Theme(s)
 Man vs. Nature - Separate worlds
Depletion of Nature in Human Life
Human wreckage

Sample Selection of Snyder's Works
Control Burn Pg. 19
The Great Mother Pg. 20
The Call of the Wild Pg. 21

When reading another selection of Snyder’s work, I came across another them of human wreckage. Most of Snyder’s poetry focuses on the separation of man and nature through man’s obliviousness, however in The Great Mother and The Call of the Wild specifically: Snyder shows a new view that man destroys nature in their own lives by shutting it out.

One of the best representations of this mindset is in The Call of the Wild. After the coyote howls, man will “call the Government.” “Trapper who uses iron leg-traps on Coyotes… my sons will lose this.” The next generations will go on unappreciative to nature because their forefathers are destroying it. The Great Mother looks at men who cross the road as “savages”. For once we begin to see that not only has man been oblivious to nature’s value, but they are depleting it. Control Burn compares humans to Indians who took the lands for granted, burning them several times a year. Loggers are no better than indians, the savages just obtained a different name.