Lenses by Annie Dullard Annie Dullard wrote on her experience with analyzing other forms of life. She inadvertently discovered that she and other human beings were not alone in the world. She described her different views of the world by either using a microscope, to see a world too small to see with the naked eye, or binoculars, to see a world that appears to be sight never ending. Dullard recalls as a child obsessing over watching the algae in her “child’s microscope set”.
She was so dedicated to the point ear she made it possible that she could’ve become ultimately blind because she switched her “dim” five-watt lamp with a , 1 5 times stronger, seventy-five-watt lamp. Her interest in seeing these small organisms zooming around in and out of eye’s sight eventually led her to the realization that there was a tiny world at her fingertips as she watched them meet their death at the matters of her hands and her seventy- five-watt lamp. Not only was the lamp too harsh for her susceptible eyes but it nearly instantly evaporated a “biomass”.
I can relate to her excitement for discovery. I feel most children have had their own microscope set which either helped them figure out their passion for science or helped them realize they absolutely hate it. I actually did exactly what she did. I kept the microscopic murder at a minimum, in contrast to her. She set “… Up a limitless series of apocalypses. ” She can even come off as devious or even psychologically unstable as she says, “l set up and staged hundreds of ends- of the-world and watched, enthralled, as they played themselves out.
Over and over again, the last trump sounded, the final scroll unrolled, and the known world drained, dried, and vanished. When all the creatures lay motionless, boiled and fried in the positions they had when the last of their water dried completely… ” Anytime it rained, my front yard would flood and that was the perfect time to collect any organism I may want to explore. Most of the time it was Just plainly water but every now and then I would get a glimpse of a living object and that rare occasion was enough to keep me interested.
Dullard also went on to describe “two whistling swans”. Her reaction to seeing them made them seem astronomical in reputation and in size she goes on to depict them and says, “All their [the two whistling swans] feathers were white; their eyes were black. Their wingspan was six feet; they were bigger than I was. ” This is the other end of the spectrum from the . She illustrated the sky as a massive mystery. She says, “In every other direction I saw only sky,sky crossed by the reeds which blew before my face whichever way I turned.
Now, in this setting she’s the one that seems to be microscopic. Annie found a place of solitude but also found a place of obvious unity. I say obvious because I’m sure there are more places than this one but it was more indisputable. All three of these worlds met at Dallied Pond in Virginia. It becomes clear to Dullard at the end of the essay where she says, “The reeds were strands of color passing light like cells in water. They were those yellow and green and brown strands of pond algae I had watched so long in a light soaked field.
My eyes burned; I was watching algae wave in a shrinking drop; they crossed each other and parted wetly. And suddenly into the field swam two whistling swans, two tiny whistling swans. They swam as fast as rioters: two whistling swans, antimissile, beating their tiny wet wings, perfectly formed. ” I do agree with Dullard’s perspective of our different worlds or more literally ecological communities. The human eye can’t see most of the world’s wonders without the initiative of taking a closer observation.
