Thursday, May 27, 2010
Adams Conclusion
True to form, the last three chapters of The Education of Henry Adams were difficult to follow. Best I could tell, Adams continued the theme of telling the reader about his education by industrialization. He talks a lot about progress, force and energy, all in some sort of metaphorical sense, and seems to suggest that the Church is losing energy while industry and technology are gaining it. With all this going on, Adams seems unsure about the future. As far as what he means by the gravitational attraction of an entity, I find that difficult to understand even having done research on the Internet about it. This whole human/nature interaction makes it unclear, to me, what he's really getting at, but it seems to suggest that Adams is talking about humans' interaction with nature from the standpoint of trying to learn and experiment with it. That is, figuring out ways to survive, then, having pretty much figured that out, moved on to try and learn things to make life more convenient as the 20th century approaches. But again Adams seems to be suggesting that he's unsure whether human's have the capacity to handle to much more advancement.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I definitely felt the same way about the ending of the book. For Adams it seems like he is trying to teach us through his life that we are never done being educated and that we continue to learn from our surroundings. The suggestion that the Church is losing energy also seems to go back to what he was saying towards the beginning of the book about religion and how he and his siblings weren't as dedicated to it like his parents were. I was also lost on the whole gravitational attraction of an entity; maybe he's referring to the connection that humans have with nature and that there are hidden forces that connect the two?
ReplyDeleteWhen Adams was discussing the interactions between man and nature, it was almost as if nature was allowing man to discover its secrets little by little. In the spider paragraph he says "fire taught him secrets that no other animal could learn; running water probably taught him even more" as if nature was the teacher and man was the student. And then He figured out how to employ the help of animals through taming them and feeding them, so I think your right in your interpretation of humans' progress.
ReplyDelete