Epilogue: The Garden of Ashes Summary and Analysis

Today, the United State is a non-agrarian society, only one in ten Americans actually living on a farm. Indeed, farming has become an industry itself. Nature seems to be expendable to modern man, as he constructs edifices, parking lots, and roads, pollutes his air and dirties his waterways. Yet, somewhere, within the deep thoughts, there remains the ideal of a pastoral environment in which man can live in cooperation with nature. This is "sentimental pastoralism," the type that is but a temporary dream. "Complex Pastoralism," addressed by more modern authors, such as Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and Faulkner, accept the reality of history and thus the reality that man must find some reconciliation between the pastoral ideal and the industrial age. Modern writers, including author Marx, seem to be pessimistic in their view that such...