Terry Tempest Williams’ Refuge Essay - 1049 Words

Terry Tempest Williams’ Refuge Adaptation is the source and story of a species’ survival. Human beings’ journey across and habitation of the earth’s surfaces demanded resilience to change. As a result each race is a product of the land in which they inhabited. We have grown with the land. Our physical traits tie us to a particular region, a particular place, but what of our emotions? Are they another link to our homelands or do they orphan us, forcing us to seek refuge? Terry Tempest Williams’ Refuge, is the story of her adaptation to change, her struggle to weather changes. The emotional maturity of her relationship with the Great Salt Lake is a subset of her wider community’s relationship to their homeland. This emotional separation†¦show more content†¦Williams wanted her mother to fight the cancer and encouraged her mother to try the various aggressive treatments suggested by the doctors. Although Williams’ reactions to the unexpected changes in both her mother’s and the lake’s natural cycles are different she wanted them to return to normalcy for the same reason—for her sake. Williams wanted to preserve her childhood. Diane Tempest, Williams’ mother, is the personification of her childhood and the Great Basin is the setting upon which her fondest childhood memories were enacted. Williams respond to them differently because, as she says in the first line of the book, â€Å"the Great Salt Lake is about twenty-five minutes from our home.†(5) The lake is not only physically distant from the home in which her mother resides, but also functions emotionally as a distant relative. The Great Basin was promised land of her ancestors. For –years, the Mormons have lived in this harsh landscape. They have grown from this land. The Mormons’ relationships to each other are inextricably tied to the relationship to the land. From bird watching and astrology with her mother and grandmother, to marriage maintenance with her husband Brooke, the majority of the familial activities Williams describes have an outdoor element. Therefore Williams must reconnect with the land before she repairs her relationships with her family. However during this turbulent period of her life, the Great Basin is not stable enough to support her. ThisShow MoreRelatedEssay on Terry Tempest Williams Refuge1182 Words   |  5 PagesTerry Tempest Williams Refuge If we bemoan the loss of light as the day changes to night we miss the sunset. In her memoirs Refuge, Terry Tempest Williams relates the circumstances surrounding the 1982 rise in the Great Salt Lake as well as her mother’s death from cancer. Throughout the book Williams gets so caught up in preventing her mother’s death that she risks missing the sunset of her mother’s life. However the Sevier-Fremont’s adaptability to changes in nature inspires Terry TempestRead More Terry Tempest Williams Refuge Essay examples1926 Words   |  8 PagesTerry Tempest Williams Refuge In Refuge, Terry Tempest Williams weaves together her experiences and relationships with family and nature, two major themes of Refuge, as well as two apparently important aspect of Williams’ life. The book is the story of the destruction of her family and the nature surrounding her, but it is these places that are being destroyed are the same places where Terry Tempest Williams finds comfort before, during and after cancer started to consume her life. I believeRead MoreEssay about Cancer and Terry Tempest Williams Refuge1779 Words   |  8 PagesCancer and Terry Tempest Williams Refuge â€Å"I cannot prove my mother, my grandmothers, along with my aunts developed cancer from nuclear fallout in Utah. 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The deception and lies of the reports presented by the United States government, which lead to the fall out of atomic bomb testing in Utah in the 1950s and the rise of the Great Salt Lake and its effect on bird’s serveRead More Female Struggles Essay examples1592 Words   |  7 PagesLatter Day Saints, also known as Mormons, patriarchy also exists. Terry Tempest Williams discusses patriarchy and women’s connection to the land in Refuge. Over time women’s status in society has become better, however in Mormon culture women’s rights have decreased. In Refuge, Terry Tempest Williams as an ecofeminist defies the traditional Mormon woman’s role. In Refuge the gender roles are not as clear as in society. Williams chooses to display the gender roles more subtly. We learn that womenRead More Nuclear Power and Testing Essay examples2337 Words   |  10 Pagesfallout’s victims. In her 1992 book Refuge, Terry Tempest Williams claims she â€Å"cannot prove her mother, Diane Dixon Tempest, or [her] grandmothers, Lettie Romney Dixon and Kathryn Blackett Tempest, along with [her] aunts developed cancer from nuclear fallout in Utah ( Tempest 286,);† however, scientific tests, although hard to conduct in this circumstance, have proved a strong correlation between fallout exposure and cancer within the downwind population. However, Williams’ chooses not to highlight thisRead MoreThe Clan of One-Breasted Women by Terry Tempest Williams Essay1876 Words   |  8 PagesThe Clan of One-Breasted Women by Terry Tempest Williams In our current society it is established that faith is equated with a type of blind acceptance of all that the church or institution stands for. Having faith is still viewed as a wholesome characteristic, though it is more and more becoming correlated with negative connotation that is commonly attached to a thoughtless, dogmatic approach Ââ€" an absolute obedience of all tenets regardless of conscious thoughts and appeals. In a similar regardRead More Can Religion Help the Healing Process of Cancer? Essay example1427 Words   |  6 Pagesbetter than those who do not believe. An example of the Mormon faith is demonstrated in the book Refuge, by Terry Tempest Williams. The Mormon faith is an intricate part of how she copes with her mother’s journey towards death. Williams’ ability to support her mother in this time of need enables her mother to cope with the suffering and regain a sense of meaning to life. Although, the support Williams gave her mother did not come without struggle or suffering. It was not until William’s herself accepted