Question

Living like Weasels. What is the purpose of the two anecdotes, the story of the naturalist and the story of the eagle?

Answer 1

Answer:

Living Like Weasels by Annie Dillard. The intention of this piece is to convince readers to live “as [they're] meant to,” focus on their individual purposes (or goals), and never give up on whatever they feel they are meant to do.

Explanation:

Annie Dillard wrote “Living Like Weasels”, an essay in which she paints the story of her encounter with a weasel. She explains that from her meeting with the weasel, she developed a great admiration for the weasel’s way of life; Weasels live not by choice, bias, or motive as humans do, but rather out of pure necessity. Dillard relishes the thought of going about life wild and careless as weasels do. She concludes that it’d be best if one would yield to the necessity to simply live as intended.

Dillard sees that the wild weasel has the freedom to live carelessly and solely by necessity; whereas, the way humans choose to live can identify necessity with miscellaneous things and be shaped by bias, motive, etc. If humans could understand the purity in the mindlessness of the weasel’s way of life, each person could live how they wanted, unrestricted by imposed human behavior, societal norms and expectations.