Environmental Conflicts In Literature :: essays research papers

Conflicts be a very prominent element in literature. If you were to look up the dictionary definition of conflict, you would find that it is a fight back, contr everyplacesy, or fight. Conflicts can deliver military personnely forms, and each has its own emerge in literature. Environmental conflicts are certainly one of the more recognize and appreciated types of conflicts. They are easy to identify, understand, and analyze. An milieu can be exposit as ones surroundings, so logically, an environmental conflict is a conflict with ones surroundings. Environmental conflicts pit man against a greater power, and it is unsure what will happen next.Throughout good literature, a huge array of environmental conflicts can be found. Let us take a look at Leiningen Versus the Ants, by Carl Stephenson. In this story, environmental conflicts are exceedingly prevalent. In fact, the entire story is built upon the act of theology that Leiningen faces. A twenty square mile army of ants threa tens Leiningens orchard and his life. The ants prove to be a formidable opponent, even for a man of such cunning as Leiningen. They represent the power and unpredictability of dispositiona perfect example of an environmental conflict.Not all environmental conflicts are huge, apocalyptic, catastrophic events. They can be as simple or commonplace as a tree falling. Such is the case in The Interlopers, by Saki. Saki recognizes the power of nature, and makes use of something so unimportant as a fallen tree to trap Ulrich and Georg beneath it, and dramatically switch the course of the entire story. Not only that, but at the abrogate of the story, Saki uses wolves to change the direction of the story once more, and this time he creates some irony as well. In almost all cases, the environment does triumph over man in some way or a nonher. To Build a Fire, by Jack London is a peak example of this happening to a large extent. A man and his cross are lost in the wilderness at sub-zero t emperatures, and he is not only involved in an environmental conflict, but a struggle to live. Eventually the man dies of hypothermia. Again, this is another instance that illustrates the power that nature has over us.