I have an English essay due tomorrow. It's a response to an essay we read in class. While this is frightening for most ponies, for me it's exciting! How did you come about this diseased way of thinking I hear you say? Well, I'm a literary god! I churned this puppy out just this morning! I'll be happy to listen to any criticism you might have! And for all you MLA format Nazis out there, this isn't how the actual paper I'm turning into the teacher is formatted.

The first reaction one will usually get when they read Emancipation for the first time is bewilderment, often closely followed by disgust. Whatever point the author was trying to make is lost under mountains of ridiculously obscure words, constant repetition of a broken and borderline offensive analogy, and confused if not outright contradictory morals and themes. This essay about environmentalism simply isn’t as effective as it could potentially be, thanks to its many flaws.

The author’s purposeful usage of words known to only the most erudite of literary professors is extremely distracting to the average, and even advanced, reader. Words such as reciprocities, aboriginum refugia, Pitjantjatjara, manumission, and monocultured, are completely alien to most people. In fact, the word processing program used to write this essay labeled most of these words as misspelled, as even it wasn’t able to recognize them. Such inordinately difficult verbology frightens off the audience before the author is even able to get his point across.

This essay’s title is Emancipation, presumably because the entire essay hinges on the analogy of comparing land usage to slavery. Lines such as “Land as a serf. In nineteenth-century terms, the land as a Negro.” are scattered throughout the essay. However, if one thinks about the analogy logically, it quickly falls apart. One of the many, many reasons slavery was immoral was because treating a sentient being like a commodity to be traded and sold simply isn’t morally acceptable. Land, however, simply isn’t sentient; it is perfectly acceptable, and indeed necessary for our continued survival, to use the land as necessary. If we start to treat dirt and rock as sentient beings, the insane elevation of other inanimate objects cannot be far behind. Do we not place undue stress on air by breathing it into our lungs and converting it into carbon dioxide? According to the analogy the author is trying to make, the very act of breathing is akin to slavery! One can only imagine the absurdity that can result by expanding even further upon the analogy. Furthermore, even if the analogy did work, including such a reviled subject as slavery without delicate handling can only distract and offend readers. Blatantly labeling everyone who uses land as a slaver is insulting to the audience and simply isn’t an effective way to write an essay. These flaws only add to the confused morals of the essay.

A very important part of any essay is its main theme; Emancipation’s is a cry for humanity to step up and protect the environment. While this is indeed a noble goal, the way the author presents it is ineffective at best. Consider these lines from the text: “The real work of preservation, then, is our own salvation. It is not to save nature. Nature will save itself, no matter what climatic or nuclear hell we plunge ourselves into.” This line, and others like it, diametrically oppose the main theme of the essay. Why should we try to protect nature, if like the author says, it can protect itself from any harm we might try to inflict on it? Such radical changes of theme leave readers utterly baffled as to exactly what point the essay is trying to convey.

When one uses words such as Nullarbor and abrogated, he/she shouldn’t be surprised when the audience fails to understand the point that is trying to be conveyed. When one gives inanimate objects personhood, something generally used in fairy tale and children’s literature, they shouldn’t be stunned to discover their argument loses its integrity. When one’s theme changes from sentence to sentence, it shouldn’t be a shock to find the position they are trying to defend loses all meaning. The story is much like what it tries so hard to defend: A harsh, unforgiving wilderness, the true point and meaning incomprehensible to the human eye.