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.
Because of the differing overall tones in each poem, it is easily inferred by the reader that the two characters have two completely different, if not opposite, views of the world. The overall tone in Hughes’ poem is dark and controlling, leading the reader to believe that the hawk is not interested in the brighter things that life has to offer. The use of phrases like “perfect kills” and “my right” emphasize the height at which the hawk views itself. Rather, he believes that he himself is at the absolute height of all creation whereas the tone of Doty’s poem is light and child-like to emphasize the attitude of the dog and his love for everything around him. Using tone in two differing poems highlights the two main differences between the hawk and the dog and their outlooks upon life.
Parker introduces her poem by using imagery to announce the simple development in the setting. It begins by saying, “as the sun rose” (line 7) and continues until she writes, “We didn’t speak until the sun overcame” (line 10). It is an uncomplicated way to provide an additional thought of change. By mentioning the small difference in the setting, Parker wants the reader to understand the importance of the many different aspects, large and small, that are evolving.
She utilises a diptych structure which portrays the contrast of a child’s naive image of death to the more mature understanding they obtain as they transition into adulthood. This highlighted in ‘I Barn Owl’ where the use of emotive language, “I watched, afraid/ …, a lonely child who believed death clean/ and final, not this obscene”, emphasises the confronting nature of death for a child which is further accentuated through the use of enjambment which conveys the narrator’s distress. In contrast, ‘II Nightfall’, the symbolism of life as a “marvellous journey” that comes to an end when “night and day are one” reflects the narrator’s more refined and mature understanding of mortality. Furthermore the reference to the “child once quick/to mischief, grown to learn/what sorrows,… /no words, no tears can mend” reaffirms the change in the narrator’s perspective on death through the contrast of a quality associated with innocence, “mischief”, with more negative emotions associated with adulthood, “sorrows”.
The speaker of the poem walks through a reaping setting, alone. Lee uses the image of a bird who flies quickly away before the speaker can catch glimpse of it: “I turn, a cardinal vanishes”. This matches the memory that the speaker rekindles from earlier that morning, when his deceased father’s image seems to appear within the trees, and disappear again just as his child draws near. Lee beautifully uses concrete language to portray the picture, specifically the throbbing emptiness when the vision is substituted by a “shovel…in the flickering, deep green shade” (18-19). The sad, uncanny sensation showed by the event creates the lonely, sorrowful mood of the
The peacocks become a central point of the narrator’s life. The narrator describes the appearance and attitude of these grand birds in great
The metaphor of the birds also serves to create a sense of movement and tension within the poem, as the birds engage in a battle of wills that reflects the speaker's own struggle for
At the climax of the story, the Bundren family’s journey to bury their mother is interrupted by a flooded bridge and a river. The Bundrens attempt to cross this river, but their intentions backfire. As the family crosses the river, Darl “felt the current take [them]” (49) for the river created a “succession of troughs and hillocks” that were “lifting and falling about [them]” (49). In this scene, nature appears to take revenge on Jewel for hurting his horse, an animal that is a part of the natural world. Faulkner thus gives nature an antagonistic image, for it tormented the Bundrens in the middle of their journey.
Furthermore, the owl’s “eyes that did not see” is used as a symbol for the knowledge and “blindness” to the extent of her own cruelty the child is forced to recognise. Harwood demonstrates the consequences of the child’s rebellion as reflected in the severity of the owl’s death and the child’s reaction to her brutality. As the the poem’s sentences progressively become longer and more subdued after she shoots the owl, Harwood im plies the child’s new understanding
By setting a standard through the innocent, “little black dog” and the content bird, the poet makes the harsh man stand out and really fail to be an ideal person. The bird and the dog live life without a care, knowing that “everything is answered, all taken care of”, although the speaker has worries about life and cannot escape the ideas of yesterday. Instead of being okay with the present moment, the speaker is stuck in a time that he can’t change, rendering him unable to focus on the positives that the morning has to offer. The poems “Five A.M.” and “Five Flights Up” have contrasting ideas.
Another classmate commented that she liked how the first line seemed to have a completely different meaning when rereading the poem, since it illustrates how killing one’s own inner demons is a cycle. One student also felt disconnected at “with each glance your shadow grows darker”, since the poem is not clear about what this character is glancing at or where this dialogue is coming
The agony the writer is feeling about his son 's death, as well as the hint of optimism through planting the tree is powerfully depicted through the devices of diction and imagery throughout the poem. In the first stanza the speaker describes the setting when planting the Sequoia; “Rain blacked the horizon, but cold winds kept it over the Pacific, / And the sky above us stayed the dull gray.” The speaker uses a lexicon of words such as “blackened”, “cold” and “dull gray” which all introduce a harsh and sorrowful tone to the poem. Pathetic fallacy is also used through the imagery of nature;
The narrator is aghast when he realizes that the bird can speak. The narrator, both confused and amazed, starts showering the ebony bird with questions. His confusion only grows stronger when he realizes that the bird has only one reply for, Nevermore that he keeps on repeating. The poems major themes are death and sorrow and the nature of the
How Dementia Effects Language Dementia is a disease that affects many elderly citizens. This disease is characterized by memory problems that can lead to communication issues, behavior issues and problems in many other aspects of life. The most common form of dementia is Alzheimer’s disease; studies show that up to 70% of dementia patients have this. Care for dementia patients can range from family and friends checking in on them, all the way up to assisted/nursing home care. Dementia affects language in the following ways:
One of the aspects of “Wild Geese” that truly struck my fifth-grade self was its use of imagery—I was drawn in particular to the extensive visual imagery in lines 8-13 (“Meanwhile the sun…heading home again”) and awed by the ability of text to evoke images of such clarity. Moreover, in addition to the intrigue of its use of literary devices and the complexity of its recitation, interpreting “Wild Geese” and finding meaning within it was a process that continued well beyond the end of my fifth-grade year, and the connotations of that poem continue to resonate with me. While the entirety of this story is too personal to share herein, “Wild Geese” was a poem that spoke to me on a very personal level. As I sometimes have a tendency to hold myself to unrealistic standards, “Wild Geese” was to me a reminder of the relative insignificance of the trivial matters with which I would preoccupy myself; nature became a symbol of that which existed beyond my narrow fixations and the wild geese a reflection of the inexorable passage of time—in essence, a reminder that “this too shall
