When needing to seek refuge, Annie Dillard goes to Tinker Creek and immerses herself in nature. During one of these trips, she has a little snippet of a revelation, which makes her see the beauty and the ugliness of the world in harmony and thus a sense of what the world is. In this passage, Dillard uses symbolism, verb choice and similes to explain how even though something might be ugly and appalling, it is part of the beauty of life. She starts by using words like “lost, sunk” which shows the lack of understanding as she looks towards Tinker Creek. All of a sudden, she sees what looks “like a Martian spaceship”. She uses simile to compare what she sees as otherworldly or magical because a Martian spaceship is not from this world. She describes that “it flashed borrowed light like a propeller”. So as the object is coming down, it brings with it “light” or a revelation. Then she goes on to portray it as “pirouetting and twirling”, words which are often associated with the dance, ballet and is …show more content…
Phrases like “rang a true note, or a bell”, show how she felt, happy and content. This is a huge shift from the “lost, sunk” feeling that she felt earlier in the passage before the revelation. She explains the feeling as being “blown by a generous, unending breath. That breath never ceases to kindle….in every direction and burgeon into flame”. She feels swept away by a breath that starts small, “kindle”-- when one is without understanding-- that “burgeons into flame”-- when it has been revealed. Now when she is alone and unsure, she would think maple key. Also, when she meets with people and she greets them, she would think maple key -- two lively, vibrant individuals with different paths that collide. She ends the passage by saying, “If I am a maple key falling, at least I can twirl”, meaning, even though she loses her path, falling is not all bad because it’s part of the beauty of
In living like weasels, Annie Dillard was terrify when she saw the weasel last week at sunset by evening. “ Weasel! I had never seen one wide before. He was ten inches long, thin as a curve, a muscled ribbon, brown as fruitwood, soft-furred,alert. His face was fierce, small and pointed as lizard’s;he would have made a good arrowhead.” Page (165), I think this quote is comparing to imagery because she describes the weasels when she saw him and realized that weasels is wide and she has never seeing that kind of weasel. Also on page(165-166),the weasels left and didn’t come back, Annie thought she exchange brains with the wessels.
The most important analogy in Dillard’s essay is her students. Dillard compares her students to moths; moths are attracted to the light as her students are attracted to greatness of being a great writer.
The use of symbols sets the tone of the piece. She personifies the rain in, “But the rain/ Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh/ Upon the glass and listen for reply.” She makes t...
...ors to describe her life and situation. This comes primarily from the fact that in her therapy sessions that is how she is taught to deal with everything. For example, one metaphor she talks about is “… she comes up with the idea of lighting candles to symbolize my past, present, and future…I’ve noticed my past melting… my present candle has stayed pretty much the same,” (D 266). She explains them as her past is become less controlling, her present is her and concrete ideas and her future is bright and untouched. These metaphors show how much she has grown and allow the things she is learning to have more meaning. All of these combine to make the piece very effective and insightful. They help to get her point across and call people to action to help against these crimes.
In part three of her essay, Dillard describes her intimate encounter with a weasel, the indescribable strength of it, and how connecting to the animal’s mind and soul through a single look “felled the forest, moved the fields, and drained the pond; the world dismantled and tumbled into that black hole of eyes” (121). Dillard connected to the
Daly Walker is prominently known as an author from Winchester, Indiana, but his life’s work consists of much more than writing. As a Vietnam veteran, Walker was awarded the bronze star because of his lifesaving surgical procedures. Moreover, after the war, he practiced general surgery for 35 years. Yet, Walker is also renown for his short stories and has received numerous accolades for his writings. Many of his works are fictitious but realistic recollections of American soldiers’ experiences during the Vietnam War. In one of Walker’s stories “ I am the Grass,”, he utilizes various literary devices to give readers insight on effects of war.
One example that is very powerful is “it covers two acres of bottomland near Tinker Creek with six inches of water and six thousand lily pads.” This shows how humans are animals of perfection because the author takes a wild unorganized area and tries to make it organized by using exact numbers like two acres, six inches of water, and finally six thousand lily pads. By showing the reader how ridiculous it is to try and live so perfectly the author is strengthening her thesis That we should all grab onto our one necessity in life. This is the author’s argument in the 10th paragraph “his journal is tracks in clay, a spray of feathers, mouse blood and bone: uncollected, unconnected, loose-leaf, and blown.” This strength the authors thesis because it portrays how weasels live without looking back and they hold onto their one necessity with is surviving. These are perfect examples of how dillard used her arguments throughout each paragraph to connect the paragraph back to the
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
The use of imagery in a short story has a great deal of effect on the impact of the story. A story with effective imagery will give the reader a clear mental picture of what is happening and enhance what the writer is trying to convey to the reader. William Faulkner exhibits excellent imagery that portrays vivid illustrations in ones mind that enhances, “A Rose for Emily”. The following paragraphs will demonstrate how Faulkner uses imagery to illustrate descriptive pictures of people, places and things that allow Faulkner to titillate the senses.
Once she has conquered the washing line and is swinging on it, she feels as sense of flying. “The earth spins below me. I am flying.” As the author is describing her backyard there are many lines that help get the character’s perspective across to the responder. These lines include; “Other foliage; a bush with red berries, a struggling sapling, surround the patchy lawn like spectators.”.
Symbolism and imagery help Harwood to achieve the poem’s purpose in creating a sympathetic tone towards the woman’s struggle. The use of rhyming couplets and irregular short sentences create a hectic and disorganised structure and rhythm to the poem, which symbolises the mother’s life. Harwood uses emotive description and olfactory imagery to allow the audience to experience exactly what the woman is feeling. “A pot boils over.
One of Emily Dickinson’s greatest skills is taking the familiar and making it unfamiliar. In this sense, she reshapes how her readers view her subjects and the meaning that they have in the world. She also has the ability to assign a word to abstractness, making her poems seemingly vague and unclear on the surface. Her poems are so carefully crafted that each word can be dissected and the reader is able to uncover intense meanings and images. Often focusing on more gothic themes, Dickinson shows an appreciation for the natural world in a handful of poems. Although Dickinson’s poem #1489 seems disoriented, it produces a parallelism of experience between the speaker and the audience that encompasses the abstractness and unexpectedness of an event.
The author, to entirely convey Jonas’s view of the world in his imagination and the origin of his strong desires, employs vivid, colorful, extensive descriptions of the beauty and horror instigated by nature and freedom. A few of the exemplary integrations of imagery, which paint lush mental images, as written by Lois Lowry, include, “Looking through the front window, he had seen no people: none of the busy afternoon crew of Street Cleaners, Landscape Workers, and Food Delivery people who usually populated the community at that time of day. He saw only the abandoned bikes here and there on their sides; an upturned wheel on one was still revolving slowly.” (p.15), “Soon there were many birds along the way, soaring overhead, calling. They saw deer; and once, beside the road, looking at them curious and unafraid, a small reddish brown creature with a thick tail, whose name Jonas did not know. He slowed the bike and they stared at one another until the creature turned away and disappeared into the woods.” (p.230), “…banquets with huge roasted meats; birthday parties with thick-frosted cakes; and lush fruits picked and eaten, sun-warmed and dripping, from trees.” (p.232). Through such instances of imagery, the author is able to convey and inspire the reader through vivid, emotion-evoking mental
...that suspends the boundaries of man and nature, the way in which she structures the last image to be one of hostility indicates the unsustainable nature of the garden.
Berger claims, “beauty is always an exception, always in despite of. This is why it moves us”, because there is rarely a glimpse of beauty in the harsh distain of nature, when there is a moment where the clouds clear and the sun peaks through, it moves us (82). Berger calls this the “aesthetic emotion”. It is difficult to explain in words, but is an emotion grounded deeply in all humans. Think about the sunrise, or a waterfall, or even something as simple as a flower. That warmth in your chest? That’s the aesthetic emotion. It is hope for a brighter future and, as the villagers who hang the white birds in their kitchens and chapels during long and cold winters; it is a reminder of summer and brighter days