Trip to the Pole---Annie Dillard analysis essays

Trip to the Pole-Annie Dillard analysis essays In her essay, An Expedition to the Pole, Annie Dillard approaches the tricky technique of symbolism and metaphysical images to portray her thoughts on religion, while avoiding the dangers of making it too confusing, or too preachy. Descriptions combined with the narration of the absurd are effectively used even without informing the reader that her material departs from their own expectations of what is real. Her writing is filled with specific, memorable, seemingly random thoughts that eventually develop deep metaphoric power. On the whole, Dillard writes, I do not find Christians, outside of the catacombs, sufficiently sensible of conditions. Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke? This statement implies that institutionalized religion has somehow lessened the true emotions and freedoms of nature and experience. Perhaps the structure of an organized religion sometimes require us to hide our genuine feelings, and replace them with what we are suppose to be feeling, or following. Dillard writes in a sly witty commanding tone that shines a mystical light around ideas in the most straightforward prose. Even in the most surreal of sequences, we can still feel her confusion, anxiety, and frustration. She writes, The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. Dillard, like her fellow church-goers have come to this church in pursuit of the sublime, but the existence of many banalities and contradictions seem to insult her sense of dignity. She seems to be saying that an individual would be willing to sacrifice education, reason, and dignity for the sake of a glimpse of the sacred and holy. It seems like the church should be projecting a ...