Leslie Marmon Silko's Turquoise Ledge: Bonding with Nature and Defending its Predators - Essay Sample

Introduction

Leslie Marmon Silko, in her Memoir the Turquoise Ledge, brings out the extraordinary connection she has with nature. She recounts her time as a Native-American woman with the spiritual connection present in the landscape of the American Southwest. She develops and brings out the place of humankind in the natural world. Moreover, she defends the different predators around her, showing bees and rattlesnakes as good animal friends as opposed to intruders with intentions to harm (Silko, 2010). In the memoir, as she tries to free the rattlesnake, it is seen that it did not make the rattling noise the whole time it was trapped. Furthermore, she goes on to demonstrate that bees too understand kindness by saving the bees from water, and they not sting her in the process. She also brings out the perception of how humans go against the ways of nature and call out for a reunion and development of a relationship between nature and humans (Silko, 2010).

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Silko illustrates her undying love for nature and brings out a recognizable voice for her wilderness. The way she connects with nature and the environment around her goes beyond the world of the living (Silko, 2010). She further explains that nature is a barrier and a link between ancestors of the past and the remaining relatives. "After death, it may take some days for the spirit to bid farewell to this world and to the loved ones they want to reassure, so they visit us as birds or other wild creatures to let us know that they are in a good place not far away" (Silko, 2010).

The novel is more of the exploration of the relationship she has with the world of the spirits and nature and less of an autobiography bringing about her critically close relationship with nature. She brings out her house in the Tucson Mountains where there are pack rats that live in her photocopying machine; a rattlesnake staying in the chaise lounge, the spiders are comfortable allowed in the house and grasshoppers are hopping around the house (Silko, 2010).

She goes about to illustrate the collection of animals that include hummingbirds, bees, macaws, parrots, mastiffs, and different creatures. She does not hold these as pets but instead respects them and their right to life. The book mostly describes her effort to tend to animals around the house and her attempts to protect them from different predators. Even though she does not have the ability to protect them from the biggest predators who are the human beings, she gets comfort from the way she understands how nature works and balances itself (Silko, 2010). When she finds new destructions carried out by man, she takes comfort in imagining how nature will balance itself off, for instance, by crashing those that harm it with a rock.

While the anger she has with the "men in bulldozers who crush the desert" (Silko, 2010) is present, it is not the main story of the book; however, it plays a role in the memoir. She brings out the reasons she holds certain people in low regard, and it is not mostly focused on how they destroy the environment. Furthermore, she brings out her ancestry, which includes Mexican, white, Cherokee, and Laguna Pueblo, and this brings out the history of violence, racism, subjugation, and colonization (Silko, 2010). Her great grandmother got her nickname from her ways of punishing her children a practice that was followed by subsequent generations. Her mother was also an alcoholic even though she loved them. Her grandfather was a member of the Ku Klux Klan. However, against all these, she brings out a different legacy, which is a deep love for nature and a renewed tradition.

The majority of the memoir focuses on Silko's reflection with nature and the environment around her as opposed to the relationship she had with people. Silko brings the need to mention the people around her as a means to lead her to the outdoors for the exploration of nature. Further, she illustrates in different sections how she walks on old trails and finds streaks of chrysocolla and nubs of turquoise between the rocks. These represent the gifts that nature bestows to man and these sighting illustrates that Silko is paying attention to them (Silko, 2010).

Adding on to the much-explored nature and environment, Silko looks through the paintings she has, most of which gain their inspiration from indigenous ancestral stories and petroglyphs. The figures in these stories, which, as illustrated as Star Beings, talk to her just as the clouds do (Silko, 2010). With these, she firmly brings out the spiritual connection she has with the environment. She understands better than everyone that the strong decapitate the weak and sometimes feed on them. For instance the desert grounds become hot during droughts, and this makes the strong plants to push out the roots and siphon water from the weaker plants around them (Silko, 2010). The memoir has a different sense of time as it has with the environment. This enables her to bring out an extraordinary connection with the ordinary nature in the memoir.

Leslie Marmon Silko has an extraordinary connection with the ordinary, and this is seen in the memoir she writes, bringing out her experiences and the relations she has with nature. Her story transcends nature and focuses on her interactions with the environment. The plants and the animals around her come in the story to reinforce the connection she has with the environment. The memoir is skillfully used to bring an understanding of how nature works, where Silko centers herself in a proper understanding of nature. She respects the plants and the animals around her, devising ways to protect them from harm. Even though she lacks the ability to protect them from man, she understands the balance of nature, often imagining the repercussions of nature on those harming the environment. With this, she explores nature, illustrating an extraordinarily deep connection she has with the ordinary environment around her.

References

Silko, L. M. (2010). The Turquoise Ledge: A Memoir. Penguin.