The typical human considers grass as mere terrain, as something to step on while walking. Most mere mortals do not view it as mighty, but they often forget that grass will cover any and everything if given enough time to grow. The speaker of Carl Sanburg’s “The Grass,” grass itself, utilizes quantitative adjectives and the comparison between imperative and stative verbs to convey its superiority and nature’s permanence compared to ephemeral human life. As a feature of nature, the grass demonstrates its omnipotence over humanity through the use of quantitative adjectives. By “[covering] all,” especially human bodies, the speaker conveys its all-encompassing power over anything humanity can possibly achieve (3). ‘All’, which describes piled …show more content…
By describing itself with the word “am,” the speaker provides a solid, definite presence in the poem (10). The grass knows what it is and what its duty entails. Its simple stative sentence conveys its confidence in its place in the world, and its power over humanity. The speaker uses stative verbs about humans exclusively in questions, depicting uncertainty in the human’s place in the world. “Where are we now?” is the most obvious example of the uncertainty and temporary placement of humanity in time and the Earth (9). The humans of Earth have a rocky, unsure presence on Earth in comparison to the simple, solid statement of the grass’ purpose on the …show more content…
These imperative verbs are the grass’ commands unto humans, telling them to stop interfering when they do not possess as much power as they believe they do. Imperative verbs take priority as the first or second word in the speaker’s sentence throughout the piece and describe a simple, firm command. The grass, in this case, is frustrated with the interference of humanity on the world through bloody battles and conveys simple, easy-to-understand commands to the humans to follow so it can do its job: engrossing all of mankind’s fleeting, insignificant attempts at changing nature’s landscape. These commands are also impermanent: vanishing once humanity fulfills it. This parallels to the ephemerality of humankind and the inevitability of its failure to sway nature’s influence on the world. Imperative and stative verbs describe the grass’ confidence in its position and nature’s power over
In Emerson’s article, Nature, the passage shows great value of how man and nature can be similar. The article shows in many ways how man can represent nature, and how nature can represent everything. Emerson’s Nature can be related to Guy Montag’s journey into nature in Fahrenheit 451, and the author’s ways of showing similarity between man and vegetable can be presented as showing how nature is mixed in with literature and humans.
The book Motorcycles and Sweetgrass by Drew Hayden Taylor is considered by many that it is one of the best Native American book ever made. This novel shows how people have to adapt to modern day living while still being like their ancestors. These characters are trying to stay true to the indigenous way. John uses dancing to maintain Ojibway tradition. Maggie eats things like Italian food and she needs someone like John to help her believe in Ojibway beliefs and tradition. Wayne uses a twist on martial arts and isolating himself on an island to live like his ancestors. In the Novel Motorcycles and Sweetgrass, John, Maggie, and Wayne all try to maintain their Aboriginal roots while adapting to modern day life.
...ere watching the actual God. In this work, the events and nouns in nature symbolize the presence of God; whether it is beautiful and giving such as the pear tree, or destructive and vengeful such as the hurricane. Many events of the book revolve around the weather and the climate, the seasons, and it shows that religion is open-minded, and that it can be interpreted in many different forms.
In Emerson’s “Nature” nature is referred to as “plantations of god” meaning that nature is sacred. Also mentioned, is that “In the woods is perpetual youth”(#) conveying that nature keeps people young. Therefore, these excerpts show that nature is greatly valued by these transcendentalists. Transcendentalists would likely care significantly about the environment. In contrast, nowadays nature is often and afterthought. Natures’ resources are being depleted for human use, and the beauty of nature is also not as appreciated by modern people as it was by transcendentalists. The threat to nature in modern times contrasts to the great appreciation of nature held by authors like Emerson and
... alive. Dillard’s language in her description of the landscape not only makes it vivid for the reader, but mimics the sense of rhythmic movement which she assigns to the land as well. Dillard’s use of repetition, sound devices, metaphor, images and active verbs create for the reader a sense of fluid, changing language on a page, which in turn describes an apparently fluid and changing landscape. The final image of the oscillograph, while indicative of an inorganic process, measures the activity witnessed by Dillard, reflecting itself upon the image of the forest. Perhaps an oscillograph of Dillard’s writing in this passage during her transcendent moment would also generate rhythmic waves and currents, progressing and yet doubling back, continues and full of movement and life.
It is understandable that nature would be cruel to those who challenge it, yet at times nature can be merciless. In the west, human inhabitants are forced to cope with nature’s harsh condition: “’I don’t get my gears turning smooth till it’s over a hundred. I worked on a peak outside Bisbee, Arizona, where we were only eleven or twelve miles from the sun. It was a hundred and sixteen degrees on the thermometer, and every degree was a foot long. And that was in the shade. And there wasn’t no shade.’” (16). The use of imagery describes the severity of nature and its lack of mercy, especially when stating that there was “no shade” to hide from the sun’s blinding rays.
The poem, “Field of Autumn”, by Laurie Lee exposes the languorous passage of time along with the unavoidability of closure, more precisely; death, by describing a shift of seasons. In six stanzas, with four sentences each, the author also contrasts two different branches of time; past and future. Death and slowness are the main motifs of this literary work, and are efficiently portrayed through the overall assonance of the letter “o”, which helps the reader understand the tranquility of the poem by creating an equally calmed atmosphere. This poem is to be analyzed by stanzas, one per paragraph, with the exception of the third and fourth stanzas, which will be analyzed as one for a better understanding of Lee’s poem.
Carl Sanburg used personification in order to make grass the speaker of the poem to emphasize how insignificant humans are when compared to nature. In the poem,
...ntion of memories sweeping past, making it seem that the grass is bent by the memories like it is from wind. The grass here is a metaphor for the people, this is clear in the last line, “then learns to again to stand.” No matter what happens it always gets back up.
Green Grass, Running Water by Thomas King is a Canadian novel featuring Native Americans in the midst of their traditions in accordance with the rulers of the modern world in the book, the Whites. Several characters are seen to engulf in a battle with discrimination in an attempt to stay united as a community and find continued happiness in their Native identities. In Green Grass, Running Water by Thomas King, the author states that discrimination negatively affects happiness, which leads to the questioning of one’s confidence that in turn has a negative effect in their search for identity. Although this novel’s characters forgo several acts of discrimination, Robinson Crusoe’s Friday discovery of home, Lionel’s realization of his identity,
A theme in W.P. Kinsella’s “The Thrill of the Grass” is change, for better or for worse, affords the opportunity for us to acknowledge our emotions and love of memories and encourages us to stand up for what we truly believe in. Change, sentiment, reminiscence and defiance are portrayed through the protagonist and the plot in this admiringly, well written short story.
In Robert Frost's "The Need of Being Versed in Country Things," the speaker provides the readers with a juxtaposition between humans and nature. In the poem, a farmhouse was burned down, yet the reactions of humans and of nature to this tragedy are completely opposite. Frost, an avid advocate of nature over society, attempts to show his readers how nature essentially triumphs over mankind through its strength, resiliency to tragedies, and resourcefulness of what seems to be broken down and beyond help. Frost uses personification, anthropomorphizing, and the idea of cycles along with the contrasting responses of nature and man to their disruption to fully convey to the readers nature's dominance over humans.
As the poem progresses, the speaker’s attitude changes in (line 26), where he tells us that his mood is lowered. It is here that the speaker presents himself as “a happy child of earth” in (line 31); as once again Wordsworth... ... middle of paper ... ... / Of the unfinished sheepfold may be seen / Besides the boisterous brook of Greenhead Ghyll,” showing the growth of human beings in relative notion to nature.
Figurative language is used by William Wordsworth to show the exchange between man and nature. The poet uses various examples of personification throughout the poem. When the poet says:”I wandered lonely as a cloud” (line 1),”when all at once I saw a crowd” (line 3), and “fluttering and dancing in the breeze” (line 6) shows the exchange between the poet and nature since the poet compares himself to a cloud, and compares the daffodils to humans. Moreover, humans connect with God through nature, so the exchange between the speaker and nature led to the connection with God. The pleasant moment of remembering the daffodils does not happen to the poet all time, but he visualizes them only in his “vacant or pensive mode”(line 20). However, the whole poem is full of metaphors describing the isolation of the speaker from society, and experiences the beauty of nature that comforts him. The meta...
In the deep crevices between the tufts of grass, the shadows stalked slowly upward, submerging the sandy earth in an inky sea. The sun sank until only its last, thin razor of light glimmered over the fields. Time stretched its ancient joint...