Laura Paquette - Ecology of Eden: The Walled Garden

In class, we spoke about the "walled garden" as something man cannot enter into so that man can be protected from nature and nature from man.

This makes me reflect upon why we view ourselves as detached or set apart from nature? I think that the walled garden should be viewed more as a metaphor greater than just "nature" and "man". I would argue that it should be viewed as the distinction between "chaos" and "ordered". Chaos here, I should note, is something good as well as the "ordered". Chaos is represented as nature, kept within the walls to grow and be chaotic as is a characteristic of nature, for this is how it grows best. In a similar way, the "ordered" humans seek perfected order but cannot find this in nature, so they seek to control it. However, the chaotic works best as what it is, chaos just as the ordered works best as it is, ordered. Hence this is why the two must be separated. This wall is to keep both harmoniously growing in places where they grow best.

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