annie dillard and community

Annie Dillard and Community

This is a paper I wrote in undergrad about Annie Dillard's essay, "An

Expedition ot the Pole" which is contained in her book "Teaching a

Stone to Talk." Dillard's essay changed my life, and as I explore my

life and calling in the present, seven years later, it is continuing

to change my life. So, I thought I would share.

It's long...read it in chunks. Let me know what you think.

Tourists, Spoons, and Backgammon:

The Absurdity of Human Dignity and the Conception of the Solitary

Explorer

It is for the Pole of Relative Inaccessibility I am searching, and

have been searching, in the mountains and along the seacoasts for

years. The aim of this expedition is, as Pope Gregory put it in his

time, "To attain to somewhat of the unencompassed light, by stealth,

and scantily." How often have I mounted this same expedition, has my

absurd barque set out half-caulked for the Pole? (Dillard 56)

In her essay "An Expedition to the Pole" Annie Dillard creates a

powerful and startling comparison between polar explorers and a

congregation in a post-Vatican II Catholic mass. Although, on the

surface, this juxtaposition seems baffling, the essay brings the two

images together under a unified thread: Both of these groups struggle

with "finding workable compromises between the sublimity of our

[their] ideas and the absurdity of the fact of us [humans]" (Dillard

42). Through the course of her essay, Dillard uses the experiences of

the two groups to inform and affect the reader's understanding of the

other, eventually bringing the two together into a solitary narrative.

Dillard begins her essay with separate descriptions of the two

experiences. As she begins her description of the Polar explorers,

Dillard addresses their initial failures. She uses, as examples, some

of the most famous failed Polar expeditions. Central to her essay, is

the Franklin expedition of 1845, where all of the members died and

were later found scattered throughout the arctic. As Dillard addresses

the problems faced by the Franklin expedition, she comments, "the

Franklin expedition stood on its dignity" (Dillard 36). Through this

statement, Dillard observes that the Franklin expedition and other

failed expeditions brought their human dignity on their quest for the

pole. The dignity of the explorers took the form of "silver knifes,

forks, and spoons...of ornate Victorian design" (Dillard 36), "English

ponies" (Dillard 38), or the "colors of the Delta Kappa Epsilon

Fraternity at Bowdoin College" (Dillard 41). By describing the

specific items she does, Dillard creates a rubric for understanding

the greater importance of what these explorers carted along to the

Antarctic. Silverware and ponies represent the world the polar

explorers left behind. These luxuries gave the travelers a sense of

home, and familiarity in the harsh world of the Antarctic. Dignity,

therefore, as Dillard uses the term, refers to the motivation behind

these luxuries. Dignity represents a clinging to tradition and human

civilization; it is a strong need for the familiar, the human, and the

comfortable. It was "dignity" to which Dillard attributes much of the

failure of these famously tragic missions.

The post-Vatican II Catholic Mass escapes some of Dillard's emphasis

on failure, but she subtly undermines its credibility and describes

her discontentment with the event. "A high school play," Dillard says.

"Is more polished than this service we have been rehearsing since day

one" (Dillard 32). Although she does not blatantly describe the

failures or clumsiness of the mass, it is ever implied. For example,

her sardonic description of the priest's attempt to administer

communion carries undertones of incompetence; he "handed me a wafer

which proved to be stuck to five other wafers" (Dillard 32). She

becomes so cynical towards the Church that she describes the members

as "brainless tourists on a packaged tour to the absolute" (Dillard

52). This image of tourists hearkens back to the early image of the

polar explorers who packed backgammon boards and Victorian silverware

to the South Pole. Tourists, like the early explorers bring with

themselves their familiar, human comfort, in the form of cameras,

clothes, and tour guides. This image of tourists becomes a central

image of Dillard's essay, and lens through which she sees the Church.

For Dillard, tourists, as well as the Church, are not "sufficiently

sensible of conditions" (Dillard 52). The Church, like the explorers

bring their human dignity along with them to the absolute, which is

their encounter with the sublimity of God.

According to Dillard, it is human dignity that causes both the early

explorers and the Church to fail at their tasks to reach the absolute.

As she progresses Dillard describes the success of later polar

expeditions. These expeditions used local methods, those of the native

peoples, and "adapted to harsh conditions" (Dillard 39). Roald

Amundsen, the first man to reach the South Pole, relinquished his

precious "silverware" and "traveled Inuit style" (Dillard 39). Dillard

attributes his success to this relinquishment of his past, of

familiarity, and his willingness to relinquish his expectations. To

get to the absolute, explorers were required to relinquish their

dignity and adapt.

At this point, it is important to observe, along with Dillard, that

the colleagues and equals of polar explorers, such as Amundsen,

despised those who surrendered their dignity. Interestingly, the men

still clinging to their "spoons" despised the adapters in much the

same way Dillard seems to despise the mass she attends. Dillard not

only uses the image of tourists to describe her fellow believers, but

she also compares the priests to circus clowns, saying, "This troupe

of circus clowns, I hear, is poorly paid. They are invested in bright,

loose garments; they are a bunch of spontaneous, unskilled, oversized

children; they joke and bump into people" (Dillard 47). This image

cannot be interpreted in any manner other than pejorative. In fact,

Dillard would "rather...undergo the famous dark night of the soul than

encounter in church the dread hootenanny" (Dillard 45). Dillard

despises the human absurdity she witnesses at the mass. She compares

humans, and her fellow parishioners, to an annoying fly distractedly

buzzing in the window. All of this discussion of "the sublimity of God

and the absurdity of us" (Dillard 31), leads the Dillard, and the

reader, to seek a better way to reach the "pole of great price"

(Dillard 31).

Dillard claims that the absolute would exist even if no one adapted,

relinquished his/her dignity, and reached the goal. The absolute does

not require that people reach it. It does not expect, or care, that

people surrender their silver spoons. It does not need people, as it

is completely self-contained, and in the case of the Antarctic

non-sentient. It is the human pursuit of the absolute that requires

the surrender of human dignity. Dillard, as she uses the word absolute

to mean both the elusive Polar extremities and the sovereign divine,

is therefore making a claim not just about the non-sentient pole, but

about God as well. She says, "God does not demand that we give up our

personal dignity, that we throw in our lot with random people, that we

lose ourselves and turn from all that is not him. God needs nothing,

asks nothing, and demands nothing, like the stars. It is a life with

God which demands these things" (Dillard 43). As Dillard transitions

from observing the pursuits of the absolute in other's lives to the

pursuing the absolute in her own life, she begins to relinquish what

she believes to be her dignity.

At this point Dillard's narrative shifts to a personal journal, where

she describes her own journey to the absolute, to the "pole of great

price" (Dillard 31). Physically, Dillard describes her journey as a

polar expedition, but her images and diction are rife with biblical

and Christian images. Her description of the absolute hearkens to

parable of Jesus about the pearl of great price. Here she indicates

the value she places on the absolute, as the pearl in Jesus' parable

was worth everything a rich man owned. Further in her journey she

enters a meditative state, and has "put on silence and waiting"

(Dillard 60). As she journeys forward in this silence she enters a

"blizzard [which] is like a curtain" (Dillard 61), in the

Judeo-Christian tradition a curtain separated the unholy from holy

spaces. By using this imagery, Dillard indicates that she is

traversing through the barrier between the human and the absolute.

To understand further Dillard's path to the absolute one should

explore the nature of the word silence. Silence is the absence of

sound, or, at least the absence of humanly recognizable sounds. In a

sense, silence is the absence of human interference with nature, it is

a state of pure nature, an absence of humanity. By putting on silence,

Dillard seems to be saying that she has relinquished her humanity, her

personal dignity, and has adapted to the silence of the pole she

desires. As she journeys through the curtain blizzard, in silence, the

reader feels as though Dillard will soon end her journey, and the path

to the absolute will be paved for future pilgrims. But, Dillard's

journey does not end as expected. Instead, she walks for months,

journeys alone, and enjoys the solitude, and then she emerges in a

most unexpected place.

If "An Expedition to the Pole" ended with Dillard's solitary journey

it would be advocating the individual solitary journey to the

absolute. But Dillard is not advocating what her initial observations

and journey seem to indicate. Instead, Dillard describes her emergence

from her curtain blizzard and her silent wanderings when she happens

onto a group of lost polar explorers and the congregation of the

Catholic Mass she despised. Like Dillard, these pilgrims are

journeying to the pole of great price. It is at this moment that

Dillard faces the choice between adaptation and dignity.

Dillard meets the party in silence and observes their behavior. They

begin to sing. Jesus is taking pictures with penguins. The

priest-clowns are doing circus tricks around the ice floe. And Dillard

chooses to adapt; she joins in the celebration. She surrenders her

"taste for solitude"(Dillard 60), which she compares to John

Franklin's backgammon board, both of which are not "appropriate to

conditions" (Dillard 60). Dillard's dignity, which her desire for the

absolute requires her to surrender, is not the flawed church and it's

seemingly inappropriate behavior, as she initially thought, but her

personal resistance to the church.

Her solitude is her spoons; her backgammon board is her judgment and

pride. As she nears the pole she relinquishes her inappropriate

luggage. She is "banging the tambourine and belting the song so loudly

that people are edging away" (Dillard 64). Dillard realizes that she

must adapt to the church that she despised for it's adaptation, and

accept the worship that she finds, despite it human and awkward

qualities. Ultimately, the seeming ineptness of the Church is redeemed

by the absolute. Dillard powerfully observes, "week after week Christ

washes the disciples' dirty feet, handles their very toes, and repeats

it's all right--believe it or not--to be people" (Dillard 32). As

Dillard observes Jesus acting like a tourist and embracing the antics

of the priest-clowns, she realizes the all encompassing love God

possesses for those who make human efforts to follow him. She realizes

the beauty of human community, flawed as it is.

A relationship with Christ does not require humans to relinquish their

humanity, as Dillard initially seems to think, rather their personal

dignity, or their pride. That is why God does not blow humanity's

"dancing bear act to smithereens" (Dillard 32). Instead, God redeems

humanity's feeble efforts to achieve the absolute by sending Jesus to

join the exploration as a native, well adapted to conditions. Dillard

realizes that she must relinquish her personal dignity and join the

community, however humanly flawed it seems, for "there is no such

thing as a solitary polar explorer, fine as the conception is"