Erin Wyatt: Purification Versus Corruption: Nature Against Civilization
Mrs. Bridget Clark
AP English Literature
22 March 2008
Purification Versus Corruption: Nature Against Civilization
Simplistic light reveals the juxtaposition of an untouched natural world and the masses of civilization. In one, a trio of awed children follows a young boy, flying above the thick leaves of the forest (Barrie 67). Not so far away, still enveloped by the forest despite its vivid variation of leaves and landscape, a monstrous humanoid man gazes into the sky, eyes searching for the moon he so adores (Shelley 88). Perhaps, a ghostly white fawn rests in this place as well, safe from the hunters’ reach at last (Marvel 238). All maintains a sense of serenity, an aura of calm despite any natural or phenomenal activities within, as nature itself curls inward to dispel the agony thriving nearby.
There, in civilization, amidst the technological advances, the culture, and the crime rates, an ancient sailor wanders the streets, halting bystanders at what appears to be a random impulse (Coleridge 47). Once they still and cease their protests, the sailor weaves a tale of his past; he laments the loss of the freezing, watery world of beauty he once saw; he insinuates the misery of remaining here, in the world of humans. Elsewhere in this place, a man sways in horror at the death around him, the decomposing remnants of an epidemic which culture and isolation alike failed to evade (Poe 744). So close, yet irreconcilably apart, others moan at pain and death, their own and that of those they love. In a coldly rich house, a man sits amongst his wealth, cynical and alone with his greed before the warnings of ghosts (Dickens 1-2 of 63). Just beyond his doorstep, weary every-men struggle to survive, unnoticed but for scorn from the rich.
These extremes exist in the words of J. M. Barrie, Mary Shelley, Andrew Marvel, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Edgar Allen Poe, and Charles Dickens. Diverse writers that they are, authors and poets side by side describe the opposing effects brought by nature and wrought by civilization. Regardless of reality or social perceptions, the two act as stimuli for contrasting effects on the human spirit; one to purify and heal; the other to corrupt and harm. Though counter-examples and scientific and historical facts exist to oppose this viewpoint, those arguments fail to address the center of this concept in the face of these great writers, the classics they recorded, and the emotions, the changes, the shifts within the human spirit caused by their words. After all, “Forests, lakes, and rivers, clouds and winds, stars and flowers, stupendous glaciers and crystal snowflakes- every form of animate or inanimate existence leaves its impress upon the soul of man” (Quoted in Nature Quotes). Orison Swett Marden stands firmly with these renowned authors, united in this concept of etchings on the soul.
As the Romantics write, nature can be beautiful, lovely, and serene. It can stand as a nurturer, a solace from the chaos of modernity. Of course, science reveals the hardships of animals, the struggles between species, and the indifference surrounding these events and disasters of every kind. To this, I must outright state that this paper does not focus on the reality of anything tangible, but instead analyzes the human results of perceptions and ideals as portrayed by authors through tone and character development, depicting by the ends of those characters in those tone-filled tales. Anti-Transcendentalists warn of natural dangers as well, displaying nature’s indifferent and malicious strength, often to the condemnation of man. It is fact that the human race remains ignorant and arrogant; we have painted it across history with the blood of our brethren and the cries of the innocent; we have burned it into the earth with pollution and waste spilling into the soil and water; we have ingrained it into our minds with prejudice arising from violence and fear and hatred. Yet, fact does not affect our reactions to our individual perceptions unless the facts form our perceptions. Social reactions as a whole prove that readily enough. In this sense, truth becomes relative, colored by personal bias. Despite the different perceptions each individual possesses, the reoccurring themes of nature’s purifying and civilization’s corrupting affects on humans stands strong. Nature remains a refuge for many, while society provides a source of schizophrenia. As Robert Lewis Stevenson once said, “It is not so much for its beauty that the forest makes a claim upon men’s hearts, as for the subtle something, that quality of air, that emanation from old trees, that so wonderfully changes and renews a weary spirit” (Quoted in Nature Quotes). It matters not whether what we notice or admit, but, instead, that the affects occur regardless.
For instance, the vivid image of the ancient mariner roaming the streets with unearthly eyes explicitly shows an almost spiritual remaking of a man after his exposure to the beauty of the natural world. Yet, his journey becomes a miserable one as he can never return to what he had found. Instead, he falls back into the tangle of civilization, now a misfit, invariably altered from the normal man his flashback begins with (Coleridge 72-73). Scrooge experiences a different supernatural occurrence, though one with a vaguely similar tone, and changes his life from one led by a selfish philosophy and reigned by callous money, the lifeblood of society, into one of charity and sincerity (Dickens 57-58, 63 of 63). Neither sought nature’s beauty nor their own release from corruption, but the mariner and Scrooge desired both by the end. As an even truer example, others escape from civilization before comprehending its true cruelty. The Darling children literally fled financial and social troubles prevalent in their land (Barrie 9-10) by flying away to Never Neverland, a forested island isolated from civilization (52). On that island, three groups coexist: one of traditional natives (75), one of the “Lost Boys” (71-72), and one of pirates (73-74). None are civilized beyond a mere, passing mimicry, either in lessons Wendy Darling playfully teaches Peter Pan and his Lost Boys (103-104, 172), in Peter’s games of pretend (92-93), or in the mannerisms of the faux-elegant pirate Captain Hook (74). Of course, in a description of life as the authors perceive it, not all literature allows the characters to escape corruption.
Nature cannot purify everything, especially when the character nears civilization. This fate befalls Frankenstein’s monster, the once-gentle creature that becomes a murderer of innocents (Shelley 127-128, 159, 161, 179-180). While in the woods, the monster truly lives as an innocent himself, naïve of the ways of man (96-97, 106). Only after his exposure to human fear by the family he had come to adore, but from a distance, does he begin to harden (119-120). Another form civilization’s corruption can take is a thirst for power over other characters or the very laws of nature. Frankenstein, by building his monster, stumbles to this destructive fate in his search for power over his fellow man, a new kind of man, and nature. In the end, it ultimately leads to his death in the frozen Artic (195). This theme of the searching conqueror failing before nature shows again in “The Masque of the Red Death.” Despite all of the prince’s planning, all of the people’s forced laughter, and all of the denial in the world (739-740), civilization can not save them from the phantasmal Red Death (744). Perhaps, if they would attempt to save those around them instead of isolating themselves into their own society within man-made walls, a solution could be found before they fall to the dark side of the natural world, a possibility similar to Scrooge’s change of heart (Dickens 57-58, 63 of 63). Doubtful as that is, obscene inhumanity reeks from that abandonment of their fellow man, a harsh example of the frailty of bonds forged in civilization.
In a tangle of choices and the inevitable, these tales spin a mixed message of despaired warning and hope; beware civilization and take refuge in nature, like the Romantics so love to do. Then, the message twists. Corruption must be stifled before it spreads, though contact, the manner through which civilization can corrupt, must occur to affect it. The twist spirals on. As this cycle continues, recall the characters of Peter Pan, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” “A Christmas Carol,” Frankenstein and “The Masque of the Red Death.” Such events were their struggles, their victories, their failures, their lives, their deaths. Such were the eyes of their writers, peering into the world they lived within.
Purity
Gaze fixed on some aspect of nature, be it forest, ocean, or sky, Shelley, Coleridge, and Barrie soak their characters in the beauty around them that they see so clearly. While in the forest, Frankenstein’s monster turns his eyes to the sky, to the moon (Shelley 88). Such a calm comes upon him, then, that he seems unrecognizable as the cruel creature he becomes after his exposure to humans. Inversely, the mariner experiences nature after he has lived amidst the corruption of normal society. His shock emerges from the contrast, not the horror that the monster undergoes. Instead, the mariner can only gaze in awe, “unaware” of his own thoughts at the sight of sea creatures as he notices them for the first time (Coleridge 59). His disdain for animals, expressed in the shooting of the albatross, had begun his horrific, yet enlightening journey, while this beauty begins the end. Barrie set his Darlings in the sky, over the wide ocean, supported only by air and fairy dust (Barrie 55-56). This complete isolation from civilization establishes their journey on a far more cheerful note than either the mariner or the monster. Their adventure leaves them untouched by corruption; their purity remains preserved. Of course, this does not last for many. These three tales combine their circumstances into a general outlook on the beauty of nature and the immediate effects of witnessing such marvels.
Created and abandoned by Victor Frankenstein, the monster begins life alone and ignorant of the world (Shelley 43, 87). He acts on instinct, responding to light until he found the “shade” of “the forest near Ingostadt” (87). Frightened and in pain from new sensations of cold and damp and hunger, he sees “a gentle light [steal] over the heavens and [give him] a sensation of pleasure. [He starts] up and [beholds] a radiant form rise among the trees (88).” At that moment, he understands one object, the moon, and he relished that realization. In the daylight, he slowly sees a stream and the trees, calming at their gradual presence. He listens to the birds with delight when he discovers their songs. He admires the moon again when night falls. As time passes, he understands more of his world, distinguishing and recognizing different animals and plants. When winter approaches and his normal foods begin to vanish, he begins to search the land for more, eventually finding humans (89-90). His first conscious encounter results in the human fleeing, so similar to Frankenstein’s reaction (43). Of course, the monster, in his innocence, cannot understand their reactions and does not realize the danger that this will present to him. While in the forest, he remains innocent. However, once he intentionally contacts civilization he resolves himself to be a killer (121). Tragic and discouraging as this is, the monster’s corruption begins when his isolation ends. Following in the same vein, the ancient mariner’s purification starts when his isolation begins.
The mariner suffers the wrath of nature alone, as abandoned by society as Frankenstein leaves the monster, isolated in the middle of the ocean with the two hundred corpses of his shipmates (Coleridge 56). While he remains in misery, thinking of humanity, once more mirroring the course of the monster’s life, he views the ocean dwellers as “slimy things” (57). Time passed, and the mariner could only think and watch. Around him, the bodies lay (58), the moon rose, the waters gleamed red, and, gradually, the water snakes arrived (59). At last, he sees the beauty of those creatures and loves them for their “happy” lives. At last, his sense of isolation, even from God, vanishes. At last, the guilt of the Albatross falls away.
David M. Wilkes, a writer from The Explicator, examines this passage and compares multiple interpretations of those lines (Wilkes para. 2). One particularly lengthy standpoint views the snakes as a catalysis for “a host of sensations sweet,” a shift in the poem, and a turning point in characterization in that the mariner now stands free from “temporal limitations.” Without those “temporal limitations,” the mariner has gained the ability to do what the rest of society cannot dream of doing; step away from society’s aims without stepping out of society. He does return to civilization, as do both the Darlings and the monster. Yet, with that return, he shifts the essence, the purpose, of his life from his own goals to repeat his tale to those within the land he left. He tells of such beauty and pain that his listener mourns, but walks away “wiser” (Coleridge 73). Wilkes describes this as the effect of his “comprehensive soul” attempting to envelop “both natural beauty and human truth” (para. 3). The two ideals mix, barely, but painfully. Aligned with this thought, Frankenstein’s monster experiences this phenomenon all too well. In his adoration of nature and simple observance of human behavior, he cannot equate the two into a reasonable response to his presence. As most corrupted by society would do, the humans reject him violently (Shelley 119-120). This tragedy precipitates his transformation into a murderer. However, this pain does not have to exist for all characters, demonstrated in the Darlings’ escape of such a fate.
While in Neverland, the Darlings live in a forest, in an underground house reached only by sliding through hollowed trees (Barrie 99-100). This utter isolation from society leaves them in a, as critic Susan E. Honeyman names it, “primitive and underdeveloped” setting (para. 4). Other inhabitants of the island, the criminal pirates or the “redskins” (Barrie 75) hardly attempt to civilize anything in their continuing quest for violence and the other’s blood (70). Through this barbarity, nature does seem dark and ripe with evil intentions. Added to this, the fairies possess their own hierarchy and sense of mischief (42, 96). Yet, all of this remains unnoticed, incomprehensible to the Darling children except as a game that could end whenever they wish. A dark perspective held by Ann Wilson examines this concept of innocence through ignorance and inobservance. One comment in particular from her “Hauntings: Anxiety, Technology, and Gender in Peter Pan” strikes a powerful chord:
Tellingly, [Mark] Twain’s comment that Peter Pan is uplifting seems to depend on ignoring the fact that each of the “lost” boys is a baby who has fallen out of his pram “when the nurse was looking the other way” and who, if not claimed in seven days, is ‘sent far away to the Never Land’ (Barrie 101). The boys of Never Land are dead, and so Peter Pan, arriving at the window of the Darling family, is a ghost. (Wilson para. 1).
Thus, unless she debates with the time-honored and celebrated Mark Twain, innocence can be achieved through simply not knowing. This horrible thought rests on Twain’s quote of “It is my belief that Peter Pan is a great and refining and uplifting benefaction to this sordid and money-mad age” (Wilson para. 1). His view supplements the idea of Neverland being a positive and cleansing escape from civilization’s corruption. Yet, the question remains of if that cleansing truly exists in nature or in some other aspect of Neverland.
Evidence of nature acting as the purifying element stands amidst other literature, such as “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”, as well as within the pages of Peter Pan itself. The Romantic trend follows through in the novel by quirks and passing, passive insults against the world the Darlings left behind. Wilson notes that their society has become unstable from swiftly changing technology initiating uncontrolled shifts in the culture (para. 3). The uncertainties of life within the Darling’s family emerge as financial problems and dysfunctional relationships (para. 10-11). These issues rage rampant in their society, invincible, invisible, and accepted (para. 14). Concepts such as these stand incomprehensible to the Darling children due to their childhood, and they leave civilization before they need to face them. In Neverland, there is no money and reality is whatever Peter decides to allow, a variable from moment to moment (Barrie 102). All this combines into a setting unlike any civilization, allowing the characters to live in nature and see human contact in only friendly or violent meetings without the shades of grey flourishing in society, the source of uncertain standards and confusion that so easily lead to corruption. Avoiding that, the children breathe in nature, exposed to “the subtle something” Robert Lewis Stevenson describes as a refresher of the human spirit (Quoted in Nature Quotes). Their childhood remains untouched, their innocence intact, until they leave the refuge of Neverland.
Such characters stand as examples of so many possibilities resulting from the collision of the natural world and a character immersed in civilization. How varied are the effects of exposure to that “subtle something” that these characters experience (Quoted in Nature Quotes). Yet, interaction between nature and humanity restores the characters’ spirits, awing a monster, cleansing a sailor, and preserving childhood, if for life, or if but for a moment.
Purification
“Nature does nothing uselessly,” or so Aristotle claims (Quoted in Nature Quotes). In the same vein, events in literature occurring in nature hold a vital purpose for the characters. Images of peaceful waters and lovely forests calm the reader while the characters bask in that beauty and serenity and safety. However, not all who enter the natural world enter with such peace. In the depths of nature, ill-intentioned individuals face the worst circumstances in the natural world, be it temperature extremes, dangerous weather, aggressive animals, toxic plants, or sheer uninhabitable landscapes. Death has always been a necessary part of nature, for the flora, for the fauna, and for stray humans in its midst. Unable to ignore this fact, Coleridge, Barrie, and Poe incorporated fatality into their works, creating unforgettable images. Sailors drop dead without a sound at the command of Death, a mocking personification of the order of the natural world (Coleridge 56); Hook plummets to the crocodile after a kick from the nature-child Peter Pan (Barrie 203); Party-goers shrink from and eventually assault the intangible specter of the Red Death, an unstoppable force of nature, only to collapse die on by one (Poe 744) The world of literature reflects the world the author sees; when the author sees grief, literature depicts tragedy; when the author sees violence, literature depicts brutality; when the author sees futility, literature depicts failure.
Coleridge creates a cynical sailor, one cold enough to arbitrarily kill an albatross formerly “hailed in God’s good name” by his shipmates and himself (Coleridge 50-51). Though shooting a bird would normally have few repercussions, that albatross hastens “the ice [to] split with a thunder-fit” and allow “the helmsman [to steer them] through,” attempting to rescue the men from a death at sea. It sudden appearance gives the men hope they thought lost in the ice-ridden waters, and the Ancient Mariner kills it without motivation. After its death, the men, first, curse the Ancient Mariner for killing the albatross “that made the breeze to blow,” but soon decide that the bird instead brought “the fog and mist.” Contemporary to their betrayal, they arrive at a place of eerie calm, a place haunted by some sort of spirit (52-53). The final straw comes with their separation from the Ancient Mariner by blaming him alone with the hanging of the albatross around his neck. This symbolizes his alienation from all else that he began when he shot the bird (Keil para. 2). The sailors suffer at sea, their fate uncertain but grim, until a skeletal ship crewed by Death and “Life-in-Death” arrives (Coleridge 55). A grisly image of “the twain … casting dice” on that ship terrifies the men. The revenge of nature continues with the deaths of two-hundred men and the cursed life of the Ancient Mariner (56). Life can be as miserable a punishment as death, especially once Life-in-Death, Death’s “mate,” involves herself (55). So many characters arrive at this horrible realization too late, realizing the error of their ways only to see the consequences prepared to devour them.
This fact reemerges in Hook’s unhappy existence in Never Land, doomed to pursue a child he loses to again and again. He leads a band of fearsome men Barrie dubs as a “villainous-looking lot” without equal, even among those “hung in a row on the Execution dock” (Barrie 73). With that group, he hunts after a mere child who managed to cut off his arm (79) and throw it to the giant crocodile that pursues him throughout the book (80). Such violent animals commonly inhabit the island, evidenced in the “man-eaters” following the Indians (76) and the wolves attacking Nibs, one of Peter’s Lost Boys (83). However, the crocodile remains apart from the other beasts, introduced separately as it travels behind the others and referenced frequently while the others fade into the background (76). This creature, important enough to be classified as a character, ends the life of Captain James Hook, devouring him alive after Peter Pan kicks the man overboard from his own ship (203). Ironically for a pirate, the man remains obsessed with civilization and proper etiquette into his final moments. Hook never adapts to the natural world, instead struggling against it and struggling to steal Peter from it. As Ikkyu Sojun, an eccentric Zen Buddhist priest (Garofalo para. 1), once said, “Break open a cherry blossom and there are no flowers, but the spring breeze brings forth myriad blossoms” (Quoted in Nature Quotes). Attempting to force nature to act only brings failure for the mortal.
That failure repeats as the theme of Poe’s “Masque of the Red Death.” The Red Death, a horrific epidemic characterized by blood and death within thirty minutes of the symptoms’ appearance, swept through the country, relentless and unopposed (Poe 739). Prince Prospero gathers one thousand members of his nobility and hides in an abbey, throwing a party to forget and defy the plague supposedly outside the abbey’s walls (740). Like Hook, Prospero refuses to obey nature’s ways or even honest civility, as he leaves his people to suffer much like the pirate slays his own men (Barrie 75). Both betray those supposedly in their care, Prospero to throw an elaborate party and Hook to chase a child around an island. In another similarity to Hook, Prospero’s planning fails when the Red Death emerges from within the building, terrifying all before slaying the prince with a look and proceeding to kill the rest of the nobles (743-744). Hook never understands the depth of Peter’s strength and luck, in the end, only succeeding in the death of himself and his men (Barrie 197-198). Misunderstanding what he faced, Prospero relied on defenses against humans instead of against the very air that nature ruled (Vora para. 6). It cost him his life and actually resulted in a higher mortality rate, due to the simple percentages of half of those outside surviving and none within. (para. 5). This irony mocks human attempts to control the world around them. Nature refuses to be denied or ignored. In the end, those who struggle against it struggle in vain.
Nature’s cruelties occur outside of literature, wreaking devastation and misery on the humans it passes. Yet, Romantic authors recreate them to express an overall effect on humanity, altering the specifics of reality into representative fiction. At times, their works state, violence from nature appears to be punishment for the arrogance and blatant corruption of human characters. The mariner could not truly harm nature or recover his old life after he tried; Hook could not refuse its child ally a game of life-and-death he could never win; and Prospero could not ignore it forever as trying to do so only cost his life. Such is the way of nature, the natural order of life and death that humans cannot escape. Still, the worst of nature surfaces with aggressors, instead of the more vulnerable innocents. After an encounter between nature and an aggressor, some of the aggressors reform, like the Ancient Mariner does. Those who do not, acting like Prince Prospero, suffer the worst that nature can summon, becoming the victims for nature’s cruelest, be they element, animal, or something intangible. Yet, the innocent and the weary that enter into nature’s domain without ill intention find themselves refreshed, inspired, and hopeful. Different results underlie the same purpose. None pass through the natural world untouched. Such is the spirit of nature.
Alterations
Once exposed to a force as overwhelming as nature or civilization, the very spirit of the individual must shift to adapt. Nature emits a sense of innocence to those still innocent, but refreshes the morality of those who’s own has faded. In this vein, Peter Pan presents a world of innocent children, a world warding off society’s evils, a world remaining pure. In the beginning of the novel Frankenstein, the monster lives in such a world, yet in isolation. Once exposed to civilization, his very spirit corrupts into that of a murderer, mimicking the senseless violence of the albatross’s death in “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” and surpassing the depravity displayed in the beginning of “A Christmas Carol.” Nature intervenes with the latter two; it forces the Mariner to value life, to understand the beauty and worth of something that he cannot use; it forces Scrooge to diverge from his ways of business, the ways of his society. Civilization creates that atmosphere of self-interest and economy, acting in opposition to nature, darkening the purity of the innocent, increasing the immorality of the individual; Nature seeks to install a sense of respect and love, restoring pure innocence, increasing the morality of the individual. What one force creates, the other negates. Two in such opposition wage war inside the souls of men. Coleridge, Dickens, Barrie, and Shelley dare display such a feud in their works, painting unforgettable images of both the carnage and the healing before the victor can ever be decided.
The purifying element of nature shows in literature through a pattern of the innocent living in the natural world and only corrupting once exposed to civilization. Though originally in the city, the Darling children evade true understanding of its corruption due to their childhood. Before that impressionable time can pass, they flee London, following the “lure” of Peter Pan, a child from the heart of nature, into a natural world untouched by civilization (Barrie 50-52). In his innocent and naive isolation, Frankenstein’s monster yearns for love, but pacifies this need by caring for the De Lacey family from afar, watching from the shelter of the forest (Shelley 96-97). Touches of civilization enter both worlds by either the pseudo-civilized pirates of Neverland or an encounter with the reclusive De Lacey family. Completely immersed in nature as it is, Neverland provides a secure refuge, since “Neverland bars parents,” banning their culture from its borders (Honeyman para. 2), and allowing only the worst of the worst of society, the uncivilized of the civilized world, to enter. With those as a reference, the Darling children adopt the Lost Boys’ hatred for adults. After all, “there is a saying in the Neverland that every time you breathe, a grown-up dies” (Barrie 150). This atmosphere implies a complete separation between civilization and nature, one lacking direct contact, the very danger that corrupts Frankenstein’s monster. His forested world enclosed a pocket of society in the form of the recluses he loves so much. His innocence remains untouched until he truly sees humans and until humans truly see him. Once contact occurs, something must change. The balance of power, of influence shifts.
Corruption so often results from contact with civilization. The monster in Frankenstein stands as a tragic symbol of such a fate as he transforms into a callous killer to avenge his own lost innocence. The cruelty he encounters leads him to speak towards the end of the novel, mourning what could have been and what has occurred:
Once I falsely hoped to meet with beings, who pardoning my outward form, would love
me… vice has degraded me beneath the meanest animal… I cannot believe that I am the
same creature whose thoughts were once filled with… goodness (Shelley 203-204).
Acting as a common theme, vice plagues Ebenezer Scrooge as well, apparent in his refusal to aid others, stating, “It's enough for a man to understand his own business, and not to interfere with other people's. Mine occupies me constantly” (Dickens 5-6 of 63). This theme of apathy reappears in “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” as the mariner’s shipmates barely protest the Mariner’s crime of senseless killing (Coleridge 51). Their disregard for others’ wellbeing, be they innocent by-standers, the homeless, or a friendly bird, reaps harm for all involved, as Victor Frankenstein and the monster both die in the Artic wilderness (Shelley 201, 206), Scrooge is “haunted… by Three Spirits” in the course of one horrifying night (Dickens 14 of 63), and “Four times fifty living men… dropped down one by one” before the mariner’s agonizing journey intensified (Coleridge 56). Yet, until their worst deeds become impossible to ignore, their corruption almost hides from society in its sheer normalcy. Viewed as evil since his birth, despite his innocence (Shelley 42), the monster of Frankenstein remains exempt from this rule of thumb due to the shallow nature of corrupted society. None ever view him as normal. However, the others, Scrooge and the mariner, do appear normal; Scrooge is “the ultimate rational business man” of his society (Wilkins para. 16); the mariner blends into the background of the ship, unmentioned as an individual in his own words until he shoots the albatross (Coleridge 50-51). Due to these excuses of normality, disguises of civility, society accepts them. Nature, however, acts to completely alter the state of their souls.
Once sullied, purifying the human spirit proves a difficult task. Still, nature sets out for this goal, throwing Scrooge against a multitude of agonized ghosts before tossing him into the shifts time in the hands of more spirits (Dickens 15 of 63) and, after a horrific encounter with the apparitions Death and Life-in-Death, snatching the mariner on a helpless voyage through the frozen Artic (Coleridge 55, 57). Harsh as these methods appear, nature gains ground against their apathy, the mariner’s “dispassion for creation in shooting the albatross” (Keil para. 4), and Scrooge’s complete disregard for society. As both the Ancient Mariner and Scrooge stumble unwillingly into their journeys, their characters shift. Repeated blows to both men humble them until they see their crimes for what they are, one of direct murder by shooting what Coleridge introduced as “a Christian soul” (50) and the other of indirect murders by abandoning the poor to die of hunger (Dickens 6 of 63). Once nature accomplishes this, it lessens its attack; the end of the trial nears for the mariner after he recognizes the snakes, though it does not yet come (Coleridge 64); the Ghost of Christmas Past smiles at Scrooge’s regret of turning away a caroler after remembering his childhood innocence, though the night does not yet end (Dickens 20-21 of 63). When the ends of their trials actually arrive, both men abandon their apathy to any life. Nature has achieved “the presentation, preservation, and recuperation of the human” (Guyer para. 43). In these two cases, nature wins.
These instances count only as battles in the perpetual war between civilization and nature. Each conflict holds its own setting, its own background, its own losses, its own victor, its own story. Composed of these, the war becomes an overwhelming stream of emotion and history, both fact and fiction, yet to reach a point of culmination. The results of these battles, the ends of the books merely produce a place to stop and count. While civilization succeeds with corrupting and maintaining corruption within Frankenstein’s monster, nature succeeds with reforming the Ancient Mariner and Ebenezer Scrooge from their cruel and apathetic mannerisms. The Darling children, while never truly choosing one side or the other, since they apparently remain ignorant of the battle, belong to nature’s grasp, forever coloring their thinking with the ways of Neverland and its hatred of society. So ends a handful of battles, the victors obvious or not, the losses glaring in the forms of ruined and ended lives, the combatant forces unfazed. With even these bare glimpses of this conflict, the war obviously continues, with civilization acting in its desire to corrupt, nature enduring in its compulsion to purify, and both stride boldly onward through the ages and pages of literature.
Continuation
Trapped in a spiraling cascade of corruption and purity, the characters from the minds of Poe, Dickens, Barrie, Shelley, Marvel, and Coleridge find themselves at a crossroad, where they must decide their allegiance, either to civilization or to nature. Some characters have their decisions practically made for them, as they are either thrust into situations where the other option leads only to death, as in the case of the Ancient Mariner, or approached at an age too young to understand the conflict, as with the Darling children. Some decide under great pressure, such as Ebenezer Scrooge, though their lives are not immediately threatened and a choice remains. The rest of the characters must decide their allegiance on their own. Frankenstein’s monster, ironically, chooses civilization, like the prince, while Marvel’s speaker rushes heedlessly to nature. The ends of their tales announce their allegiance, but the originality of their stories, the individuality of their personalities, the reasons for their allegiances loan the greatest weight to their causes.
Civilization corrupts. Such a statement seems fairly biased, perhaps overly Romantic. Yet, the lives of Frankenstein’s monster, Prince Prospero, Ebenezer Scrooge, and the Ancient Mariner blatantly display this phenomenon. The monster acts as a murderer outright (Shelley 127), while the others harm through negligence: the prince abandoning his people (Poe 739), Scrooge refusing to aid the needy (Dickens 5-6 of 63), and the mariner denying his bond with the rest of nature (Keil para. 4). With their stories, whether they begin corrupted as do the prince, Scrooge, and the mariner, or end corrupted, as do the monster and the prince, the warped areas of their lives spring from the influence of society like horrors from Pandora’s Box. Such evidence, literary though it is, displays the actual observations of authors and poets as they looked upon their world and grew sickened. Many Romantics turned to nature for refuge, and the Romantic authors set their characters there to center the purification of their lives about the same source their writers adored.
Nature purifies. Even with the harm nature inflicts to eradicate corruption, it undeniably purifies every character it finds or creates a moment with the chance to alter him. The Ancient Mariner stands as an example of this, though unhappily. During his trial, he discovers an adoration of nature that he cannot ignore along with a fear for its power, and the story spills from his lips at random once he returns to land (Coleridge 72). Scrooge rewrites that tale, attaching a happier ending, one of hope for a reformed life (Dickens 63 of 63). Alternatively, nature also acts before civilization gains a foothold in characters, such as the case of the Darling children. In contrast to such optimistic conclusions, the prince from Poe’s tale “The Mask of the Red Death” dies horrifically in a final act of desperation to preserve his life from the punishment for his arrogance and his cruelty (Poe 744). Nature’s immortal agents, among them Death, Life-in-Death, the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future, and the Red Death, inspire horror and change into the characters they encounter, though for different ends, through different methods, and, possibly, by different intentions. Poe’s Red Death, the only immortal agent to kill outright, executes Prince Prospero for his callousness and his defiance of nature’s powers. The others push change into the characters. Yet, even with this, the fact that nature purifies the spirits of characters proves difficult to ignore. In the words of John Burroughs, “I go to nature to be soothed and healed, and to have my senses put in order” (Quoted in Nature Quotes).
Yet, even with both statements said, something remains. Their interaction proves to be a difficult struggle, painted out in the novels despite the victor of those battles. Marvel displays the results of these clashes with a touching description of the death of a beloved pet from the mouth of a maiden. Though Sylvio, the girl’s former romantic attachment, once gave her the white fawn, a lovely symbol of innocence and nature, he falls to civilization’s corrupting influence before the beginning of the poem (Marvel 238). His very introduction begins as “unfaithful Sylvio.” In contrast, the girl clings to nature, taking refuge in her garden with her symbol of the wilderness. However, nature and civilization cannot remain in such a close vicinity for long, just as Frankenstein warns with the corruption of the monster (Shelley 121). “The wanton troopers” shot the deer without reason and left it do die slowly before its mistress (Marvel 238). The girl cries that “even beasts must be with justice slain,” as the Mariner discovers in his trials at sea (Coleridge 64). Her tale ends with her bemoaning the fate of her beloved fawn and the loss of its innocence (Marvel 239). Enchanted as she is with such a small representative of nature, her allegiance stands secure as she weeps over the cruelty of civilization, recognizing it as an unnecessary evil (238). Her poem describes the conflict between both powers, depicting civilization as an aggressor and nature as a precious element, one to be greatly mourned if ever lost. Perhaps Marvel, while looking at the world around him, saw the manner of destruction man employs on his world and could only write of a fading hope lost to the many, including his speaker. As Henry Ellis, the second royal governor of Georgia (Cashin para. 1), once said, “The sun, the moon and the stars would have disappeared long ago... had they happened to be within the reach of predatory human hands” (Quoted in Nature Quotes).
Any character from this array of novels, short stories, and poems experiences an alteration from the conflicting forces of corruption and purification when, at some point in his tale, civilization touches his life with darkness or foreshadows some disaster that he could have avoided while nature attempts, with or without success, to purify the worst of his life, even if it means his death. The majority of characters siding with nature stand uncorrupted at the end of their tales, looking back at what was and knowing what horrors could have been. The majority of characters siding with civilization, in contrast, lie dead by the end of their tales. Corruption of the human spirit carries a high price that few ever perceive in time to act. Purification, once successfully completed, allows the characters to endure beyond their plotlines, living in a manner that does not destroy itself. Yet, regardless of which allegiance a character chooses, the conflict between the two forces continues to war within the bounds of both nature’s and civilization’s domains, continually altering the states’ of men’s souls in literature and the world that literature’s authors live within. Thus, it continues.
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