High Tide in Tucson Hermit

High Tide in Tucson

Hermit crabs in general are busier during the high-tide period, when life and mobility are resorted to many of the inhabitants of the creature's natural habitat, and the flurries of behavior that Buster engages in are seen as evidence of this "high tide" in Tucson. His periods of "depression" or inactivity suggest a "low tide" both in Buster's emotional state and in the activity he would exhibit during a low tide in his natural environment. The title has many other meanings, not the least of which is the fact that it would take an incredibly high tide to bring Buster to Tucson. Also, the human activity Kingsolver describes is similarly flurried and therefore symbolized by Buster's" high tide" behavior.

2)

Though are actions have been couched in cultural practicalities and sensibilities, they in many ways still reflect our animal instincts and needs, and our denial of this basic fact has proven quite destructive as the cultural representations of these needs come to stand in for the needs themselves. That is, we begin to think of the means of solving our animal problems as ends in and of themselves, such that industry is a goal rather than a method of sustaining life. Buster's high levels of activity are often equally as pointless, if not as counterproductive.

3)

Kingsolver's trip into the Eagle Trail Mountains, especially her finding of the corn-grinding bowl, is representative of the way that humans still carry out there animalistic needs and urges, and feel a sense of industry in such endeavors. Through the "natural water tank" that Kingsolver encounters first, this story also relates the more natural and cooperative way that nature supports life, including human life if we would let it.

5)

The connotations of the word "fungus," which Kingsolver uses to describe the term "want," is one of decay, unwanted growth, and a sort of taking-over by an alien body. Wants spring up unbidden just like fungi, and if left unchecked would swallow the globe. Needs, on the other hand, are described as "few enough to fit in a bucket" and as "dry" and "rattling" things. The first image gives a literal example of needs -- the food and water that could be carried in a bucket would suffice, for instance -- and the dryness suggests a lack of growth and a simplicity; the needs of human beings have not grown or changed.

6)

If survival requires only the smallest bounties of nature, as Kingsolver stresses throughout this essay that it does, tan the few images of beauty that she lists as her means of retaining her grip in her happiness -- and her poetry -- are quite similar in their relation. The gulf between survival and poetry is small because both are built best by remaining simple.