Pathetic Fallacy

[killerzzz]

The other day, before dusk, I stepped out into my yard, and looked west.
I saw the sun, setting not with a blaze of red, but with a soft diminishing yellow.
For this reason, the sky remained blue, and clear. But at my back, there was darkness.
As I turned, the change was progressive, and the dark clouds grew in number.
Dark, but not threatening, they surrounded me, forming a wall behind me.
I stood on the edge of a circle of clear sky that opened at the end for the sun to shine through.
It was as if I was in a deep valley, enclosed by mountains higher than the heavens.
Yes, the clouds crowded around, and I looked to the west, longing to travel toward clarity.
But...
And when I think back, I see the hole in the gathering darkness as an eye.
With the sun as a shining a golden iris, it looks upon the world.
Very slowy, it is closing, making its final glimpse of the day last.
I think back, and I wonder what would have happened if...
If...
Were my feet to have moved, would I have been free?
Pathetic fallacy.

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If anyone doesn't know, Pathetic Fallacy is nature (usually weather) reflecting a person's state of mind or emotions.

This is one I felt recently.

Does anyone else have a pathetic fallacy experience to share? It doesn't have to be said in the weird way I did it. ;D

Killerzzz

[LaFille]

Pathetic fallacy - in French we call that the feeling of nature (le sentiment de la nature) and it was one of the primary traits of Romanticism in arts; it sounds less dramatic, though often carried the same spirit indeed. ;D

I've known a place in particular that could echo feelings to the point of it being almost creepy; will come back about it.

[Galadriel]

I feel the same way in some places, but a certain place gives me more awarness of my senses then any other place and that's a militairy graveyard from WW1. Call me crazy but it's true.

[Hildor]

I had it when driving through the Canyonlands in the US, while it was getting dark. One of the best moments in my life.

[Flix]

As I understand it, a pathetic fallacy is not necessarily nature reflecting your own emotions, as it is the treatment of any object or thing as if it had human thoughts and feelings.

We all do this to some degree or another, sometimes without thinking: we may curse at and kick the stupid car that stubbornly won't start and is making us late for work, when of course it has no will and feels nothing. We say to our friend, "it just doesn't want to start today." My personal favorite is King Xerxes sentencing the ocean to 300 hundred lashes since it kept knocking down his bridges.

It shows up in poetic language too, rightly without criticism: the sea is merciless, the sky is crying, the stars gaze down on us. It's not so forgivable in science, the classic example being "nature abhors a vacuum," which gets the point across but is strictly incorrect.

We do it much more often when are children, I suspect partly due to a natural tendency and partly due to children's literature and videos. Look at practically any disney movie - polite candles, dancing rugs, toasters that miss their masters.

Adults don't always help either with lazy explanations of how things work:

[Elliot Kane]

My favourite is one I'm sure we all do from time to time. On a bus or a train, we check our watch. Why? It won't make the thing go faster

[killerzzz]

Your right, Flix.

But alot of times, people will call the more concrete giving of human aspects to nature as Personification (since pathetic fallacy is a sort of personification).

I generally like to use it in the way this Wikipedia sentence describes it.

"The pathetic fallacy is also related to the concept of personification. Personification is direct and explicit in the ascription of life and sentience to the thing in question, whereas the pathetic fallacy is much broader and more allusive."

The "nature reflecting emotions" thing is the less complete form of pathetic fallacy that I usually see taught in primary/secondary schools, and the aspect of it that I enjoy the most, but its true that it has a greater sense including all sorts of giving objects human traits.

"The word "pathetic" in this use is related to empathy (capability of feeling)" and "A fallacy is a component of an argument which, being demonstrably flawed in its logic or form, renders the argument invalid in whole" are the parts of it that I feel the most. A feeling of emphathy from nature (or other inanimate objects), that's flawed because though you feel it, nature is unfeeling, and cares nothing for your emotions ;D (realistically, though we don't like to think of it that way -- I don't ).

Killerzzz

[rhiian]

bahaha the number of times my english teacher will be reading something to us then suddenly stop and go "LOOK PATHETIC FALLACY WRITE IT DOWN!!! EXAM POINTS! GO GO GO!"

but the weather does effect ur emotions tho. if u hate the rain ur not gonna be too happy when it rains are you?
I'm usually happiest when its sunny or snowed because thats when theres more light. I have gotten into a habit recently of moaning at teachers who shut the blinds in lessons then turn on those ghastly bright lights. not only is it a waste of energy but i get really bad headaches from those things >_<

[LaFille]

So, my pathetically fallacious place is one where the weather/environment tended to coincide with the mood/happenings of the moment a lot; it was also a very scenic location, the kind that you can't not pay attention to that aspect. The first time I went there I was not supposed to but did anyway with friends; it was full winter with a ton of snow, thrilling and beautiful but also a little oppressing and dangerous... And the car got indeed stuck in a snowbank at a few hundred meters of our destination. Usually I was always excited and happy to go there and could see that fed and reflected in the place itself. Another time we sneaked in secret in a weird chapel in the woods there that had creepy stuff in and when we got out it was all dark, cold, gray and foggy, almost like in horror movie settings almost in reprisal or as if we triggered something. One of the guys who lived there told that his grandfather died in their home there and that at as it happened the atmospheric pressure kind of dropped suddenly, the birds stopped singing and a thunderstorm broke through. The kind of things to amplify a state of mind and leave a strong impression. ;D