Paper One PROMPT

WR100 HI100
Writing Seminar: Technology and Nature in New England
Fall 2009
Instructor: R. S. Deese



Assignment One
1000 words
FIRST DRAFT DUE IN CLASS 9/14
FINAL DRAFT DUE IN CLASS 9/21


'Tis the day of the chattel,
Web to weave, and corn to grind,
Things are in the saddle,
And ride mankind.

There are two laws discrete
Not reconciled,
Law for man, and law for thing;
The last builds town and fleet,
But it runs wild,
And doth the man unking.


Ralph Waldo Emerson

Excerpted from "Ode, Inscribed to William H. Channing" (1846) Emerson, Ralph Waldo. Early Poems of Ralph Waldo Emerson. New York, Boston, Thomas Y. Crowell & Company: 1899



Interpret the above passage from Emerson’s poem and consider its broad claims in relation to David E. Nye’s essay “Does Technology Control Us?”. How do the examples and arguments that Nye presents either affirm, refute, or complicate Emerson’s lament that “Things are in the saddle /And ride mankind”? Based on your own experiences with technology, and your analysis of Nye’s argument, what conclusions have you reached on whether human beings control their technological creations, or vice versa?