Humanity, Divinity, and the World in Henry David Thoreau’s Walden and Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

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2010
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Haverford College. Department of Religion
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Thesis
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eng
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Open Access
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Abstract
The aim of this thesis is to demonstrate the ways in which Annie Dillard and Henry Thoreau approach the problem of the human in the world as separated from God and the divine. Through a close textual analysis of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek and Walden the position of each writer is determined. The thesis is broken into three chapters, each including its own subsequent sections for the purpose of further clarifying the arguments within for the reader. The introduction provides a background for why this thesis exists, its conception, and influences, as well as a thorough outline of the thesis body to follow. Chapter one focuses on the way in which Dillard and Thoreau both view the relationship of humanity with the divine, with the natural/animal world, and the obstacles that those individual relationships give rise to. Chapter two is concerned with Dillard's and Thoreau’s ideas regarding what the symptoms humanity has to its plight as outlined in the first chapter are, and also with the human reaction to the symptoms they find themselves confronting. Finally, chapter three outlines Dillard’s and Thoreau’s specific solutions to combating and overcoming the human reaction to its existence in the world in a way that will open a connection between the human being and the divine and that will allow the individual to more fully exist in a reality unclouded and uncovered by human production, materialistic obsession, and a linguistic framework of meaning and imposed suggestion on all things found in the world. The conclusion reiterates the overarching argument of the thesis and segues into a consideration of further questions that were raised over the process of developing the thesis project, including the difficulties faced by Thoreau over the course of living Walden, and the uniquely tangled relationship between Dillard and Thoreau that came into clarity by the project’s end.
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