A Significant Concern for Humanity Is Its Relationship with the Natural World and Nature’s Influence on Human Behaviour and Human Interaction
“A significant concern for humanity is its relationship with the natural world and nature’s influence on human behaviour and human interaction.” These are the guidelines in which the topic ‘in the wild’ fits. I have studied two texts that demonstrate the effects of ‘In The Wild’ very well: ‘Brave New World’, a confronting novel by Aldous Huxley, and 'Blade Runner', a post-modern film by Ridley Scott, are two dystopian, science-fiction texts which demonstrate the connection between man and nature and the effects of losing this connection.
The environment that is shown throughout most of ‘Brave New World’ is not a natural one at all, it is a highly urbanised city location with few natural features like trees. One of the few times that nature is referred to in the ‘World State’ is on page 34 when the controller waves his hand towards the garden, which is comprised of mostly small shrubs. This in itself is not nature because the garden is man-made and has been ‘allowed’ to grow. The word ‘allowed’ demonstrates how this ‘natural’ area is actually unnatural in this place. The tall buildings, roads and walkways seem to be ‘the normal’, while this garden is abnormal, making (in the minds of the people of the World State), the garden ‘un’-natural. This is shown when Bernard takes Lenina out over the ocean in a helicopter and Lenina refers to the ocean and the crashing waves to be ‘horrible, it’s horrible’ on page 75. Similarly, ‘Bladerunner’ is also lacking natural features in the movie. There is not a single tree throughout the whole movie, and the only animals seen are either vermin or artificial. Also, the city in which the film is set is highly urbanised to the extent that an average building may be over 50 metres tall! This landscape has become ‘normal’ and the natural theme of the city has become a dark and dense urban wilderness.
The quality and importance of humanity’s relationship with the natural world in these texts is shown to be quite low. The World
The environment that is shown throughout most of ‘Brave New World’ is not a natural one at all, it is a highly urbanised city location with few natural features like trees. One of the few times that nature is referred to in the ‘World State’ is on page 34 when the controller waves his hand towards the garden, which is comprised of mostly small shrubs. This in itself is not nature because the garden is man-made and has been ‘allowed’ to grow. The word ‘allowed’ demonstrates how this ‘natural’ area is actually unnatural in this place. The tall buildings, roads and walkways seem to be ‘the normal’, while this garden is abnormal, making (in the minds of the people of the World State), the garden ‘un’-natural. This is shown when Bernard takes Lenina out over the ocean in a helicopter and Lenina refers to the ocean and the crashing waves to be ‘horrible, it’s horrible’ on page 75. Similarly, ‘Bladerunner’ is also lacking natural features in the movie. There is not a single tree throughout the whole movie, and the only animals seen are either vermin or artificial. Also, the city in which the film is set is highly urbanised to the extent that an average building may be over 50 metres tall! This landscape has become ‘normal’ and the natural theme of the city has become a dark and dense urban wilderness.
The quality and importance of humanity’s relationship with the natural world in these texts is shown to be quite low. The World