Nature’s beauty has the ability to both entice its audience and frighten them. Mary Oliver in her passage explains her experiences with the two sides of nature. Her experiences with the owls elicit both an awe response and a frightened one. In connection, her experiences with a field of flowers draws a similar response where she is both astonished by them and overwhelmed. Oliver’s complex responses display the two sides of nature. It's ability to be both captivating yet overwhelming in its complexity. In “Owl” Mary Oliver uses descriptions of nature demonstrated by owls and fields of flowers in order to convey her complex responses to the two sides of nature. 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 …show more content…
Whenever she encounter fields of flowers, she becomes captivated by the allure of the flowers. After seeing the flowers she is“stuck, I’m taken, I’m conquered, and I’m washed into it.” Nature captures her mind and hypnotizes her with its beauty, it becomes all she sees and experiences. Nature stops her in her tracks, and completely captures her attention.When she sees fields of flowers she “drops to the sand, I can’t move.” She becomes immobilized in its beauty, it controls her and becomes the only important thing on her mind. On the other hand, the complexity of nature also makes her overwhelmed. She states that the roses leave her “filled to the last edges with an immobilizing happiness. And is this not also terrible?” The rose’s beauty becomes too overbearing for Oliver, and keeps her captive from everything else; It becomes too much of a sensory overload. Nature has the ability to work with both sides, beauty and an
Many overlook the beauty that is expressed by nature. The images put together in nature influenced Mary Oliver’s “First Snow.” The beauty expressed in “First Snow” shows how there is hidden beauty in nature such as snow. Also how snow, not so simple, is something so stunning and breath taking. The descriptions of Oliver’s visions show that many things are overlooked in nature and shouldn’t be. She elaborates to show that nature sets forth not just snow, but something so much more. Mary Oliver uses many examples and proofs to show the beauty. In “First Snow” Mary Oliver conveys the image of snow to embody the beauty of nature.
Sven Birkerts essay, “The Owl Has Flown” taken from The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age 1994 focuses on the immature thoughts of using electronics with our reading. He refers to the past on multiple occasions, giving the reader the sense that Birkerts may think that the past was a much better way of reading. When Birkerts talks about reading he also means learning and interpreting, getting the understanding from what we read. The depth of reading has changed a lot since the middle ages and Birkerts believes that it has changed and will continue to change for the worse. A quote from my reading of this essay that really tore at me is, “As we now find ourselves at a cultural watershed—as the fundamental process of transmitting information is shifting from mechanical to circuit-driven, from page to screen—it may be time to ask how modifications in our way of reading may impinge upon our mental life. For how we receive information bears vitally on the ways we experience and interpret reality.” the reason for this becoming an obstacle for me is that I agree and disagree with him.
Margaret Wise Brown was truly fascinated by animals, and she understood children’s attraction to animals. Tellingly, when Brown reflects on her childhood she mentions her “thirty-six rabbits, two squirrels…a collie dog, and two Peruvian hens, a Belgian hare, seven fish, and a wild robin who came back every spring” (Days Before Now). From this information about Brown, one understands where her love of animals originated--her childhood. Additionally, animals were kind to her and did not restrict or belittle Brown the way some individuals did regularly. Brown was allowed to have constant interaction with animals, which proved to be influential in her writing career. Overall, Margaret Wise Brown used numerous animals, especially rabbits because of her love for creatures and the understanding she possessed of children’s love of and interest with animals.
In “The Fish” by Elizabeth Bishop, the narrator attempts to understand the relationship between humans and nature and finds herself concluding that they are intertwined due to humans’ underlying need to take away from nature, whether through the act of poetic imagination or through the exploitation and contamination of nature. Bishop’s view of nature changes from one where it is an unknown, mysterious, and fearful presence that is antagonistic, to one that characterizes nature as being resilient when faced against harm and often victimized by people. Mary Oliver’s poem also titled “The Fish” offers a response to Bishop’s idea that people are harming nature, by providing another reason as to why people are harming nature, which is due to how people are unable to view nature as something that exists and goes beyond the purpose of serving human needs and offers a different interpretation of the relationship between man and nature. Oliver believes that nature serves as subsidence for humans, both physically and spiritually. Unlike Bishop who finds peace through understanding her role in nature’s plight and acceptance at the merging between the natural and human worlds, Oliver finds that through the literal act of consuming nature can she obtain a form of empowerment that allows her to become one with nature.
Therefore, Oliver’s incorporation of imagery, setting, and mood to control the perspective of her own poem, as well as to further build the contrast she establishes through the speaker, serves a critical role in creating the lesson of the work. Oliver’s poem essentially gives the poet an ultimatum; either he can go to the “cave behind all that / jubilation” (10-11) produced by a waterfall to “drip with despair” (14) without disturbing the world with his misery, or, instead, he can mimic the thrush who sings its poetry from a “green branch” (15) on which the “passing foil of the water” (16) gently brushes its feathers. The contrast between these two images is quite pronounced, and the intention of such description is to persuade the audience by setting their mood towards the two poets to match that of the speaker. The most apparent difference between these two depictions is the gracelessness of the first versus the gracefulness of the second. Within the poem’s content, the setting has been skillfully intertwined with both imagery and mood to create an understanding of the two poets, whose surroundings characterize them. The poet stands alone in a cave “to cry aloud for [his] / mistakes” while the thrush shares its beautiful and lovely music with the world (1-2). As such, the overall function of these three elements within the poem is to portray the
“Words, which can make our terrors clear/ Can also thus domesticate fear,” yet that domestication can also perpetuate naivety in the audience. What they hear is a censored story, a distortion of reality. Small fears sung in a whimsical tune of heroic couplets limit the scope of that fear and alleviate the distress of the listener. By limiting the perspective of such fears, however, the listener will never understand the portrayed fear, nor will they understand how to combat it in a healthy way. For example, the wakened child of Richard Wilbur’s “A Barred Owl” will never comprehend the grace and beauty of an owl because they were taught to suppress their fear, not confront it. The students of Billy Collins’ “The History Teacher” will never understand
In the essay, “Living Like Weasels” Annie Dillard achieved a tone of admiration, by using strong thoughts. For example, in the essay Annie states, “In winter the steers stand in the middle of Tinker Creek, merely dampening their hooves. They look like miracles, complete with miracle nonchalance.” This statement made by the Annie is portraying how she looks at these animals as if they’re beautiful miracles, she looks at them in admiration. Another example in this essay of the author showing admiration toward nature is presented in this statement where Annie is showing she was in total surprise,
Are adults overprotective of their children? To what point do we protect children? Where should the line be drawn? Along with those questions is how easily children can be influenced by these same adults. Two poets, Richard Wilbur and Billy Collins, express the ideas of how easily children can be manipulated and how sometimes adults think they are protecting their innocent children, when in reality they are not. Wilbur and Collins express these ideas in their poems through numerous literary devices. The literary devices used by Wilbur and Collins expose different meanings and two extremely different end results. Among the various literary devices used, Wilbur uses imagery, a simple rhyme scheme and meter, juxtaposition of the rational and irrational, and a humorous tone to represent the narrator’s attempt to “domesticate” irrational fears. Conversely Collins uses symbols, historical interpretations, imagery, diction and other literary devices to depict the history teacher’s effort to shield his students from reality. In the poems, “A Barred Owl,” by Richard Wilbur, and “The History Teacher,” by Billy Collins, both poets convey how adults protect and calm children from their biggest, darkest fears and curiosities.
Owls are a type of bird of prey that has supreme powers other birds don’t have. Owls have keen eyesight which makes it a dangerous hunter. Owls can see things 10X brighter at night, compared to humans who can barely see anything at night. There are also some owls, such as the tawny owl, has 70% of their skull used up by their eye. Owls have astonishing ears since they can hear the smallest sound ten meters away. Also, owls have extensive wings with soft feathers which make them stealth hunters. Owls fly very slowly because their wings are huge, but they don’t make a sound because they are really soft. Overall, owls have amazing powers of eyesight, hearing, and
The conceit in line 8, “like an iceberg between the shoulder blades” (line 8), illustrates the briskness death emanates whilst taking the life from the warmth of your body. This ice and fire comparison coaxes the reader to pursue the unwelcoming thought of death as the adverse path to travel by. By no means does Oliver attempt to romanticize the idea of a brief and painless endeavor. Furthermore, the recurrence of cessation illustrated by the “hungry bear in autumn” (2) simile suggests the seasonal regularity death’s toll takes on the living. The presence of frequency characterizes the shift in forbearance to the acceptance of the inevitable. Oliver is caught up in reminiscent thought as she employs worldly imagery to describe life. For example, in lines 15-16 Oliver writes “and I think of each life as a flower, as common / as a field daisy.” This line stands out in the fact that it represents the first occurrence of communal thought. Describing each life as a “flower” in a “field” suggests that life is supposed to be about the people whom you surround yourself with, and less about the solidarity that stems from the notion of darkness. Oliver’s implication of poetry and down-to-earth imagery captures not only the progression of thought, but also her feelings towards the concepts of life and
Just like in the beginning exert of “A Silent Spring” by Rachel Carson, the author introduces suspense and invites readers in by first setting the scene of an ideal and perfect world where,”…all life seemed to live in harmony with its surroundings.” The scene the author is painting shows nature and humans coexisting together and this type of interaction brings an image of beauty and peace to mind. She also mentions that the country was especially famous for its abundant and various types of birds and makes several references to them throughout the story. Different types of birds carry a different symbolism each for example, the dove is a symbol for peace and friendship but a crow can signify that something terribly wrong is near.
Although imagery and symbolism does little to help prepare an expected ending in “The Flowers” by Alice Walker, setting is the singular element that clearly reasons out an ending that correlates with the predominant theme of how innocence disappears as a result of facing a grim realism from the cruel world. Despite the joyous atmosphere of an apparently beautiful world of abundant corn and cotton, death and hatred lies on in the woods just beyond the sharecropper cabin. Myop’s flowers are laid down as she blooms into maturity in the face of her fallen kinsman, and the life of summer dies along with her innocence. Grim realism has never been so cruel to the innocent children.
A prominent theme throughout Mary Oliver's poems is the appreciation of the natural world and all of its little details. Oliver is renowned for her ability to immerse the reader in the natural world through powerful language and imagery, allowing them to truly appreciate the beauty of nature. Her close observation of nature illustrates her intimate relationship with nature and is exemplified in one her most famous poems "The Summer Day," in which she questions the origins of nature. In this poem, Oliver conveys her love of nature through the speaker, who is not only a passive observer and admirer of nature, but also an active thinker and component of nature. By choosing nature as the poem's center of attention, Oliver is able to depict nature as a beautiful and mystical place, evoking the reader's awe and fascination. This poem is so beautiful because the speaker describes to the reader the lovely little idiosyncrasies that she notices within nature, illustrating how nature is infinitely complex and that even little insects are worthy of appreciation.
...such a dialogue by mocking the hooting of owls. To his delight, the birds responded in kind. In between the mystic silences, nature"'"s deeper secret motions flooded the boy's heart and soul. For the British Romantic, such a communion with nature could still be available to a few elected spirits whose purity and innocence had already marked them for intense experiences and an early death.
I can picture him seeing life and feeling it in every flower, ant, and piece of grass that crosses his path. The emotion he feels is strongly suggested in this line "To me the meanest flower that blows can give / Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears." Not only is this showing the kind of fulfillment he receives from nature, but also the power that nature possesses in his mind.... ... middle of paper ... ...