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Analysis of Crossing the Swamp by Mary Oliver
Analysis of Crossing the Swamp by Mary Oliver
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More handpicked essays just for you.
Analysis of Crossing the Swamp by Mary Oliver
Analysis of Crossing the Swamp by Mary Oliver
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
The book Mosquitoland is about a troublesome young teenage girl who has a lot of family issues and was written by David Arnold. It was written in first person point of view by a sixteen year old named Mary Iris Malone or Mim Malone for short. The book starts off with Mary living with her father and new stepmother after her parent’s divorce. As a teenager, these major life changes do affect your behavior and emotions big time! Shortly after her parents split, Mim finds out that her mother is sick.
This is seen in “ I listened to the man from 1194 and knew that he was making the time up as he went along”. The protagonist is soon traumatised by the death of Alan Mannering and is psychologically affected by the guilt he feels as if he was the reason of Alan’s death. The swamp was the most prominent place in the entire suburb and was a well attracted place. The swamp symbolises wonder, freedom, adventure and guilt and growing up.
Cormac McCarthy's use of imagery in the last paragraph of The Road creates this sense of contrast between the natural world and the post-apocalyptic landscape that the characters must navigate. The brook trout are described, with their polished and muscular bodies, vermiculate patterns, and white edges of their fins that wimple softly in the flow. However, the powerful imagery also conveys a sense of profound loss, suffering, and hopelessness. McCarthy's description of the trout's patterns as "maps of the world in its becoming" (287), emphasizes the connection of all living things and the fact that everything in nature has a purpose and place in the world. The sensory details of the trout's “smell of moss in your hand” (287) and texture create an image in the reader's mind that emphasizes the beauty and complexity of the natural world that has been lost in the novel's setting.
Her eyes were a deep brown, several shades darker than her fur. Her ears were perked high, twitching at the crackling of branches in the distance. She maintained perfect eye contact with me. It was like looking in a mirror. Her face was narrow, long and brown.
For instance, later in the passage Mary Oliver speaks of the immobilizing scent of roses. She speaks of them as “ a sweetness so palpable and excessive that, before it, I’m struck, I'm taken, I'm conquered.” This comment of Oliver’s shows that the simple scent of flowers overwhelms her mind. Further evidence is shown when Mary Oliver says in reference to the flowers that she is “filled to the last edges with an immobilizing happiness.” Here she is so happy that it engulfs her mind and renders her immobile.
Throughout the poem, Hudgins provides many examples of imagery for the reader. He talks about Pulling up catfish from the mud, and the fire dancing in the night. These parts envelop the reader's mind, and transport them into the marsh. This helps the reader sympathize with the boy when he is pulled out of his place and punished for
The Tragedy Within: Analyzing “How Far She Went” The dog wouldn’t hush, even then; never had yet, and there wasn’t time to teach him. When the woman realized that, she did what she had to do.
Blessing the Boats is a book of poetry from Lucille Clifton. The book is split into different sections from different time periods of her life. Each section of poetry tends to have similarities, including theme and the recurrence of foxes. Ms. Clifton’s writing style is very minimalist - style-wise and with her language.
The harsh reality of a migrant worker’s life is a huge contrast to the tranquil Salinas River that the story begins and ends with. Straight away the River seems to be blissful and inviting, much like a rural paradise. Likewise, the sibilance in the phrase ‘slopes curved up to the strong’ creates a soothing tone. Colours such as ‘green’ and ‘golden’ suggest life and hope, which are major themes in the novel. A ‘heron’, ‘rabbits’ and a ‘water snake’ also display the simplicity of life.
In The Park explores this stripping of one’s identity as it reflects on the darker side to motherhood by using imagery to create an empty and unhappy scene in the park. The first stanza describes how her main role is to be there for her children and that she is now just an empty shell of what she once was. The hyperbole “They have eaten me alive” (Harwood, pg.23) is evidence of this as the woman reflects on her motherly role and that her life is no longer hers. The Violets is an another example of presenting women in this stereotypical role as the mother stays at home with the child while the father is out working as the bread winner. “Into my father’s house” (Harwood, pg.91) enhances these gender roles as the house is considered solely owned by the father and not the parents together.
In her poem, “Crossing the Swamp,” Mary Oliver uses vivid diction, symbolism, and a tonal shift to illustrate the speaker’s struggle and triumph while trekking through the swamp; by demonstrating the speaker’s endeavors and eventual victory over nature, Oliver conveys the beauty of the triumph over life’s obstacles, developing the theme of the necessity of struggle to experience success. Oliver uses descriptive diction throughout her poem to vividly display the obstacles presented by the swamp to the reader, creating a dreary, almost hopeless mood that will greatly contrast the optimistic tone towards the end of the piece. While describing the thicket of swamp, Oliver uses world like “dense,” “dark,” and “belching,” equating the swamp to “slack earthsoup.” This diction develops Oliver’s dark and depressing tone, conveying the hopelessness the speaker feels at this point in his journey due to the obstacles within the swamp. As the speaker eventually overcomes these obstacles, he begins to use words like “sprout,” and “bud,” alluding to new begins and bright futures.
The novel’s themes of water scarcity, family tensions, and community spirit
As stated in “The Ponds” chapter, “A field of water betrays the spirit that is in the air. It is continually receiving new life and motion from above. It is intermediate between land and sky.” (Page Number). This conveys to the reader that the study of nature could replace and oppose our enslavement by understanding that the pond is the human soul as the connection between earth and heaven, surviving in an earthly realm but suggesting a peaceful world just above, in the sky, which reflects into the pond.
As if she was held there against her own will, she uses the word fast to signify that she was eager to leave. Gravitating towards a natural setting, she could appease her endless curiosity of what truly mattered to her. The garden is placed in between the schoolhouse and the forest to exemplify her transition between the controlled, man-made school and the unregimented forest. The forest provides a place of freedom of the mind, which often leads to curiosity. Broken up into short phrases, in stanza 2 Oliver creates a list of what she spent all summer trying to forget, “...how to be modest and useful, and how to succeed and so forth,
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.