Annie Dillard Weasels

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Humans should live by their instincts rather than their optional choices. Humans tend to let their brains make practical and effective use of their heads and hearts. You do not need to live by choices because you could be wild like a weasel. Annie Dillard says, “A weasel is wild,” telling us that weasels are highly instinctual. Weasels have an inborn pattern of behavior and are not taught how to catch their preys because it is a response to stimuli. On the other hand, humans have cognitive control of their options. Sometimes when ethical and logical choices are chosen, our brains make practical and effective use of our heads and hearts in order to process information. Therefore, many times the effective use of our heads and hearts are not balanced and one rejects the other by clouding judgement. Dillard’s thesis goes hand in hand with Aristotle’s Ethos rhetorical part of the triangle because she believes humans should live by their instincts rather than their choices.
Dillard’s fed her curiosity by paying close attention to the weasel’s every move. It helped her get to …show more content…
Toward the end of her essay she includes “we can live anyway we want” and then when finally reflecting her past decisions she looked at the other side of the argument by stating “The thing is to stalk your calling in a certain skilled and supple way, to locate the most tender and live spot and plug into pulse.” When she uses words like “stalk, skilled, supple,” she put emphasis on the amount of commitment you have to have when you have a goal and it is your ultimate decision. She deeply self analyzes and openly admits that her mistakes were not the brightest and it enhances the ethos part of her essay. This shows that if humans lived by instincts rather than choices they will not have to face remorseful
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