Essay Questions

The opening line of the text introduces a tomcat which—except to note that that it has since died—is not referenced against until the final page. What is the significance of this?

The opening imagery of the narrator covered in bloody pawprints from the dawn return of her nocturnal feline companion. This situation immediately launches her into a monologue characterized by wonder, doubt and questioning. The juxtaposition a pet kitty and waking up mysterious painted in blood is startling and seems out of place in what promises to be a nature story written during a period when Disney documentaries defined wildlife for a generation. The very same words are replicated to recreate the image that opens the book, but this time leads to a more forceful monologue filled with more vigorous figurative images that assert a newfound confidence in the realization that nature is both beautiful and bloody, creative and destruction. The cat, by virtue of its almost total absence between the first and last pages becomes a controlling symbol of the journey to understanding the truly complex interaction of nature.

Werner Heisenberg, the physicist whose name Walter White takes as his alias in Breaking Bad suddenly becomes the subject of a mini-essay in the text. What’s the connection?

An important aspect of Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle is generally referred to as the observer effect which essentially states that the very act of observation impacts the investigation into what is being studied. Unappreciated genius high school teacher Walter White was confident that he could he could earn money making meth to care for his family after his death by approaching it from a scientifically calculated objective perspective. The calculations failed, however—ironically—to factor in the Heisenberg principle which asserts that by becoming part of the calculation himself, objectivity is impossible. The narrator can be contrasted with Mr. White by virtue of the digression from investigating the natural world around her into the application of the indeterminacy explained by the Heisenberg Principle. The admission that objective understanding is impossible because the act observing transforms investigation into a subjective exercise serves the purpose of underscoring the author’s contention that her experience is less an act of science than an exercise in mysticism.

Should Pilgrim at Tinker Creek be listed under the Science & Nature or Religion & Spiritualism category in book stores?

Generally speaking, this is a text that most often referred to as one about the study of nature. It is often assigned as a companion piece with Thoreau’s Walden. While it can be argued that both texts are incorrectly characterized as primarily being about nature, this especially true of Dillard’s book. The central thematic engine driving the work is hardly disguised; it is right there for all the word to see as the very first word in the title. Were the book intended merely to be an accounting of naturalist’s study of environmental conditions within a specific ecosystem in the manner of Darwin’s account aboard the Beagle, the very precisely calculated word “pilgrim” would be completely unnecessary and even confusing. The analysis and investigation into the particularities of that ecosystem surrounding Tinker Creek is secondary to the author’s primary aim of conveying a mystical experience in which the details of nature from the atomic to the epochal conspire to reveal a faith in design and purpose in the universe. As a result, a much more fitting categorization would be one which identifies the book as a spiritual journey rather than scientific one.