Ids 326 - Paved Paradise

Justin Case

Professor Linda Smith

IDS 326

11 July 2017

Paved Paradise

One of the basic needs that everyone has is shelter. It is one of Maslow’s Hierarchy of basic needs, meaning that shelter is something this is required for a person to survive and to feel safe.  Having shelter should be something that all living things have an unalienable right to. This is not just a right for human beings, but also for all living beings. Reading works such as “Sands Roads: The Development” by Marge Piercy help to illustrate this point. Reading this work will help students to meet learning goal number six to “enhance the students’ understanding of the value of holistic thinking in making informed judgments and in applying values as they become increasingly conscious of what is at stake if we fail to understand the relationship between human culture and the environment.”

In Piercy’s “Sand Roads: The Development,” this issue of habitat loss is dealt with. Habitat loss is when a natural habitat for an animal is unable to support that animal any more. This could be due to lack of food, destruction of home, new threats such as predators, etc. This reading tells the tale of a beach front area in which land is being taken from animals and vacation homes are being built.  The narrator states that many animals have left the area due to the addition of homes. The local residents are trying to nurture the land by planting cover for the birds and composting.  The narrator of the story states that these homes are vacant 9 months out of the year.  

These vacant houses serve as a symbol in the story. It symbolizes the waste of human kind. People are so desperate to accumulate more things, that they have these vacation homes built, and then they will only use these homes for three months of the year. The narrator states, “Nine months vacation homes stand empty except for mice and spiders, an occasional bird with a broken back twitching on the deck under a gape of glass.” (403)  Vacant homes serves to illustrate that humankind are more concerned with material things than they are with the survival of animals that stand in their way.

Another symbol in this work is that of the grey fox. In Piercy’s work, the narrator discusses these animals that used to live on the land that is now a home. The narrator states “Yes, the foxes left us, shrinking into the marsh. I found their new den. I don't show it to anyone. Forgive us, grey fox, our stealing your home.” (404)  These fox represent all of the species that have been displaced by people who are taking land and making homes for themselves. It shows that the animals are affected by the actions taken by humans.

One motif of this work is that of money. In the beginning, the narrator tells the reader that each of these houses being built is roughly $100,000 in cost.  It is implied that each of these beach vacation homes is somewhat elaborate and expensive. This illustrates the point that the driving force behind this land development is purely materialism. This point is again made toward the end of the work when the narrator states “our loving this land carved into lots

over a shrinking watertable where the long sea wind that blows the sand whispers to developers money, money, money.” (404)