Osica P
John Audubon and Annie Dillard are similar in how observing the flight of the birds affects them, although Dillard feels a more personal connection while Audubon has a scientific response, but they differ in their utilization of diction and tone. Audubon describes the pigeons he saw in flight as a scientific observation whereas Dillard describes the starlings she observed in an artful manner. There are two kinds of people; ones who think of “what could be” (an idealist) and others who see things as “what it actually is” (a realist), in these two passages this idea is brought to life through Dillard and Audubon’s voices in their writing.
Audubon makes clear through his diction (which then influences his tone) that he is a man of science
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He begins his passage with numbers “autumn of 1813” then proceeds to note his location “passing over Barrens a few miles beyond Hardenburgh” he meticulously notes his observation of pigeons’ flight like a realist, in contrast, Dillard favours similes and artful imagery, she begins her paragraph with a beautiful description of her first glimpse of the starlings in the sky “Out of the dimming sky a speck appeared...gathered deep in the distance, flock sifting into flock and strayed towards me, transparent and whirling like smoke.” She recalls her breathtaking encounter with the starlings as an idealist romanticizing their flight. Audubon toys with numerical terms throughout his passage, “I observed the pigeons flying from northeast to southwest, in greater numbers..count the flocks that might pass...one hour.” He even continues on to actually mark a dot for every flock that passed him, and he “found that 163 had been …show more content…
“I cannot describe to you the extreme beauty of their aerial evolutions..”, Audubon logs, corresponding to Dillard’s emotions as she watched the starlings fly over her “I stood with difficulty, bashed by the unexpectedness of this beauty and my spread lungs roared.” Audubon and Dillard both see the flying birds as beautiful and are fascinated by their flight pattern and how agile they are. However the feeling of awe is more personal to Dillard than to Audubon because she writes “My eyes pricked from the effort...could tiny birds be sifting through me right now...fleet?” Dillard connects these birds to herself contrary to Audubon who connects his flocks of pigeons to angles and lines, “...they darted forward in undulating and angular lines, descended and swept close over the earth with inconceivable velocity, mounted perpendicularly so...column, and when high...continued
Both Virginia Woolf and Annie Dillard are extremely gifted writers. Virginia Woolf in 1942 wrote an essay called The Death of the Moth. Annie Dillard later on in 1976 wrote an essay that was similar in the name called The Death of a Moth and even had similar context. The two authors wrote powerful texts expressing their perspectives on the topic of life and death. They both had similar techniques but used them to develop completely different views. Each of the two authors incorporate in their text a unique way of adding their personal experience in their essay as they describe a specific occasion, time, and memory of their lives. Woolf’s personal experience begins with “it was a pleasant morning, mid-September, mild, benignant, yet with a keener breath than that of the summer months” (Woolf, 1). Annie Dillard personal experience begins with “two summers ago, I was camping alone in the blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia” (Dillard, 1). Including personal experience allowed Virginia Woolf to give her own enjoyable, fulfilling and understandable perception of life and death. Likewise, Annie Dillard used the personal narrative to focus on life but specifically on the life of death. To explore the power of life and death Virginia Woolf uses literary tools such as metaphors and imagery, along with a specific style and structure of writing in a conversational way to create an emotional tone and connect with her reader the value of life, but ultimately accepting death through the relationship of a moth and a human. While Annie Dillard on the other hand uses the same exact literary tools along with a specific style and similar structure to create a completely different perspective on just death, expressing that death is how it comes. ...
Mary Oliver’s unique responses to the owls illustrate the complexity of nature by displaying its two sides. Mary Oliver at first enjoys owls and all they have to offer, yet she later emphasizes her fear of a similar animal. The visual imagery she uses in her descriptions
The short story, “The White Heron” and the poem, “A Caged Bird” are both alike and different in many ways. In the next couple of paragraphs I will explain these similarities and differences and what makes them unique to the stories.
The tile of the poem “Bird” is simple and leads the reader smoothly into the body of the poem, which is contained in a single stanza of twenty lines. Laux immediately begins to describe a red-breasted bird trying to break into her home. She writes, “She tests a low branch, violet blossoms/swaying beside her” and it is interesting to note that Laux refers to the bird as being female (Laux 212). This is the first clue that the bird is a symbol for someone, or a group of people (women). The use of a bird in poetry often signifies freedom, and Laux’s use of the female bird implies female freedom and independence. She follows with an interesting image of the bird’s “beak and breast/held back, claws raking at the pan” and this conjures a mental picture of a bird who is flying not head first into a window, but almost holding herself back even as she flies forward (Laux 212). This makes the bird seem stubborn, and follows with the theme of the independent female.
----. "On Bird, Bird-Watching, and Jazz." Shadow and Act. Ralph Ellison. New York: Vintage Books, 1972, 221-232.
This is a clear statement that says nature makes one think of God. Although her most blatant statement is in letter thirteen her most powerful testimony of seeing God in nature is found in letter seven. In letter seven, Bird recounts her ascension of Long’s Peak with her friend Mountain Jim as her guide. At 3,700 feet below the summit of the mountain they come upon a beautiful sunrise. Bird records that upon seeing the beautiful sunrise Mountian Jim cry’s out that he believes in God. By recording the words of Mountian Jim, the notorious desperado, as they relate to the sunrise, Bird shows how creation undoubtably points to a
Audubon and Dillard’s general outlook of the flocks of birds in flight and how they are affected by their experiences differ. In the end, both writers exhibit their own perception of beauty through their encounter with the birds, although Audubon saw the beauty in factuality, and Dillard saw it in her own interweaved thoughts and emotions.
John Updike’s poem “The Great Scarf of Birds” expresses the varying emotions the narrator experiences as he witnesses certain events from nature. His narration of the birds throughout the poem acts as numerous forms of imagery and symbolism concerning him and his life, and this becomes a recollection of the varying emotional stances he comes to terms with that he has experienced in his life. These changes are so gradually and powerfully expressed because of a fluent use of diction and figurative language, specifically symbolism and simile, and aided by organization.
What if a child thought their grandmother did not like them? This is what Sarah Revere, the daughter of the famous Paul Revere, thinks of her Grandmother’s attitude towards her, in the novel, The Secret of Sarah Revere by Ann Rinaldi. Sarah Revere is the daughter of the famous Paul Revere, and in this novel, she thinks Grandma Revere is against her. Frequently, Grandma is terrorizing Sarah and her siblings because she is blaming them for their birth mother’s death. Sarah is having a difficult time dealing with grandma who is treating her with disrespect. Also, not liking her as much as she likes Debby, because Sarah does not have the pox marks. While Grandma Revere and Sarah Revere possess related character traits such as being reckless and grateful, they also display different traits such as being
What would be a better place to begin than the first part of the poem? Here, an observer- who is actually the speaker of the poem which part two shares with the readers- watches the “eye of the blackbird” move and peer in...
Annie Dillard portrays her thoughts differently in her passage, incorporating a poetic sense that is carried through out the entire passage. Dillard describes the birds she is viewing as “transparent” and that they seem to be “whirling like smoke”. Already one could identify that Dillard’s passage has more of poetic feel over a scientific feel. This poetic feeling carries through the entire passage, displaying Dillard’s total awe of these birds. She also incorporates word choices such as “unravel” and that he birds seem to be “lengthening in curves” like a “loosened skein”. Dillard’s word choice implies that he is incorporating a theme of sewing. As she describes these birds she seems to be in awe and by using a comparison of sewing she is reaching deeper inside herself to create her emotions at the time.
The birds show symbolism in more than one way throughout the text. As the soldiers are travelling from all over the world to fight for their countries in the war, the birds are similarly migrating for the change of seasons. The birds however, will all be returning, and many of the soldiers will never return home again. This is a very powerful message, which helps the reader to understand the loss and sorrow that is experienced through war.
In the poem by Joy Harjo called “Eagle Poem,” Harjo talks about prayer and life and how they revolve around mother-nature. She suggests that while being one with nature, we feel we are in a place in which we haven’t imagined and the things in which we would love to do in that magnificent and calming place. After one reads the poem, he/she enjoys the lyrical type of it. This is because “Eagle Poem” sticks to one idea and extends it throughout the entire poem. For instance, it talks about prayer, nature, and animals from start to finish.
...er readers. Dickinson’s use of literary devices and her creativity enables her to imaginatively describe the beauty and grace from a simple and familiar observation. It is through her use of tone, imagery, and sound that she exploits a keen sense of respect for at the very least the little bird, if not also nature itself. Dickinson recreates and expresses the magnificence and smoothness of the bird soaring across the sky. She uses tone to create the mood to emphasize the theme. She uses sound and imagery to not only tell the reader about the awesome flight of the bird, but to help the reader experience and connect to the little bird and nature in hope that they too will learn to respect nature.
Percy Shelley’s To a Sky-Lark and John Keats ' Ode to a Nightingale are two poems that have applied nature, specifically birds, to convey their messages. In Shelly’s poem, the speaker refers to the skylark as ‘blithe Spirit’. The capital S in the word spirit demands extra attention to the word spirit. The speaker also states that the skylark in reality is not a bird, but something that comes ‘from heaven, or near it.’ This reference indicates that the speaker thinks of the skylark as a godly creature. This also reflects the reality that although God and angels are unseen, people still believe in them. The skylark in the poem is unseen although the speaker is aware that it is there because he can hear its ‘shrill delight.’ The message conveyed in this use of nature is that it is critical to believe in unseen phenomena like the existence of God (Enright & de Chickera, 1963).