The Impact of War

Through an allegory, the author makes an ecological statement about the damage that war does to the land. This allegory is told through the Spackle and the terms they use to refer to themselves and the humans. As the indigenous species on the New World, the Spackle and their way of life represent a basic life that interferes as little as possible with the natural landscape. In this allegory, the humans are the ones who bring devastation and destruction to the land.

The author introduces this allegory in this first section of the Return’s narration. In the language of the Spackle, the group itself refers to itself as the Land while the humans are the Clearing. There are sentences in which the author describes the interactions between the Clearing and the Land in ways that have a double meaning, that could refer...