Turtle Island Themes

     

                Turtle Island by Gary Snyder is focused on several key themes. I focused on the chapter Manzanita in my reading, and the chapter's key themes include vivid descriptions of nature, references to native American tribes, and the destruction of the environment and native peoples by settlement. Coyote Valley Spring describes a scene in nature, possibly in the past, where life is thriving. The poem ends by mentioning a lost tribe floating in their fishing boats. The poem, The Dead by the Side of the Road is a much darker poem. It focuses on the way nature is used by man. Animals are killed and skinned as trophies. Animals become tools and there is little respect for nature. The poem also seems to use roads as a metaphor for human progress and industrialization. The animals and nature are casualties of our expansion. Control Burn describes how native tribes used to clear the forest of excess brush regularly. It prevented major forest fires and was an important part of maintaining the forests. Today even with our modern technology, we are taking worse care of the forests than they did centuries ago.