Disregard for Plant Life in The Lost World
Throughout The Lost World, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle continually portrayed his characters both revering and yet mistreating the beautiful foliage around them. It was a rather strange combination of attitudes: people usually have treated the things they revere quite well, but Doyle did combine these attitudes in this writing.
Take the example as the group was traveling down the river. During the trip "our two professors watched every bird upon the wing, and every shrub upon the bank" (74). They even used an Assai palm as a landmark so they could find their way back to Maple White Land (75), but what did the plant life get for a thanks? "We drew them up [the canoes] and concealed them among the bushes [probably breaking quite a few branches], blazing a tree with our axes, so that we should find them again" (77).
This was typical of the treatment plant life received all throughout the book. It was simply thought of as a resource and not as a living entity. It was noted for its beauty, but scarred or killed the instant one felt the need.
There was a much better example of this sort of treatment. To get onto the impregnable Maple White Land plateau there was a lone beech tree, a native to England but not to South America, on top of a pinnacle reasonably close to the plateau. Once the pinnacle was climbed, they cut down that "fellow-countryman in a far off land" (98) to use it as a bridge into Maple White Land.
I cut gashes in the sides of the tree as would ensure that it would fall as we desired. . . . Finally I set to work in earnest upon the trunk, taking turn and turn with Lord John. In a little over an hour there was a loud crack, the tree swayed forward, and then crashed over, burying its branches among the bushes on the farther side. The severed trunk rolled to the very edge of our platform . . . and there was our bridge to the unknown. (99)
A lone beech tree, rare enough in South America, growing out of the top of a pinnacle was quite an unusual sight and a miracle of nature, but the instant it was deemed useful in some minor way, it was forced to give up its life for the sake of exploration, with no remorse for the request.
There are many things in this world that are impossible to understand without first hand experience.This can be especially irritating for people who have the knowledge, but see everyone else with the wrong idea. Philip Larkin and Wilfred Owen show this in their poems about the common misconception of war glorification. Through imagery and the use of similes, they explain what it's really like for a person to go into battle. To outsiders, fighting in war is a noble cause worthy of envy and praise, but from the inside perspective the only thing war does is take away the innocence of
remember our sacred connections, to transform that hollow tree into the sacred tree it was
William Faulkner overwhelms his audience with the visual perceptions that the characters experience, making the reader feel utterly attached to nature and using imagery how a human out of despair can make accusations. "If I jump off the porch I will be where the fish was, and it all cut up into a not-fish now. I can hear the bed and her face and them and I can...
In “The Botany of Desire” by Michael Pollan, the author argues that instead of humans interacting, controlling, and paving the way for plants, they in fact work in ways for our lives to better themselves, and help us to become the human’s we are. They instill desires in our life: beauty, control, sweetness, and intoxication. Each plant mentioned in the four-part book, apples (Malus Domestica), tulips (Tulipa), marijuana (Cannabis Sativa x Inidica), and potatoes (Solanum Tuberosum) contribute to a desire. Apples help instill the desire for sweetness, with the sugary nutrient Red Delicious or Gala. Tulips help create the desire of beauty, where we want it and where we get it from Marijuana intoxicates people daily, and that is the desire it creates, people have always enjoyed altering their consciousness, from the Chinese dynasties with their opium to the current times that are infatuated with weed culture. Potatoes had the desire of control. Potatoes need control; they instilled control in the different societies
From its beginning, the literature of the 1960s valued man having a close relationship with nature. Jack Kerouac shows us the ideal form of this relationship in the story of Han Shan, the Chinese poet. At first, these concerns appear to have little relevance to Goodbye, Columbus by Philip Roth. However, by mentioning Gauguin, Roth gives us a view of man's ideal relationship to nature very similar to the one seen in the story of Han Shan. The stories of Han Shan and Gauguin offer an interesting commentary Neil and Brenda's relationship, as well as insight into its collapse.
who invites them to the Capulet party. Romeo agrees to go because he knows that
...otted plant qualify as an act of charity. In fact, as an analysis of the setting reveals, the Home is inhumane in many ways. Marian indicates in her thoughts, words, and deeds that she is opportunistic and indifferent to the needs and feelings of the aging women. Welty further suggests in this story that pseudo-charity can destroy the very humanity it pretends to acknowledge and uphold. People like Marian acting either out of duty or for personal advantages have created the Home and the conditions that have made the inhabitants cranky, clutching, and unlovable. Marian left the women more lonely and distraught than she found them. This kind of charity is uncharitable indeed.
The falling debris struck a tree and in the days that followed, as they began to clear the wreckage, workers noticed the fallen tree - a sycamore. Entwined in its roots was a brick. The tree became one of the focal points of interest and attention, and was transformed into a symbol by all who saw it.
Trees, some of them a few thousand years old, have majestically stood on the face of the earth and have silently witnessed the evolution of human civilization. These trees are the living alibis of our pasts, magnificent markers of history. With their unusual shapes, enchanting legends and historical significance, some of these trees have become more than just giant trunks. Listing below ten such trees whose wooden hearts have amazing stories to tell!
The three narratives “Home Soil” by Irene Zabytko, “Song of Napalm” by Bruce Weigl, and “Dulce et Decorum Est” by Wilfred Owen all have the same feelings of war and memory, although not everyone experiences the same war. Zabytko, Weigl, and Owen used shifting beats, dramatic descriptions, and intense, painful images, to convince us that the horror of war far outweighs the devoted awareness of those who fantasize war and the memories that support it.
3. Chapter 1, page 5, #3: “Moving through the soaked, coarse grass I began to examine each one closely, and finally identified the tree I was looking for by means of certain small scars rising along its trunk, and by a limb extending over the river, and another thinner limb growing near it.
The valley is described as a “desolate” place where “ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills into grotesque gardens”. (21) Ashes that dominate the area take the shape of natural greenery. The term “grotesque gardens” uses alliteration, with juxtaposition; to highlight the odd pairing of ashes and greenery. Ashes are associated with death while ridges and “gardens” represent the potential to flourish and grow in the promise and ideal of equality as in “the trees that had made way for Gatsby’s house, had once pandered in whispers to the last and greatest of all human dreams.” (143) The trees that once stood here were able to speak to man’s dreams, which allude to America, the land able to speak to man’s dreams and capacity for wonder. All this is replaced by grey ash that suffocates the inhabitants, restricting them to their social class. This presents a bleak image of hopelessness that surrounds the valley.
The novel gives us a glimpse how in the nineteenth century colonialism destroyed the ecosystem of the country. The description of a French Botanist as assistant curator of Calcutta’s Botanical Garden does little for the conservation of native plants in comparison to the destruction caused by the colonial rule. But the character of Paulette is an example of a child of nature in the novel.
Many sands had the tree known; many green neighbors had come and gone, yet the tree remained. The mighty roots had endured such whips and scorns as had been cast upon it, but the old tree had survived, a pillar of twisted iron and horn against the now sickly sky. In the waning light of evening, the tree waited.
Through the ingenious works of poetry the role of nature has imprinted the 18th and 19th century with a mark of significance. The common terminology ‘nature’ has been reflected by our greatest poets in different meanings and understanding; Alexander Pope believed in reason and moderation, whereas Blake and Wordsworth embraced passion and imagination.