rise of capitalism + change in relation w/ nature

• village community represents way of life lived close to natural world, every year repeats pattern of last
• way of life is

  • dependent upon natural forces beyond villagers’ control- ‘fearing drought’, ‘daily nervous for the crop’ (ch4, p.g.62)
  • struggle for survival every winter- ‘days when our cattle dine and we do not’ (ch2, p.g.19)
  • unrelenting work + vigilant tending, at moment way of life is falling apart- ‘no one is even seeing off the rats…’ (ch11, p.g.169)
• also a way of life that used natural resources in sustainable way

  • winter season as ‘mending time’ (ch8, p.g.131)
  • everyone involved in harvesting process
  • strong sense of reverence for natural world- ‘our work is consecrated by the sun’ (ch1, p.g.7)
  • wt rebels against role ej imposed, + ploughs, feels as if he’s walking through unlit chamber of ‘great cathedral’ (ch14, p.g.232)
• despite hardness of pre-industrial small-scale agriculture, crace suggests people living close to natural world had healing sense of own lives as part of natural process, greater than themselves

  -‘our fields are our medicine’ (ch13, p.g.204)

  -‘the dead leaves fly…’(ch13, p.g.106), image of profound acceptance of natural cycle

  -land is ‘much older than ourselves’, ’what’s preceded us, and what will outlive us’, ‘these woods that linked us to eternity will be removed by spring’ (ch13, p.g.196)
• throughout novel, threatened traditional way of life is contrasted w/ capitalist + consumerist approach to natural world represented by ej

  ’agriculture without coin is absurd’ (ch6, p.g.101)