How many ways can living things bite the dust? Um, a lot. The brutal truth is that if you're an insect, muskrat, or fish, the odds are against you—there are all kinds of parasites just waiting to feast on your innards. Interspersed with stories of horsehair worms and leeches in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, are tales of ancient Israeli sacrifices, sewing needles made of bone, and Eskimo children using seal pelts as sleds. It's eat or be eaten at Tinker Creek, and like Dillard, you may find yourself wondering how any of us make it to birth, let alone adulthood, without becoming another creature's lunch.
Questions About Mortality
- Are animals capable of feeling remorse about killing other animals?
- How does Dillard's time at Tinker Creek change her views of own mortality, and of mortality in general?
- Why don't the caterpillars walking around the edge of the vase go for the food? Are they aware it's there? Are they choosing not to eat?
- What are some of the uses for dead animals Dillard mentions in the book? (Think Eskimos, for starters.)
Chew on This
Appreciation of the numerous forms of life requires an awareness of the numerous forms of death.
Wild predators kill their prey more humanely than humans.