant and conscientious of
the detrimental and nocuous effects that may affect the well-being of the environment. On the other hand, Merwin’s thesis and main argument states that
humans must stop all deforestation, which is an unviable demand. His demand to terminate and expunge all forest harvesting is
impossible as humans
simply cannot
stop the use of wood entering their daily lives; it has become
an imperative commodity. On the other hand, Suzuki’s technical jargon and elaborative language proves
to be effective in terms of promoting his thesis; Technology always comes with a cost
is a straightforward and practical statement. However, both Suzuki and Merwin
express in these theses that humans must be careful in their actions and try to
be conservative of the environment.
So while Suzuki uses his scientific acumen to convey his advocacy for
the environment to the readers, Merwin ponders about deforestation in a more
emotional way than Suzuki, exemplifying how cutting down even one tree can
prove to be pernicious and nocent to the environment. Additionally, while Suzuki’s thesis is
efficacious in terms of practicality and feasibility, Merwin’s thesis is preposterous
and unfeasible. While Suzuki and Merwin share
some similarities, they also have some contradicting points.
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--Cyndi Forrest
