Many authors use the natural world to depict the emotional state of main characters or all characters and to depict plot development. The Outlander by Gil Adamson and Hamlet by William Shakespeare use the natural world in a similar fashion. The Outlander is the story of Mary Boulton, a widow of her own doing, who is being chased by her husband’s brothers. The reader follows her on her trek through the wild that ultimately results in her return to mental clarity. The story of Hamlet is the inverse of The Outlander. It starts with Hamlet meeting the ghost of his late father, who then urges Hamlet to avenge him. His journey of revenge ultimately results in Hamlets loss of mental clarity and untimely death. In both Hamlet and The Outlander, the authors make use of natural imagery and the natural world respectively to demonstrate the characters emotional struggle.
Over the course of The Outlander Mary travels through the wilderness, the plants surrounding her often demonstrate her general negativity and madness. The use of flora often shows her negative views of her surroundings, for example; “The world is full of stowaways. Frowsy little flowered weeds that dry out and crumble and float on the air to reproduce” (10). This demonstrates that Mary believes that people are weeds; they grow where they aren’t needed. Another description of nature demonstrating her negative emotions occurs during a flashback, “[Realizing her husband was infidel] was the first shift, for Mary, the painful little kink in the flow that forced all thought to adjust to the truth. These were the seeds of her despair and madness” (170). The use of seeds demonstrates that that event was the beginning of her despair and madness.
Similarly, throughout Hamlet the u...
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...ysis, both authors use this natural imagery effectively. Whether it’s pathetic fallacy or a metaphor, the authors poetic style is useful in translating the natural imagery into the emotions of the main characters that the reader understands.
In brief, the use of the natural world in Hamlet and The Outlander is used to demonstrate the central characters emotional development. The use of flora is used to demonstrate either characters point of view of the world they’re in which lets the reader in on their current head-space. The use of fauna reveals the main characters lack or gain of freedom. The symbolism of water in both texts demonstrates the movement through insanity and emotional clarity of both major characters.
Works Cited
Adamson, Gil. The Outlander. Toronto: House of Anansi Press, 2008.
Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. Ed. Shane Weller. Dover Thrift, 1992.
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