Death and growth are most apparent to me as William moves through the landscape. We start with barrenness: dust, smoke, and the imposing metal train tracks. The buffalo are being shot for sport, and the indigenous villages have been burned. The town of Machine is black with smoke, the people and buildings coated in it. Metal and wood dominate the environment, and the opportunity for natural growth has ceased to exist. Machine is a place where beauty and fragility cannot continue to survive. Thel’s paper rose is her desperate attempt to create beauty and fragility in an environment unsuited to it. She herself does not survive it. As Blake journeys through the wilderness, cleanliness and growth are reborn. There is water, trees, overgrown plants, and hair. Life is still present but is ravaged by violence, as we see Blake move through it.