In A Sunburned Country And Scribbling Of The Cat Analysis

The final form of alienation Marxist discusses is that of the estrangement from one’s surroundings or one’s nature. Marx argues that individuals can get caught up in the tedious tasks of daily life and end up never contributing significantly to the natural order and world that directly surrounds this day-to-day lifestyle (Czank, 319-321). For Marx and for Bryson, building a relationship with the environment you are in is perhaps just as valuable and significant as doing so with its people. Bryson, specifically, loses interest in Canberra due to its deficiency of visual appeal and subsequent lack of character. Bryson, through perhaps personifying places, aims to display that places ought be valued for their intrinsic worth just as much as humans. In contrast to Canberra, Bryson praises places that appeal to his inner aesthetic needs such as the well laid out Adelaide does (Bryson, 117). The same way human beings recognize beauty in the bonds formed with one another; Bryson recognizes the same natural beauty found within nature itself. However, Bryson’s distaste for …show more content…
In recognizing the three different forms of estrangement- humanity, self, and nature- as well as evaluating the notion of ‘species-being,’ these two travel narratives serve to be much more relatable to any reader. Because travel automatically sets an image in the reader’s mind that consists of concepts like mysterious, foreign, unknown, a set of universally applied theories creates a sort of umbrella overarching both pieces. Even if the notion of “travel” is unknown to the reader, the concept of separation is not. Having the characters in the two texts encounter struggles and battle journeys in a foreign land that are similar under a theory to the reader who perhaps has never traveled creates a sense of familiarity to what is being discussed in an unfamiliar