Discovery

From the first essay "Living Like Weasels", Annie Dillard sets up the theme of discovery. She invites the reader to observe and discover the world with her. Each essay, in many ways, brings a new discovery for Annie, often of a spiritual nature or something about herself. As she discovers the world, she also discovers something about herself.

Annie also brings in a discussion of historical discovery into her own personal discoveries. She talks about Darwin's discovery of the theory of evolution and the polar explorers' discovery of the poles. These discoveries compare with her own observations and discoveries of places and people. Like a scientist, she looks through a microscope at a drop of pond water and through binoculars at a pair of whistling swans. She spends time quietly observing the world, finding scenes and insights that she could have never imagined.

For Annie, discovery is heavily...