Environmental Themes in From Understory
The poem “From “Understory” by Craig Santos Perez raises the theme of the environment, in which special importance is given to the effect that human activity has on society and nature. The author asks the question, “How will open air pest drift affect our unborn daughter, whose nerve endings are just beginning to root?” (Perez, 2016, para. 11-15). Thus, despite the seemingly useful action that is intended to control pests, it also has a negative contribution to the well-being of individuals and future generations in general. The author worries that this widespread use of various chemicals in the agricultural industry may lead to such contamination of the land that nothing can be planted in it in the future.
Environmental Themes in Hey Come on Out
The short story “Hey, Come on Out” also raises an environmental topic. A distinctive feature of this work is that it does not directly provide an instructive message of the story but allows the reader to determine its meaning independently. The author talks about a city in which an endless hole was magically formed, and “whatever one wished to discard, the hole accepted it all” (Hoshi, n.d., p. 2). At the end of the story, the author reveals the most important catch: everything that was dumped into the pit appeared in another city.
Therefore, with the help of this technique, as in the poem “From “Understory”,” this work says that people’s actions are in connection with each other and that the environmental decisions of one generation can affect another. Another interpretation of the meaning of the story is that people should be mindful of their actions since all their negative actions can have even more negative consequences. Even though the messages of both works have some differences, they both do a successful job of raising concerns about environmental issues.
References
Hoshi, S. (n.d.). He-y, come on ou-t! My climate story. Web.
Perez, G. S. (2016). From “understory”. Poetry Foundation. Web.