Heaven and Nature: Blog 9
The insightful essay “Heaven and Nature” by Edward Hoagland utilizes several literary narrative techniques to immerse the reader into the mindset and living experience of those suicidal. He begins the piece with a very vivid yet vague description of his friend in New York who was overwhelmed with thoughts to not only take his own life at the train tracks, but to also bring another person down with him. Hoagland’s entire piece was extremely macabre, yet strangely relatable as we all share similar sentiments as we grow throughout the world. His “nut graph,” if you will, is just a long introduction of what I view as his major theme of the piece: “Life is a matter of cultivating the six senses, and an equilibrium with nature and what I think of as its subdivision, human nature, trusting no one completely but almost everyone at least a little; but this is easier said than done” (Hoagland, 1988, p. 508).
He then goes on to describe how, desiring to make themselves more memorable and being less open to admitting their struggles and asking for help, more older, white male Americans commit suicide at alarming rates. He uses the literary technique of a simile to describe the harrowing deed — “People sidle toward death, intent upon outwitting their own bodies’ defenses, or they may dramatize the chance to make one last, unambiguous, irrevocable decision, like a captain scuttling his ship — death before dishonor — leaping toward oblivion through a curtain of pain, like a frog going down the throat of a snake” (p. 509). He incorporates only one other voice into the narrative in an interview-like conversation during which he discusses the lack of excitement and zeal for life those suicidal tend to forego.
Hoagland’s detail into the minds of these individuals is impressive — he writes like he is able to recollect his impressions as if they were made yesterday, exclaiming the bottomless unexpectedly gradual process that is death. He also gave vivid imagery of his time spent with his aging father, who also suicidal took his own life but gave the excuse that he believed his life belonged to God. Despite the very depressing yet realistic commentary of Hoagland’s points, i.e. “It would be hard to define chaos better than as a world where children decide that they don’t want to live” (p. 515), he ends on a strong point, the need for love. He makes a very profound decree that love is an elixir that is potent enough to obstruct suicidal depression not chemical in origin, suggesting that a genuine love for the living may be enough to change someone’s life.
Finally, the concept of the title [Heaven and Nature] doesn’t present itself until the last few pages of the essay. Hoagland once again uses imagery to showcase the glass-half-full phenomenon, and how people with sunny dispositions often outlive their more neurotic counterparts. However, the genius of this work is his way of suddenly contradicting himself, allowing readers to consider two contrasting viewpoints. “And it was not just our optimism but our pessimistic premonitions, our dark moments as a species, our irrational, frightful speculations, our strange mutations upon the simple theme of love, and our sleepless, obsessive inventiveness — our dread as well as our faith — that made us human beings” (p. 518).
Then, Hoagland includes lines from the famous Christmas carol “Joy to the World,” such as “let heaven and nature sing” to question the compatibility of God and Mother Nature. He ends by claiming that man is different from animals in that he speculates, which is a high-risk activity. Overall, the amount of awareness, observation, and deep insight on the author’s part made for a very intriguing and thought-provoking read.
