Intimidation and Fear of the Unknown

Want to read the rest of this paper? Join Essayworld today to view this entire essay and over 50,000 other term papers

places to go; you can be looking into the eye of a threatening animal but be out of harm's way. David Quammen's, The Flight of the Iguana: A Sidelong View of Science and Nature, describes the fear we as humans have of a threat. In the chapter See No Evil, Quammen introduces Steve Prchal who is always prepared when in the habitat of a scorpion. Quammen writes, "`It was like stars,' Prchal says, `It would scare the hell out of you to see how many you'd be sleeping with if you camped there'" (44). And here, we see that when aware of the danger, we are overly cautious. We take extreme measures in the hopes of living if we know there is something out there that can harm us. Direct threats are what causes us to be automatically fearful.
Although scorpions can easily be crushed by a human foot, their abnormalities tend to skeeve us out. Feeling creeped or skeeved is slightly different than being afraid. When we see something with odd characteristics, it makes you feel uneasy. ...

Get instant access to over 50,000 essays. Write better papers. Get better grades. Already a member? Login

CITE THIS PAGE: