Introduction
The literary works of Aldo Leopold, Gabriel García Márquez, and Walt Whitman share a common theme of mutual respect among all living things. They do this by drawing attention to the beauty and fragility of the surrounding world.
Aldo Leopold
Aldo Leopold dwells on how elusive wolves are and how inconspicuously they make their presence. However, even cunning wolves turn out to be very fragile. Their destruction takes a fraction of a second: “When our rifles are empty, the old wolf was down” (Leopold para. 4). At the same time, even after death, this wild creature remains beautiful and has a thirst for life, reflected in “a fierce green fire dying in her eyes” (Leopold para. 5).
Gabriel García Márquez
Gabriel García Márquez, in “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings,” shows that even an omnipotent creature like an angel, capable of healing diseases, is mortal and vulnerable. An angel is the personification of nature, and Marquez demonstrates that if you take away their fragile freedom from living beings, it will begin to hurt, just as an angel got sick as a result of captivity: “angel had an incredible smell of the outdoors, the back side of his wings was strewn with parasites and his main feathers had been mistreated by terrestrial winds” (Marquez para. 5).
Walt Whitman
Walt Whitman, in Song of Myself, also refers to the fact that, despite the external force, nature is very fragile. He observes “a spear of summer grass,” even in this small detail, observing the power of a barrel gun (Whitman para. 2). At the same time, he compares his aging with “nature without check with original energy,” saying that without caring about it, nature loses its power (Whitman para. 4).
Conclusion
Thus, all three authors emphasize in their works that, despite the external strength and beauty, nature needs protection, otherwise it will perish.
Works Cited
Leopold, Aldo. “Thinking Like a Mountain.” Eco Action, 2011.
Marquez, Gabriel Garcia. A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings. Penguin Books Ltd, 2014.
Whitman, Walt. “Song of Myself.” Medium, 2019.