Path To The Stars In William Cullen Bryant's To A Waterfowl

Page 1… Mom woke me up and said; “We must leave the burrow now! Grab a change of your clothes and one thing that is very important to you!” Page 2… I grab my favorite shirt and my blanket that was given to me when I was born.

The Cold Birds The imagery of the short story “The Birds,” by Daphne du Maurier, illustrates that these birds are trying to get inside of Nat’s house for the purpose of terrorizing them. “Various incidents were recounted, the suspected reason of cold and hunger started again, and warnings to the householders repeated” (61). This quote shows that the birds are somehow trying to give Nat and his family warnings by tapping on his windows before the attacks and after the repeated attacks. “The tapping went on and on and a new rasping note struck Nat’s ear as though a sharper beak than any hitherto had come back to take over from its fellows” (75). This quote shows that the birds are constantly giving Nat and his family warnings and the birds

Do you ever remember being scared of monsters under the bed? If so, then you will relate to the young child in “A Barred Owl.” An owl hooting in the night scares a girl, but thankfully her parents are there to comfort her. In “A Barred Owl,” author Richard Wilbur uses imagery, tone, and personification to show how powerful words can subdue any emotion. Imagery plays an important role in relaying the message of the poem.

When the Indians and the animals are leaving the Everglades their connectedness to nature is highlighted. The Indians were well adapted to understanding the signs of a future hurricane explicitly saying on page 154 that they were “Going to high ground. Saw-grass bloom. Hurricane coming”. The animals seemed even more aware of the danger the hurricane will bring.

The Fish, by Elizabeth Bishop is a free verse structured poem that navigates readers through the writer’s vivid perception of a fish that she has just caught. The fish depicted in this writing was allegorical to one’s survival of life’s tumultuous nature that can leave one scarred and battered with harshfully visible remnants. The writer skillfully employs literary devices that create an overwhelming image in the reader’s mind of the true meaning behind the appearance of the fish. Bishop expresses through this poem that the visibly worn and scarred fish is testimony of resilience and hope. The author skillfully constructs this poem by using numerous techniques to create vivid visuals of the subject, evoke a wide range of emotions, and to relay a thought-provoking message of triumph through trials.

Ambrose Bierce’s “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” revolves around the manipulation of time through the conflict of man versus nature. Bierce uses time in his favor as he switches between the past and the present life of the main character, Peyton Farquhar, as he lives his last moments. He uses this to show how time can be “subjective and phenomenal during times of emotional distress”. (BookRags). The manipulation of time that is unnoticeable whilst reading the story strengthens the themes that are present in this work, such as man’s denial of mortality, and the conjuring of irrational situations.

Mary Oliver’s poem “Wild Geese” was a text that had a profound, illuminating, and positive impact upon me due to its use of imagery, its relevant and meaningful message, and the insightful process of preparing the poem for verbal recitation. I first read “Wild Geese” in fifth grade as part of a year-long poetry project, and although I had been exposed to poetry prior to that project, I had never before analyzed a poem in such great depth. This process of becoming intimately familiar with the poem—I can still recite most of it to this day—allowed it to have the effect it did; the more one engulfs oneself in a text, the more of an impact that text will inevitably have. “Wild Geese” was both revealing and thought-provoking: reciting it gave me

Water is the most abundant source of life on this planet. Not only did the first living beings emerge from its depths, but it possesses the ability to keep every living thing alive. Powerful as it is, water takes on whole new meanings in Octavia E. Butler’s Parable of the Sower. In this novel, the journal entries of Lauren Olamina tell her story as she, literally and figuratively, navigates the world around her. The dystopian America Lauren lives in is practically void of a reliable source of water, especially in Lauren’s case as she lives in southern California, an area known for its long periods of drought.

In Walker Percy’s essay “The Loss of the Creature”, Percy uses examples such as the Grand Canyon, Mexican tourists, and dogfish to identify “creatures” and explain how they are lost. He highlights the fact that the first people to see something are the ones who see it as the most beautiful (Percy 298). Percy uses the Grand Canyon to demonstrate this example as the first person to see the Grand Canyon had no expectations and wasn’t even specifically looking for what he would soon lay eyes on. This creates an authentic experience in which there were no previous expectations or as Percy calls them, “symbolic complex”. I, personally, have never been to the Grand Canyon, but I can certainly describe what it looks like, especially in today’s society where the internet has photographs of everything imaginable for the world to see without actually seeing it.

Moby Dick is a multifaceted novel in which Herman Melville tries to explain several themes that show up within the book. Some of the more important themes being those of finding the hidden truths in a person’s life, trying to control nature and conquer it, and the ideas of free will versus predestination. Melville tries to use his main character, Ishmael, to try and help the audience and even himself discover the deeper hidden truths of life, those things that can only be discovered by going out into nature and experiencing them. Melville wrestles with the ideas of being able to control nature with the notorious Captain Ahab, a man whose internal struggle lies deep within a need to control and conquer what he thinks is nature- Moby Dick. His

I would characterize the level of diction in the poem “Wild Geese” by Mary Oliver as slightly abstract with more of a general level of English. The level of diction makes the poem easier to relate to on a personal level. By describing nature in such a broad sense, the author leaves the reader open to see their own versions of the landscapes. The diction is appropriate to the subject matter. Oliver’s opening stanza states, “You don’t have to be good.”