The Courage of Turtles

Posted: November 27th, 2013

The Courage of Turtles

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The Courage of Turtles

Question 1

Edward Hoagland was born in the year 1922, on 21 December in New York City. However, he was raised in the rural area of Connecticut. When he was young, he was fond of taking long strolls since he got the opportunity to observe natural features of the environment including the life of animals. He was able to acquire an education at Harvard University in the year 1954, and combining this achievement with his experience of being raised in the rural, he decided to become a writer. As a writer, he inspired many readers who lived in New York City and Vermont backcountry in England with equivalent experience.

The writing work of Edward Hoagland was characterized by honesty and a closeness of information about life. In addition, his work expressed well-drawn visuals and it began from detailing a single topic to adding other information pieces at the conclusion of the essay. As a result, by the time the readers were done reading his essays, they were able to get a general visual of the whole subject. However, his work is somehow complicated because it reverses and forwards on information about the town and state.

Question 2

            The author’s purpose of writing this essay is discussing about turtles and their relationship with other animals and human beings. The author argues that a lesser percentage of people know about them and hence he saw the need to bring awareness to the audience for them to be inspired to save the turtles. The author clarifies on the process of invading the natural environment by the human beings in which the animals like turtles live. He adds that after the environment has been destroyed, the same human beings adopt the homeless creatures without being considerate enough to maintain them alive.

The author discusses on the issue of pollution, whereby he describes how the green pond he visited regularly from when he was a child kept changing through the invasion of human beings. When the author was young, the Green pond that he regularly visited was green with a big waterfall and had creatures such as water snakes. In addition, the author describes how there were a collection of animals that surrounded the water catchments area including the fox and perch among others. He then compares the pond to when he was growing older, as being in a worse condition due to human invasion. The pond was sold to a real estate company despite the fact that the wooden trees stopped growing and instead started shrinking.

The land for the pond was demolished and flattened in order to suit the development plan of constructing several houses. In addition, the author describes how the estranged animals including turtles never presented themselves on sight because they died after experiencing drought. The developers dug a hole in the dam so that the water would cater for those buildings. This information shows that pollution exists because the pond that the author was familiar with was destroyed by drought and the real estate developer’s invasion.

The author talks on the effects of pollution on the living organisms that made it their habitat. For example, he describes how the animals were affected by the destruction of the pond. The turtles that constantly stayed in the water started digging into the dry mud to protect themselves from the hot weather. In addition, the author describes the guilt he felt when he visited the pond and found that the ducks were squatted and frightened to appear in being seen by other human beings. The ducks hid behind the dry bushes as the author was trying to engage with them.

The author is also bringing out details about the animal known as turtle in different themes. For example, the first theme tries to explain how turtles are courageous. The author explains that they are undamaging and attractive animals that have feelings and are capable of decision making like human beings. He adds that if people fail to respect this type of animals, they will transform to their dangerous ancestors by becoming dinosaurs and end up being a threat to peoples’ lives and property. The other theme discusses on how to respect turtles and the author explains to the readers that acquiring knowledge about them can be of great assistance because it gives human beings an opportunity in knowing how to save them from environmental endangerment.

The author discusses the third theme about turtles by describing them to be like other animals in general in terms of performing common operations such as eating, interacting, sleeping and breathing and therefore they deserved to perform them without any human interruption or invasion.

Question three

The issue discussed above on the destruction of turtle’s environment can be related to the historical event on the destruction of manatee environment in the coast of Florida. The connection appears where human beings destroy the living habitat of these creatures for their personal interests and hence leaving the animal’s life at a greater risk. For example, in Florida, manatees suffer an environmental threat such as climatic changes since they live inside water most of the time. An example of an environmental danger is where the seawater temperature increases and leads to the growth of dangerous plants that ends up killing a large population of manatees. It is similar to the situation in the essay whereby turtles have been threatened by the existence of drought.

The manatees in Florida are also threatened by destruction through the invasion of human beings on their habitat. For example, boaters contribute to the manatee’s death by harming and killing the floating manatee creatures as they speed off with the boats. This can be related to the essay where turtle’s life is threatened by human destruction in order to start real estate development projects in their natural habitat.

Question four

            Based on the issue of endangering the environment of animals, I think most of human acts that cause life threats happen because of ignorance. For example, in the case of polluting the natural water catchments habitat of various animals, people assume that those animals are not as important as human beings are and therefore this assumption is applied to their safety. In my experience, I have witnessed various acts of sea pollution. For example, factories that emit poisonous gases and chemical wastes including oil spills that threaten the life of animals such as flamingoes which occupy that habitat. I think different the heads of different states should create environmental programs to create awareness about environmental safety. In addition, they should encourage people to participate in different environmental activities for controlling pollution in order to save the life of human beings.

Question five

The use of imagery is evident in the first paragraph of the essay, where the author states local snapping turtles in order to express how the turtles appeared. Another example is found in the second paragraph that states cat-backed little islands, where the author is trying to describe the islands in Dr.Greens pond. Idée fixe of eating is another imagery, which uses idée fixe meaning having an obsessional mentality held very strongly in order to avoid any efforts to adjust it. In relation to the story, the author tries to explain how the alligators find food to be irresistible. He explains that despite in a case where the alligators deny themselves of food, they find delight in eating amphibians known as salamanders.

A sea legged momentum is another imagery used to describe the manner in which the turtles walk. The author wants to give the reader a clear picture of how the turtle walks in order to have a better understanding of what the author’s explanation. Another example of imagery in the essay is kidney shaped bowls. The author is trying to give a visual of how the bowl appears. Irony has been used where the author describes his turtle as displaying hawk eyes and yet a hawk is a different bird from the turtle.

Question six

            The author of the essay gives the audience information about the environmental habitat of various animals and brings out the issue of pollution because of human destruction. However, he focuses on the turtles, and explains the negative impact of human destruction leading to their life endangerment. The author uses different themes to explain these points in detail. He uses the theme of pollution to explain the process of human degradation and natural factors such as drought. He adds by explaining how they made the environment to be of great danger to the turtles. The author also uses the theme of turtles in order to inform the audience more about the turtles so that he leaves them with a positive impact in caring too save the lives of those turtles.