Nature is a place filled with livelihood, imagination, and diversity. It is praised for its beauty and mystifying inhabitants. In “Owls”, Mary Oliver is fascinated by the alluring aspects of the landscapes surrounding her; yet, she also seems to be frightened due to nature’s predators and dangers. These perplexing emotions are evident throughout the passage as Oliver describes her encounters with owls and flowerbeds. Through a variety of syntax and amusing paradoxes, Oliver is able to successfully convey her puzzling feelings towards nature. Mary Oliver uses a diversity of word arrangements in order to emphasize her responses and give life to her writing. She instantly begins the passage with a lengthy sentence filled with catalog that expresses …show more content…
The long sentence contains a plethora of information necessary to introduce the topic at hand. Oliver is able to effectively make a sudden transition to smaller clauses which highlight crucial points throughout the text. By adding a variety to her writing, Oliver is able to use her distinctive style as way to contribute towards her description. She does not recount the characteristics of nature in a monotonous manner by repetitively describing it the same way. The variety in syntax reflects the diversity of the outdoors itself. Oliver goes beyond the regular technique of imagery to create a visual representation for the reader. She takes advantage of syntax to convey the mixed feelings she has towards nature; she wants the audience to understand how the earth is both beautiful and treacherous. Using distinctive sentence structures can potentially confuse and make it difficult for the reader to follow the writer’s concepts. However, Oliver is able to use the strategy to reveal her confusion when discussing the notion of nature. She is able to successfully integrate syntax diversity as a way to develop her perspective on the
Love in the Forest “A little girl was driving home her cow, a plodding, dilatory, provoking creature in her behavior, but a valued companion at that” (Jewett). Sylvia’s attentiveness to the wellbeing of the cow speaks to her care for animals; the creatures of the forest trust her and come to eat food from her hands. Cruelly, an intrusion into the way of life that Sylvia has made for herself tests her connection and dedication to the natural world. In Sara Orne Jewett’s short story “A White Heron,” Sylvia, the main protagonist, makes a journey of self-discovery upon the arrival of an ornithologist.
In “The Raven”, the reader is taken through the eyes of a man who comes face to face with a raven who has entered his home. The man sees this bird as a prophet at first in the story, or as something of beauty and wonder. This same view is had on the caverns in “Subterranean Homesick Blues again”, as the caverns are
White Heron: Historical Summary and Analysis During a time of hardships and cultural changes Sarah Orne Jewett managed to capture innocence and the effects of society in A White Heron. The emergence of American realism caused a spurring change in the 19th century for those living in urban areas as well as the rural areas. The development of industrialization allowed for more factory jobs to open doors to science, technology and advancement for women. Jewwett wanted to inform the readers about the influence of industrialization from two different aspects of life, which evokes the voice of materialism and feminity.
A Berry Healing Escape American conservation activist John Burroughs divulges, “I go to nature to be soothed and healed, and to have my senses put in order”(“Nature Quotes”). The wise statement proves true, as nature functions as an impeccable place for one to reflect and rebuild, and also grants the opportunity to unearth one’s true identity. Burroughs does not stand-alone as he takes advantage nature’s comforting powers; the speakers of both Mary Oliver’s “August” and Yusef Komunyakaa's “Blackberries” also turn to nature as a refuge from their own troubles. The subjects of both poems, each confronted with a similarly daunting situation, seek refuge from life’s hardships through the symbolic act of blackberry picking in nature, although the
“An Entrance to the Woods” is an essay by Wendell Berry about the serenity and importance of nature in his life. In this essay, the author uses tone shifts from dark to light to convey his idea of finding rebirth and rejuvenation through nature. In the beginning of the essay, Berry has left civilization for the first time in a while, and finds himself missing human company and feeling “inexplicably sad” (671). This feeling of sadness is in part from the woods itself, and partly due to Berry leaving the hustle and bustle of normal life in the cities, and the violent change from constant noise to silence causes him to feel lonely in the woods. As a result of feeling alone in the woods, the tone of the essay is dark and brooding, as seen through Berry’s somber diction and mood, as seen on page 671: “And then a heavy feeling of melancholy and lonesomeness comes over me.
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
Kelley’s diction adds a tone to the piece and allows her to get her message across with helping the reader understand more deeply . Kelley’s use of imagery, appeal to logic,
How does the poet use language communicate ideas the reader/audience? Time controls all. In the poem ‘Nothing Gold Can Stay’ by Robert Frost, the poet uses language with great efficiency to illustrate that time is far from our reach, hence we must treasure our short lives. The poet uses a diversity of metaphorical language, powerful imagery and simple diction to create emphasis on the idea that eventually, everything will collapse and we must live life to its value.
Mastery Assignment 2: Literary Analysis Essay Lee Maracle’s “Charlie” goes through multiple shifts in mood over the course of the story. These mood are ones of hope and excitement as Charlie and his classmates escape the residential school to fear of the unknown and melancholy as Charlie sets off alone for home ending with despair and insidiousness when Charlie finally succumbs to the elements . Lee highlights these shifts in mood with the use of imagery and symbolism in her descriptions of nature.
Alice Walker uses imagery and diction throughout her short story to tell the reader the meaning of “The Flowers”. The meaning of innocence lost and people growing up being changed by the harshness of reality. The author is able to use the imagery to show the difference between innocence and the loss of it. The setting is also used to show this as well.
The author writes in short choppy sentences to show Malcolm's lack of well sentence structure. The sentence structure is
“I Was Sleeping Where the Black Oaks Move” written by Louise Erdrich focuses on a child and a grandfather horrifically observing a flood consuming their entire village and the surrounding trees, obliterating the nests of the herons that had lived there. In the future they remember back to the day when they started cleaning up after the flood, when they notice the herons without their habitat “dancing” in the sky. According to the poet’s biographical context, many of the poems the poet had wrote themselves were a metaphor. There could be many viable explanations and themes to this fascinating poem, and the main literary devices that constitute this poem are imagery, personification, and a metaphor.
There are many differences and similarities of the Renaissance era and the Romantic era that can be illustrated through the Renaissance poem, “The Flea” by John Donne and the Romantic poem, “Ode: Intimations of Immortality.” The Renaissance way of writing originated in Florence, Italy in the Fourteenth century then spread to the rest of Europe. This way of writing was influenced by literature, philosophy, art, religion, and music that focused on realism and human emotion that was realistic. Realism is the movement or style of representing familiar things as they are.
In this passage from Brontë’s Jane Eyre, Jane stands in front of a white stone pillar in the north-midlands of England. She has left her master and past fiancée Edward Rochester after a disastrous wedding. To her shock and horror, Jane learned of Bertha Mason, Rochester’s previous wife who had been locked in the attic of his manor, Thornfield Hall due to her mental illness. Fleeing the anguish of Rochester’s betrayal, Jane takes a coach to the aptly named Whitcross, located a distance from any villages or hamlets, surrounded by rolling hills and misty moors. Jane is alone, and is at a crossroads.
Nature has always played an important role in literature, especially in poetry. Writers and poets have often used nature to describe their emotions and their thoughts about life, death, love and war. This is how numerous great poets dealt with the terror of the First World War, including Robert Graves, Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon. In Owen’s poems “the sympathetic connection between man and Nature is broken by the war, and the natural world is seen as complicit in the killing”. (Featherstone, 80)