Theme of a Return to Nature in Letters from Wingfield Farm

Excerpts from the Paper

Theme of a Return to Nature in Letters from Wingfield Farm
The plot that Needles provides in this story opens with the main character, Walt Wingfield leaving his job as a successful tock broker in Toronto. In many ways, he is frustrated by the fast paced life he had lived, resulting in his purchasing a 100 acre farm in Persephone County. The first conflict he encounters occurs when he meets some very cynical towns people that discourage him to farm, but Walt soon thinks of alternative farming methods such pig farming: “I could go into pig-breeding in a really big way” (Needles 38). However, after his first year he has failed to make a decent living out of pig farming, so he has to work part-time as a stock broker from home (49). This is...

.....ofiteering. Surely, one of the biggest problems that Needles has with this book is that of Walt’s expectations of making money using old and outdated methods of farming. I didn’t like this aspect of the story because it ruins the theme of returning to a simple rural life without pressures of making money. After all, Walt had done this for many years in the stock market business. If money is not an issue anymore (Walt has made a good deal of money in Toronto), then why is there the expectation of making similar profits at farming? I really didn’t like this aspect of the book because the motive is not to make money; it is to find oneness with nature as a farmer.
Works Cited:
Needles, Dan. Letters from Wingfield Farm. Toronto: Doubleday, 1989.