"The experience of the wild exposes and educates." How well is this statement supported by your prescribed texts?

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Essay – In the Wild

“The experience of the wild exposes and educates.”

How well is this statement supported by your prescribed texts?

The experience of nature, for both the speakers of Wordsworth and Ovid in An Imaginary Life by David Malouf, exposes or reveals to them the truth about civilised societies and nature and educates them in different facets of life. Both authors show us how interaction with nature can by an educational experience, and have different ideas as to how the fullest understanding can be reached: one in communion with God, the other in communion with nature itself.

In An Imaginary Life, Ovid’s experience in the wild, is forced upon him by him being exiled from Rome. He ends up in an isolated village among people whose every action is dictated by their environment. However, the time he spends in exile becomes a learning curve for him. It exposes him to the truth about life in civilised societies and about civilisation.

The Child Ovid encounters in the wild is indeed a symbol of nature and represents the ultimate level of communion with the natural environment. The Child’s relationship with nature is what keeps him alive. Nature is like a mother to him. His physical ability is evidence of his oneness with nature – while Ovid is chilled under wraps, the boy remains naked and seem oblivious to the cold. Tragically ironic though, is the fact that after some time in society, the Child is no longer capable of withstanding the cold. This, as Ovid realises, shows that civilisation destroys mans relationship with nature. Nature provided for the child in all ways, including keeping him healthy. Thus, the Child becoming sick symbolises that civilisation brings sickness, both literally and metaphorically.

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Ovid’s experience in Tomis also teaches him morally. On a hunting party, he is able to release the guilt he bore for being “the son who should have died”. Ovid remembers how he had become distanced from his father and how this unhappiness had become a burden on his life. As part of his experience of escape and rebirth, in exile in the wild, he now finds that the cold breath of his dead father’s disapproval upon his back has lifted, “now, suddenly, the sunlight upon my back is warm. We see how, in the wild, he learns that ...

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