Bruce Brooks Wasp House Analysis

"It did not occur to me that the wasps might have fashioned it for themselves" (Brooks 3). As Bruce Brooks matured, he understood that the wasp house he had discovered was built by nature, and not by man. Like the thought processes of many other five-year-olds, Bruce Brooks' chain of thought was childlike and incomplete. Although first led by the design of the nest to believe that it was man-made, Brooks soon discovered that that was not so, much to his disbelief and dismay. By the end of the narrative, the wasp nest had completely changed Brooks' outlook on nature, in addition to opening his mind.

When five-year-old Brooks first came across the wasp house, he had no doubt in his mind that the object was man-made. He assumed that the "gray paper sphere" (Brooks 2) with its "rough but trim" (Brooks 2) shape, and "intricately colored surface with subtle swirls of gray and tan; and …show more content…
"That object had fascinated me like nothing I had come across in my life; I had even grown to love wasps because of it. . . I'm afraid I pitied myself more than the apparently homeless wasps" (Brooks 7). His interest in the house led Brooks to investigate the situation further, but before he could do so, almost destroyed the very object he was looking for. ""There, lying dry and separate on the leaves, was the wasp house" (Brooks 9). At this point, Brooks realized that the nest was not man-made; it was the work of nature. Like all things in nature, everything eventually comes to an end, wasp nest included.

While the wasp nest had died, along with Brooks' childish assumptions, it allowed for him to gain a more mature and complete understanding of life, death, and nature. From assuming the dwelling was man-made, to realizing that it was the work of nature, Brooks had obtained an utterly different perspective and outlook on