Mary Oliver And The Black Walnut Tree Comparison

Throughout the many poems we have read this term, many relate to each other in some similar thematic or stylistic way. Three specific poems that have thematic similarities are: At the Last Watch by Rabindranath Tagore, The Black Walnut Tree by Mary Oliver, and When We Two Parted by Lord Byron. All three of these poems were intriguing reads which all shared a central idea and dramatic situation. These three poems are connected by the centralized dramatic situation that people leave and those who are departed from a love one are left alone. I believe that all three of these pieces have described a similar theme through a thorough analysis of each writing. The poems themselves were written by poets in different time periods (At the Last Watch

(1) The poem was written in the early 1900s, and is told through the view of the persona, most likely a small child who is experiencing the unannounced absence of a parent, who they loved very much, who did not say goodbye. This story is told through the setting of the persona’s house which is even when the persona says, “I rushed out of bed… I say waiting near the door of the room.” The individual dramatic situation of this poem is at the end of the piece when the persona realizes that the missing loved one would come back for their “gold-mounted ivory walking stick” instead of saying goodbye to the persona, as seen in the lines, “You might come back from the station to look for it/But not because/You had not seen me before going away.” This poem describes the relationship of the central theme with the other poems by using many examples of symbols and smilies. The author uses the “gold-mounted ivory walking stick” which is the only thing the loved one would return to get, as a way to symbolize that the loved one would only return for his own necessities and objects that they loved more than the persona. The poet uses the poetic elements of smilies when saying the lines, “At my reclining body/Like a broken

(2) The poem was written in 1979, and is told through the view of the persona, which is a young child, most likely Oliver herself who lost their father. This story is told through the setting of her own personal home in Ohio, and with the struggle of dealing with this “Black Walnut Tree” and the decision on whether to cut down and pay off their house mortgage or keep the tree because its symbolism towards their family history. The dramatic situation of this individual poem is found at the end of the poem where the persona is saying, “What my mother and I both know/is that we'd crawl with shame/in the emptiness we'd made/in our own and our fathers' backyard./So the black walnut tree/swings through another year/of sun and leaping winds/of leaves and bounding fruit/and, month after month, the whip-crack of the mortgage.” This is the persona’s way of describing the guilt and difficulties of deciding whether or not to cut this tree down because of the symbolism of the tree; the presence of their deceased father/husband. As the tone of the speaker becomes more passionate with the connection of the tree throughout the poem, it is evident that this poem shows the related emptiness in the heart but a mind filled with memories, of their loved and recently