The Black Walnut Tree Mary Oliver Analysis

In Mary Oliver's “The Black Walnut Tree”, a mother and daughter debate whether they should cut down an old tree or let it stand. There are a slew of reasons why the mother and daughter ought to cut the tree down. The women need money for a mortgage, the tree will eventually fall on their house, its leaves are heavy and its fruit is harder to gather every year. However, as the poem progresses it is revealed that the mother and daughter possess a deep emotional attachment to the tree which spans back generations. Oliver utilizes enjambment, symbolism and imagery to explore the conflict the mother and daughter feel between honoring their heritage by keeping the tree and desperately needing money. The mother and daughter, who are farmers and

The daughter dreams vividly of the farm under her ancestors' care and is deeply saddened. She recalls “That night I dream / of my fathers out of Bohemia / filling the blue fields / of fresh and generous Ohio / with leaves and vines and orchards. ” The visual picture given of luscious and rich farmland is in direct contrast with the current reality of the land the two women are farming which can barely sustain them alone. This imagery of flourishing farmland highlights the family’s extreme fall from grace and the guilt the two women no doubt feel at squandering such a legacy. By referencing ancestors from Bohemia, now the Czech Republic, Oliver incorporates an American Dream like immigration story made all the more bittersweet by the two women’s current hardship. The vivid imagery used to describe the former glory of the mother and daughter’s farm coupled with the enjambment used to mirror the women's chaotic inner thoughts paints a more complete picture of the complicated relationship between the tree and the

They feel it would be an erasure of everything their family has built to cut it down. They shink in shame at the thought of their family watching them struggle “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.” Their failure in farming leads not only to incredibly difficult times but also an unquenchable sense of failure and shame at the legacy they squandered. If they did cut down the tree they would feel humiliated by the emptiness they created. In cutting down the walnut tree, which serves as the last vestige of their family’s success, the mother and daughter would be fundamentally betraying their ancestors. The symbolism of the walnut tree as a representation of the women’s family legacy coupled with the enjambment used to captured their hectic thoughts and the imagery used to emphasize their backslide justifies their incredibly complicated feelings around the walnut