Henry David Thoreau’s essays are embedded in American culture, despite the polemic interpretations of his essays; some read the naturalist as an activist for the conservation of nature and the rejection of consumerism, while others understand his work as justification for nationalism and hyper-individuality. Robin Wall Kimmerer’s book Braiding Sweetgrass parallels many of Thoreau’s propositions about human’s relationship with nature in his essay “Where I Lived, and What I Lived For,” refashioning his ideas in an Indigenous context and separating them from their ideological readings. The American philosopher William James articulates a duality between percepts and concepts that provides a framework for the complementary nature of Kimmerer and…show more content… Kimmerer’s book reveals how reciprocity with nature can grow from a tenet of Indigenous culture, to a tenet of human culture. The two authors’ works also complement each other in their examination of greed and consumerism, both structurally and linguistically. Kimmerer illustrates human greed as an Indigenous boogeyman named the Windigo, a human who has turned into a monster as a result of starvation. For Kimmerer, greed is a perception because it creates an emotional reaction. She uses the Windigo as a physical manifestation of the fear and violence that human greed creates by describing the repulsive monster: “You can feel it lurking behind you. yellow fangs hang from its mouth that is raw where it has chewed of its lips from hunger.” The author’s nauseating diction transforms greed from a conceptual word to a feeling. The image that she evokes of a monster “stalking” humans, always eager to kill for its own benefit, is haunting. While Kimmerer goes on to characterize greed in conceptual terms, tying it to consumption and capitalism, she starts her discussion with a
