Discovery #1

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In “Freakshows and Fantasies” Chapter 4, Vaughn Scribner writes, “Just as Eades’s and Barnum’s mermaids brought the Western merpeople craze to fever pitch ( in London and America respectively), so did they implode it.” The moment when a widely accepted belief and a communal sense of wonder turn into disbelief and ridicule represents a pivotal point in society’s ongoing negotiation between truth, spectacle, and cultural imagination. This observation captures a central paradox of the nineteenth century: Even though science progressed and skepticism evolved, the public’s desire for mystery and spectacle only grew greater. The mermaid craze is a perfect example of how the elements of modernity’s fascination with the marvelous and its faith in reason and progress intersected. The reveal of mermaid belief showcases how easily fascination can turn into cynicism when confronted by modernity’s competing demands for both reason and wonder. The change of mermaids from potential objects of wonder to objects of fraud and satire depicts a larger trend in nineteenth-century Western culture. It shows how the same forces that wanted to encourage science, media, truth, and capitalism, also perpetuated they very myths they tried to disprove.

The Western fascination with mermaids did not spring up in a vacuum. It grew, as did empire and exploration, and the age’s desire to know more about the unknown. While sea expeditions reached more new land, and new discovered species were being documented such as the platypus and kangaroo, the line between possible and impossible started to become faint. The global awareness of these curiosities developed fertile ground for hybrid creatures such as the mermaid to possibly seem real. Spectacle and science continued to grow in tandem with the other and both continued to feed off each other’s inspiration. The public was deeply fond of this tension, and they began to blur the boundaries between true knowledge and myth.

The ultimate demise of this mermaid craze, especially after the Fejee Mermaid by Barnum, revealed contradictions around modernity during the nineteenth century. Society celebrated rationality but still adored spectacle and emotionality. Barnum’s mermaid captured that tension. While his mermaid was fully described as fact and real, it was ultimately taken as entertainment. Audiences were enraptured based on the confusion between real or fake. The mermaid was never scientific; it was about the joy of deception but a joy felt in the moment of believing, however temporary.

Barnum perfected a technique he called “humbuggery,” an intricate process of conjuring belief without the not-so-simple act of demanding it. He prompted spectators to enjoy their own indecision–to be both skeptic and believer. This typified a cultural moment where a promise of the grand truth would no longer be held as a situated, ideal way of understanding the world but instead exhibited, called into question, and eventually turned into profit. Barnum’s mermaid was representative of the contradictory affection for wonder in modernity: A culture prideful of rational progress, but eager for amazement. That audiences were drawn in to this event demonstrated that even in a supposed age of enlightenment, people still longed for the delight of mystery–especially when wearing the clothing of science.

While this was happening, the media that had stimulated the public’s curiosity was also engaged in dismantling it. As scientists examined the material and newspapers began exposing hoaxes, the idea of mermaids shifted from legitimate curiosity to ironic amusement. What had been touted as a mystery of nature had become a story of gullibility. Nonetheless, debunking did not erase mermaids from the cultural landscape, it only adjusted their form. The belief underwent a transformation from a possible reality to a sign of deceit and mass credulity. The unveiling of the Fejee Mermaid demonstrates how the mass media, on the one hand could manufacture excitement, yet, on the other, could destroy it, profiting from the very wonder it later disparaged. The same presses the printed enthusiastic accounts of discovery sold issues by ridiculing the credulous. Disbelief, it seems, became entertaining in its own right.

This change in tone demonstrates the broader media logic of the nineteenth century. Newspapers and periodicals put curiosity into commerce. Reports of mermaids sightings made appearances before 1845, sometimes with semi-serious musings that relied on natural history or comparative anatomy. After hoaxes were revealed, journalists took on a more cynical tone, using mermaid reports to ridicule ignorance and the human desire to believe. This represented the professionalization of journalism, and however simplistic, the skepticism became an indicator of modern intelligence. But it also demonstrated how capitalism and and mediation had mechanisms by which they can carry on impressions while emoting them wrecked them. By retrievably printing, ridiculing and mentioning mermaids, the media had ‘realized’ a cultural presence, even without consideration for belief.

The enduring popularity of the mermaid myth highlights something basic about spectatorship in the nineteenth century. Modern viewers were not merely duped; they engaged in a performance for credulity. To attend a freak show, or to read about a peculiar specimen, involved a social experience where wonder was shared as a form of collective wonder, where curiosity was counterbalanced with irony. This shared disbelief went on to become a characteristic of modern culture and continues to inform out enjoyment of mass media and spectacle today. Thus, Barnum’s presentations anticipated the cultural patters of modern entertainment, where disbelief and fascination are enjoyed together.

The shift of mermaids from potential objects of wonder to objects of fraud and satire represents a larger trend in nineteenth-century Western culture. As science allegedly “banished” superstition, the same social processes – capitalism, mass media, and the hunger for spectacle – ensured the survival of the very figures they mocked. The mermaid, then, persists not as an object of belief but as a cultural icon that reminds us that even in a so-called age of reason, the distinctions between knowledge, entertainment, and belief are not clearly distinguished.

Overall, the similarities among science, media, and myth in the nineteenth century captured a deeper dissonance in modernity: disbelief and belief are not oppositional; they are rather alike. Although the true reveal of the Fejee Mermaid did not stop the fascination of the Mermaid, it did transform it. Myth continued as satire, while the truth became yet another performance. The mermaid swims in the Western cultural memory because she encapsulated that which modern life cannot fully abandon – a yearning for wonder amid an obsession with proof.

The Emergence of the Environmental Humanities

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In The Emergence of the Environmental Humanities Robert Emmett and David Nye introduce environmental humanities as well as advocate for the importance of why we should pay attention to what is happening. Instead of just explaining what environmental humanities is and what kind of research they can present, they address a big problem right in the beginning—which is getting people to listen to what they have to say and figuring out a way to entice people to care about it.

For starters, Emmett and Nye explain that “…scholars and writers are breaking down academic barriers between the humanities and the sciences, even as these separations are being breached in the larger society.”(6) Pointing out the division between science and humanities that is beyond academic, put to the public. This separation has been an ongoing issue and bridge between the two is needed to further push the importance of environmental humanities. Especially if this study is to be taken seriously, not only those representing this should be involved but those who are still learning about it as well.

They continue to explain that the kind of approach is a delicacy in its own way stating, “Major global financial and development agencies now recognize that addressing the public requires value systems and registries of information that are more nuanced than conventional date”(8) While they understand that their data is major, looking at numbers and facts is not the only way that will increase the awareness for environmental humanities. As they mention, “They demand broad thinking, teamwork across the disciplines, and knowledge that is affective, or emotionally potent, in order to be effective or capable of mobilizing social adaptation.”(8) In this last sentence they communicate that being affective goes hand in hand with effectiveness in this situation. In order to achieve the attention they want, touching the emotions of people plays a big role in the adaptation of environmental humanities. Emotions is ultimately what is going to get people interested, especially if they feel connected to the situation because it could be affecting their own life. Which can be a selfish way of thinking, but humans can be quite self centered and not care about what is going on around them unless it is directly affecting them.

Week 9

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In his essay “The Trouble with Wilderness”, William Cronon highlights the irony of the modern idea of wilderness. Something I thought was exciting was his take on how the wilderness is stolen land, something that was taken and demestocated by modern government and cultures. Cronon writes, “Once set aside within the fixed and carefully policed boundaries of the modern bureaucratic state, the wilderness lost its savage image and became safe: a place more of reverie than of revulsion or fear” (Cronon 15).

I thought this was very interesting because of his use of the word “bureaucratic”; sometimes I forget this word exists, and when I remember it, it always hits me like a truck. It shows how the government has turned the wilderness into something more manageable and less wild. The idea that the wilderness has been taken and turned into something to either profit from or control is wild to me. (see what I did there XD ) The irony of this idea is that the wilderness has become something worth putting time into because of the control the world has over it. No control = not worth the time.

Cronon’s saying “carefully policed boundaries” shows the irony of controlling the wild. He argues that we have turned the wild into something controllable, a mirror of our ideals as humans, rather than something of true wildness. By saying that the wilderness “lost its savage image,” it shows just that. The wild is not the wild anymore, but merely a copy of the wild through the eyes of humans rather than nature. This quote highlights Cronon’s idea that to gather true ecological ethics, we must remove the idea of separate human and natural worlds. The wilderness is not supposed to be something that is controlled, but something that we as humans live with and in. Something we inhabit and enter every day, and not just when we feel like it.

Song of the Week: The Shadow of Love by Stomu Yamash’ta (this one is a bit different than the rest, but I still heard it and instantly thought “Mermaidcore”, it’s very peaceful and it gives more “the peace of the ocean” than anything else!)

Our Human Relationship With Nature as a Whole

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The elements of nature and their relationship with humans is explored in the story of “Undine.” Through comparison of organisms and natural forces, we visualize the connection of nature and the universe as a balanced force balance- yet the absence of human status within the elements raises the belief of humans as foreign and intrusive in the groundwork of nature – devoid of domination over the natural cycles – creating the ideology that nature is independent from human power, existing and thriving in a world unaided by mankind’s interference.  

Undine, an extraordinary being herself, explains to her husband the hidden treasures and components of the Earth, hidden from human eye. Her description was as follows, “Wonderful Salamanders glitter and sport in the flames; lean and malicious gnomes dwell in the earth; spirits, belonging to the air, wander through the forests; and a vast family of water spirits live in the lakes and streams and brooks.” The unique pattern seen in this text is each earthly element has an organism to pair with it.  Every component of Earth has a being responsible for keeping its stability and balance within the ecosystem. As Undine described to her husband, these “beings” remain unseen to humankind, these terrestrial organisms with deep roots within the earth. 

Each and every being has a role in the cycle of life, a placement designed to control the movements of nature and the elements of earth. Without them, the air would not breeze past us, the water would not glisten and foam. We would lack sight of beautiful trees and would suffer through the cold without the glowing embers of a fire. Undine paints a narrative to reveal to us as a race that we, as humans, are at the mercy of these organisms, functioning in a world with these elements at our fingertips, due to the work of others. 

And yet – within this observance, there is one component and majority of earth missing from the equation. Humans themselves. This belief system indicates to us that we are the foreign objects circulating within nature. Our presence is not a helpful stimulation for the environment we place ourselves in. In no place does Undine proclaim humans have a role in the harmony maintained within the environment. We contribute nothing – yet wish to dominate. Our goal as humans is always to control what is separate from us. The unknown enchants us in a way that promotes discovery and this discovery leads to want. Want to obtain, want to rule. However, what right do we have to obtain the command of nature to our will? In what ways do we shape the flowers or move the wind? We as a society want to believe that without us, the lower class, the “inferior,” will lack prosperity without us. On the contrary, nature itself is an independent source, separate from any intentions of our own. It grows and shifts, evolves and moves without any assistance from humankind. It existed long before us and will remain long after we are gone. 

Udnie, through her description of life unknown to us, is able to convey a thought process often overlooked by us. We are not the most powerful beings in the environment.. We are not responsible for the beauty of nature and the gifts it offers. It is only through the words of Undine, a natural spirit, we even learn of the true nature of the ecosystems, given the sacred knowledge we have previously not been allowed to have. It is her nature, giving humans information and discovery, not the other way around. We only see what is given to us by nature’s allowance, not what we believe we have found through seeking. We do not hold the key, but rather, the key allows itself to be used.

What is the relationship between this observation and mermaids themselves? The connection comes from the fact of human desire for domination. In the same way humans have a desire to overpower nature, they have the desire to overpower mermaids. Mermaids themselves are part of the earth, responsible for the environmental changes and developments within the water. Humans see them as a foreign object, “a thing” to be conquered to fit an imagery they see fit in the same way they see nature. In our minds, mermaids “deserve” to be saved and assimilated by us, “exposed” to civilization and superiority in a way they would not achieve in their home land – the water. Yet, it is us who invades their space, sees them as not a being, but an extension of ourselves. We use them for our own desires and gain in the same way we exploit nature for its resources, without giving anything to either in return. 

The human race’s connection with nature has been underexplained and undervalued for millennia. We expect that because we cannot hear what has to be said by the elements, we may overtake it for “the greater good.” Everything we see we believe must be ours. Even if we play no part in the cycle and pattern that has been sustained by others. The account given from Undine makes us a human race witness our own faults and manipulation of nature as a whole, exposing our greed and desires for power over the unknown. It is through nature and the environment we must learn to reflect on our race as one and separate ourselves from the idea that we be allowed sovereignty over the languages and beings we cannot understand, and gain the competence to respect the world we have been placed in. We must evolve to see ourselves not as overlords, but a branch of organism at peace and respect of the elements we are provided with. 

Femininity Through the Male Lens

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Women have always struggled with living in a patriarchal world, constantly being told what to do and how to live. In “The Revenge of the Faery Melusine”, André LeBey uses the character of Raymondin in his distressed ascent to Melusine to highlight how femininity is adjusted through the male gaze of mistrust and domination. Raymondin’s suspicion exposes how male imagination defines a woman’s reality rather than through female actions. These thoughts in Raymondin’s head portray the patriarchal impulse to see female freedom as wrongdoing, inevitably forcing women, like Melusine, to live within a narrative constructed from male fear over veracity. 

From the moment they got married, Raymondin and Melusine had agreed on one thing: that Raymondin must never disturb her on Saturday nights. This agreement lasted many years, until Raymondin’s imagination got the best of him. LeBey states that as Raymondin was making his way up the steps to Melusine, he thought to himself, “He climbed quickly in his eagerness to strike, his heart pumping…there where he had never been before. Neither he, nor anyone, except her—and—who else? He believed there must be someone, but without entirely believing it” (Lebey 121). The language LeBey uses in this passage portrays Raymondin’s fears and imagination that led him to break his promise with Melusine. The use of his “eagerness to strike” and “his heart pumping” presents the notion of desire and hostility that Raymondin is experiencing. This wording is significant to the storyline because of how it portrays his relationship with Melusine, the fusion of rage and love. It portrays Raymondin as an intruder of Melusine’s precious space by expressing his actions as a “strike”. His motivation at this moment is jealousy rather than love; he no longer wants to understand Melusine but to conquer her. This, as a result, displays Raymondin’s desire to control a mystery that intimidates and threatens his masculinity. Not knowing this one aspect of Melusine’s life creates a more significant issue for his identity because she is choosing her own space over him.

LeBey’s language provides a deeper context for Raymondin’s toxic masculinity towards Melusine and her female freedom. When it’s stated that he was making his way to a place “where he had never been before. Neither he, nor anyone” (LeBey 121), it enhances the idea that Melusine has a space that has been untouched by the male presence. A space that gives her independence from Raymondin. This independence is the exact reason Raymondin feels he must defy it, furthering the idea that Melusine is forced to live in a male narrative created out of fear and jealousy. This furthers the thoughts that he had while scaling the stairs to Melusine. 

As Raymondin thinks, “her—and—who else? He believed there must be someone” (LeBey 121), it materializes from nothing but his own imagination, furthering his own insecurities. By providing the context of using his own imagination, LeBey can show how patriarchal narratives are created. Not by how women inherently act, but by how the men in their lives interpret female actions, based on their own imagination and free will. This assumption stems from the patriarchal idea that women hold secrets that are incomprehensible to their male counterparts. Secrets which Raymondin feels entitled to know at this moment in time. Without thinking about how Melusine might feel about his intrusion or “strike” into her female space. This loss of common sense is shown when Raymondin thinks, “He believed there must be someone, but without entirely believing it” (LeBey 121). Highlighting the aspect of suspicion without confirmation, further forcing this narrative he has created onto Melusine. This exposes the idea that Raymondin feels that he knows his wife, but has been so corrupted by the patriarchal gaze of control and mistrust. By picturing Melusine as an unfaithful wife, he can keep her in a story that he is ultimately controlling.

Overall, LeBey’s language in describing Raymondin’s inner thoughts in this passage highlights the male-created narrative Melusine has been forced to live in during her marriage. It’s important to note how this use of language exposes how Raymondin’s want to “strike” stems from this narrative he has created in his mind to control Melusine. Through the relationship and mistrust of Raymondin and Melusine, LeBey can critique the unsteady male authoritative foundation that makes it so easy for uncertainty to mutate into allegation. This passage sheds light on the concept of how female narratives stem from the male fear. Ultimately proving how patriarchal narratives are built to control the lives of the women they are forced onto. 

Christianity’s Claims

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Christianity meanders its way through mermaid stories like an unrelenting river, unbothered by obstacles as large as mountains or as abrupt as fallen trees. The river of Christianity carries poisonous fresh water to powerful salt-laden mermaids, brackishly destroying their environment to favor its own. Crushing their spirits, but wait, they have no spirits. The overt portrayal of mermaids to want, no, to need a soul is like a sodden Stockholm syndrome. By picking up where Undine and Melusine left off, Hans Christian Andersen’s terracentric language in his reiteration of a lack of an afterlife in “The Little Mermaid” perpetuates man’s dominion over nature.

The stories of the relationships between water deities and noble men use the guise of love to convey the superiority of humanity. The little mermaid wants to enter the human world to be with her prince, but more than that, she would give up everything for one human day “to have the hope of sharing in the joys of the heavenly world.” Andersen escalates the message we learn from Undine by reiterating the ascent to heaven: “a soul that lives eternally… even after the body has been committed to the earth— and that rises up through the clear pure air to the bright stars above! Like as we rise out of the water to look at the haunts of men, so do they rise to the unknown and favoured regions, that we shall never be privileged to see.” (118) In the case of the little mermaid, Undine, and even Melusine it is not love that they are truly after, it is a soul; a pure eternal existence that is thrust above love. This supports a modern Christian’s school of thought: getting into heaven is more important than earthly love.

What distinguishes the air of superiority of man over nature is the language that Andersen uses. He describes the “clear pure air”. The air not only clear but pure. Pure and heavenly, but also pure as in unmixed. Unmixed, non-hybrid humans that can ascend to heaven. This is a clear message that breathing air, living on land is preferable than being in the ocean where the sea-folk dwell. Andersen also categorizes the deep as clear, “clear as the purest crystal” in fact, but it is the crystal that is pure, it is not pure within itself, it is not untainted by immorality as the air is. The water is mixed up, salty, contaminated and filled with hybrid, mixed creatures, where land is filled with the “haunts of men”. It is the soul that does the haunting. This precise choice of the word “haunts” gives men souls, it gives the beings above the water superiority. Andersen goes on to explain the ascent is into a “favoured region”. No matter how beautifully the ocean is presented, it is not the favored region, not compared to what is above it, and what is above that. Why is upwards always better? Because the higher you go the closer you are to heaven; and the lower, to hell. And who lives in the lowest region of all? It is not unlike the portrayal of maps. Pre-dominantly white nations/continents laid above. The favored regions, the above, have the right to conquer what is below, whether it be land or sea. Describing upward as a favored region gives men dominion to all below them. It is interesting then, that the notion of heaven, that a claim to what is above in turn gives claim to what is below. This language: “pure air”, “haunts of men”, and “favoured regions” though not earthly in a sense, is terracentric because it advocates land over the sea.

Although this is the first story that actually gives us a visual of merpeople, their culture, their architecture, their familial relationships, even their hopes, wants and dreams, the fact that they are still missing a soul, and are yearning for heaven is a greater acclamation for superiority. That the little mermaid is willing to leave her beautiful home and her whole family behind in the sea to become foam, so she can live eternally in heaven promotes Christianity’s claims to the earth. Genesis 1:26 asserts man’s dominion, stating “…and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth…” It is clear for men that they have dominion over birds, cattle, and land. But the ocean is a mystery. It is a mystery now, it was Mars 200 years ago. How could Christianity advertise their claim of a realm they knew almost nothing about, not even a fraction of what lived there. Merpeople were their answer. Depicting hybrid humans who could express a desire for a Christian soul and a “pure” immortal life finalizes the terms in Genesis 1:26. From a stone carving of a split tail mermaid, silently attempting to warn of heathenism and immoral women, to centuries later, spun into tales of earthly dominion. Mermaids: a true test and showcase of Christianity’s subservient, authoritarian followers.

It is not just the moral of the little mermaid that perpetuates the need for heaven, or the above over below, it is language. Steve Mentz puts forth the idea that terracentric language guides our way of thinking about our environment. Readjusting earthly phrases will help propagate a fonder outlook on the watery parts of our world. I would like to elevate this notion and claim that terracentric stories further influence our perception on the environment and its functions. “The Little Mermaid” has been adapted numerous times. But what we really need to be able to tear down the Christian colonization of the ocean, is not a mermaid story but a human story. In other words, not a story where a mermaid discovers and yearns for our world. A story where a human yearns for the mermaid’s world, decentralizing the Christian concept of humanity’s dominion over land and sea.

STEM to STEAM

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In the Emergence of the Environmental Humanities by Robert S. Emmett and David E. the article introduces us to the idea that science may provide us solutions to environmental problems, but it is the humanities that pushes people to practice such solutions. 

When we think of the environment we think of the wilderness, and see nature as a separate entity from ourselves. And when we do imagine our relationship with the environment, it’s usually in the form of research and sciences or as a commodity. We commodify the environment by seeing it as recreation, resorts to visit rather than something to exist with and support. This creates emotional distance, and a lack of initiative for active change in habits even when science provides us with solutions to help aid the environment. The lack of urgency spreads when western culture faithfully practices hyper-independancy. One of the strongest tools to shift culture is through the power of the humanities. By creating art, whether that be through visual media or through writing, a narrative is being formed to persuade an audience to change.  As the reading says, “The crisis cannot be addressed solely by finding technological solutions to particular problems that are delivered “downstream” to a population of passive consumers.” 

Literature is where people learn compassion. Not technology, not science. Literature teaches empathy by immersing the reader in another’s perspectives, allowing them to interact with the environment that sometimes wouldn’t be otherwise accessible to them. It provides new ways of thinking, offering us narratives that include us as ecological citizens, rather than mortals separate from the animal kingdom. Because the environment has become heavily commercialized, with urban sprawl pushing us further away from the natural world, literature acts as a bridge where we can cross both worlds until we realize the bridge is connecting something we are already a part of.

Humans Shape the Environment

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In The Emergence of Environmental Humanities, Emmett and Nye cite a line from an Australian coastal manager. They said “We do not manage the environment, only the behaviors that affect its structure and processes”. This shows one of the key ideas of the environmental humanities which is that we must see that environmental problems are at their core, human problems. This quote gets rid of the idea that people can control nature as if it is something that’s separate and it reframes the idea that if we want to see change it must be in OUR values, habits and institutions. 

The word “manage” usually means control or authority. By denying that we can “manage the environment” it means that we must shift our responsibilities from controlling ecosystems to understanding ourselves. We as humans are able to control our behaviors, consumption and culture that can shape our environmental outcomes. Emmet and Nye talked about the failed eco city near Shanghai and the Huangbaiyu village project. Both of these were technological solutions that collapsed because the planners ignored the local community. This shows us that environmental sustainability cannot be planned from “the top down” instead it requires cultural participation. 

The phrasing “structure and processes” is also super important. It brings out the scientific language but also links it to human behavior. It explains that the environmental humanities mission is to bridge scientific understanding with cultural interpretation. The problem is not lack of data or information about something such as biodiversity but it’s a failure to act on that knowledge. By emphasizing behavior, the quote brings more of an emotional and ethical response not just a technical one.    

This also shows that there can be limits when it comes to technological “fixes”. For example, Emmett and Nye say that we can design and build solar houses and energy efficient cities but convincing the public to build it or live in it is not a scientific issue, but a cultural issue. This is when the humanities comes in, it helps us understand desires and meaning. To “manage” behavior means we must engage in values and identities that make sustainable choses feel possible and worth something.  

This quote made me think about what environmental responsibility really means. It forced me to stop looking at nature as an object and start recognizing the connection between human actions and environmental change.​​ The environmental humanities emerge as a practical approach that’s grounded in empathy, communication and a collective self awareness.

Back to the wilderness: Environmental History

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The Trouble With Wilderness, by William Cronon is a beautifully crafted academic article detailing the role change that the environment endured as society modernized. The environment began to be seen more as a commodity rather than the true natural world in which we should live and appreciate.

After the Civil War, “wilderness” was less discovered than manufactured by urban elites as a leisure asset, and that invention still distorts environmental ethics by erasing people and responsibility. As railroads carved into “sublime” landscapes, the wealthy turned wild places into curated playgrounds: Adirondack “camps,” dude ranches, guided hunts, resort hotels. They arrived not as producers bound to the land but as consumers purchasing managed roughness, with local guides and workers recast as stage props for frontier fantasies. National parks followed the final Indian wars, fixing boundaries that made violence invisible and Indigenous presence removable. Visitors could then savor a carefully policed “virgin” nature—precisely because those who had lived there were moved out.

This rebranding hardens a dualism: nature is “true” only without us. It’s a seductive story for city dwellers, because it lets us praise wilderness while dodging accountability for the industrial systems that power our daily lives—and our trips “back” to nature. We drive cars to escape civilization, then use the landscape we reached by highway as a moral yardstick against which our world always fails. Policy often echoes the myth: single-species battles stand in for protecting “pristine” places; distant rainforests are imagined as savable only by removing the people who live there. As one historian puts it, “there is nothing natural about the concept of wilderness” (Cronon). A more honest environmentalism starts by naming the myth and placing humans back inside nature’s history. That means recognizing working landscapes and Indigenous stewardship as part of what makes ecosystems flourish. Success shouldn’t be measured by how well we exclude people, but by how well we live with the places that sustain us—owning the infrastructures we depend on, and building conservation that includes, rather than erases, the communities already there.

“Who Tells Your Story:” The Importance of Legacies in Undine

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In “The Day after the Wedding, from Undine,” Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué categorizes the elements as having an “evil particular” to them because “not a vestige of [them] remains” after death since they don’t have a soul, but Humans are deemed “purer” because of this divine connection that gives them the ability to live on (Penguin 105). By making humans superior to the elements because of their permanence, humans now have the validation to reign over the environment because the elements are seen as fleeting. This allows for the industrialization of the land to create a more lasting legacy.

In the middle of her speech where she confesses to her husband that she is a spirit of water, Undine explains that “there is one evil particular to [beings like her]” since they “vanish into dust, and pass away, body and spirit, so that not a vestige of [them] remains behind” since elemental beings are soulless (Penguin 105). Before Undine even describes what “evil” elements these beings contain, it is explicitly stated that it is something that is not approved of. The use of the word “evil” by Undine showcases that she does not view this feature of elements as something to be celebrated, but as something that is a blight to their kind. This positions the reader’s mind to understand that whatever default elemental beings contain is wrongful. By describing these elemental beings as having an evil component, they are already being put in an inferior situation through their flaw that is only “particular” to them. When Undine finally reveals the crime of elemental beings in the next line as being scattered back to nature so that “not a vestige of [them] remains behind” when they die, the reader already understands that lacking a soul is a defect because they do not have a chance at a permanent afterlife. It is through this negative tone used before the reveal of the specific “evil” among the elements that paints the action of the elements “[vanishing] into dust” as something to be frowned upon. Their inability to achieve a legacy becomes an evil action since they simply “pass away” and “not a vestige of [them] remains behind.” These beings are then categorized as fleeting because they do not leave any footprint on the Earth. They do not have to worry about creating a mark or doing what is right to reach a divine afterworld because they do not have a soul to help them achieve that goal. Rather than spend their afterlives in heaven or hell, the elements cease to exist and return to the environment from which they came. Nature becomes something insignificant since it can be erased “without having aught to grieve [them]” and no one there to remember it (Penguin 105). The environment is then seen as something to be dominated because it is construed as an unimportant part of life due to its temporality.

However, further down in her speech, Undine uses a more positive tone when characterizing humans as righteous because their souls allow them to “awake to a purer life” instead of “[remaining] with the sand and the sparks and the wind and the waves” after death (Penguin 105). In these lines, Undine places humans in a superior position with the use of the word “purer” to describe the fate of humans after death. Their ability to have a permanent afterlife grants them a higher status because they are not forgotten to the “sand,” “sparks,” “wind,” or “waves,” because there is someone there to grieve them and carry on their memory, while the elements are forgotten in time. Whether through memories or physical objects, humans leave traces of their lives on Earth for generations to come long after their death – something that Undine describes as “purer.” In turn, humans become virtuous beings because of the lasting impact they have on the world around them. This signals to the reader that it is noble to be impactful and leave a legacy on Earth because it is “purer” than being left to remain with the temporary elements of the environment, such as the “sand” and “waves,” which may only last a moment. Thus, the human afterlife becomes increasingly appealing to Undine to the point where she is willing to marry a human so that she can obtain a soul and get access to an afterlife and not remain with the elements. Subsequently, the author creates a boundary between human and elemental beings, where the elementals are painted as being beneath humans because of their fleeting nature. Creating the dichotomy between good versus bad through Undine explicitly using the word “evil” to describe the plight of these elemental creatures in comparison to the “purer” humans serves to paint permanence as something to aspire to.

With this in mind, the characterization of the elements as “evil” because they are fleeting and humans as “purer” since they have the ability to leave a legacy becomes significant by giving humans the license to dominate the environment. When placing nature in an insignificant position because they have no lasting tether to the Earth, humans no longer have to worry about the preservation of the environment since it is deemed an inferior entity. There is seemingly no reason for humans to care for beings that “pass away, body and spirit” and leave no trace of their existence, which is presented by Undine as a particular “evil.” Humans can conquer the environment and use it as they see fit because it is not worthy of value since it “vanishes” back to the environment without any lasting legacy. This then leads to the industrialization of the environment because there is no reason to work with nature since it is an “evil” being, leading nature to be neglected to allow the creation of more permanent objects like buildings and homes to create large cities to fulfill the righteous action of cementing a footprint on Earth. Nature becomes a canvas for human advancement since these elementals are viewed as subservient and therefore are delegitimized, making nature there for the taking.