I believe that the sunlight represents the virtue and goodness in each person. I am not quite sure about the windblown trees, but maybe it could symbolize the tormenting that Hester and Pearl have gone through, especially Hester in the town square, when she was forced to wear her Scarlet letter, and Pearl being ostracized for “being the product of a sin”.…
The poem begins with the narrator telling herself, “A few more steps, old feet.” (line 1). The old feet she refers to are the ancestor’s feet, that appear to be old and worn out from the rigorous journey they take. The speaker then goes on to say, “In pale tea I’ll see / me with her, tasting wild grapes” (lines 4-5). This shows her reminder of her ancestors in nature. The pale tea is the symbol of the clean, clear simplicity of nature and when the speaker simplifies herself, to the bare nothingness of nature it reveals to her, her ancestors. Then in the following lines, “at dawn, tasting dew / on tender leaves, another year.” (lines 6-7). The dawn represents a new day, a new start where she can again acknowledge her heritage. After, the speaker says, “her hands still guiding me, / at sunset grinding seeds” (lines 11-12). These hands guiding the speaker, are her ancestors leading her through their stories and nature around…
The part that surprises me about the poem was how fast things changed. One moment I think about a lovely couple in young love and them it just changes at the end with twist of “growling…Hell’s Angels.” One moment I thought it was going to be a happy poem about this couple and then a train with a “black window” and head lights on in the day. I start think that something was different about this poem once the author introduced the train.…
Not only do these trees symbolize the people in the story, they symbolize how the trees and the Great Men of the Colony are rotting from the inside out. When one of these trees is getting cut down, the person is slowly dying, and then when the tree falls they automatically fall dead as well. These trees act as a gravestone because of the names carved on them, and how they are scattered throughout like a graveyard. The fact that these trees are dark and gloomy also helps you think of a gravestone in a graveyard.…
Literally, the persona of the poem is outside when some aspects of the nature around her, like violets and a blackbird, trigger a memory from her childhood. The poem then flashbacks to a childhood memory of the persona as a young girl, which is shown through the indentation of the stanzas, where the girl wakes up in the afternoon thinking it is morning and becomes upset when she wonders ‘Where’s morning gone?’. This continues until she falls asleep in the memory, and we are brought back to the present. The last stanza sums up some of her most valued childhood memories which continue to ‘drift in the air’ and remain with her.…
I picked this poem because although it was short it was very powerful and has a lot of meaning behind it.…
The poem begins with a mother and her daughter debating about rather they should sell a black walnut tree to pay off the mortgage. Even though selling the tree would be a good short term idea, they know that more problems would come later on. In lines 11-15, Oliver uses metaphors to compare parts of a tree to the family’s necessities, saying…
The poem created vivid images for me, I seen a person drowning in sorrow. I felt the heart break that followed throughout this poem.…
Having just read a couple of books, I have completely changed my position on the main story of the poem. At first, my interpretations might vary from the different opinions of my colleagues in this class. However, At this point, I guess that we all have enough data to conclude the same (or almost) story from which this poem originated…
The shift in images from the beginning to the ending of the poem served as a useful example in showing me how to switch the tone of a poem with grace (I was thinking about my condom poem in this instance) and how to structure lines and words in a way that make the reader think. All in all, Brewington hits the nail on the head with this poem by delivering a prepossessing story of life, death, and all the odd portions…
The second portion of the poem brings up the idea that one should have hope that after the struggle, everything will work out for the better. "I feel / not wet so much as / painted and glittered" which gives the idea that the man's struggles may be bad, but they also have their plus sides in the end. This could mean that after all the struggles that the results are worth it. The lines "a bough / that still, after all these years, / could take root, / sprout. Branch out, bud -- / make of its like a breathing / palace of leaves" show that even though the man is in the midst of struggle, there is hope that when it is over there will be a "palace of leaves." Again the language also gives the dealings of hope…
One reason I chose the poem, who's title caught my attention, was the relationship between the title and the poem itself. From the title, I would not have expected the poem to be about what it was. It surprised me, by what the author did with the poem by using the title that was so vague. By the title…
"Every day the boy would come to the tree to eat her apples, swing from her branches, or slide down her trunk... and the tree was happy." The tree was simply happy to spend time with and provide for the boy much similar to the feelings of a mother toward her child. In the beginning of the story there is an illustration of a little boy running excitedly toward a tree that appears to be reaching out for him. Then the story goes on to show the boy playing with her leaves, climbing her trunk, swinging from her branches, and eating her apples all with illustrations of the tree being actively involved. So a relationship similar to that of a mother and her child has been established. The tree is simply happy to have the boy around and the little boy has fun just being a little boy and embraces the trees love for him. "And the boy loved the tree..." with an illustration of the boy hugging the tree and tree using her branches to hug him in return. "...very much. And the tree was happy."…
The original poem impacted my thinking by showing me how although America was slowly killing the narrator, he still loved her and had…
Morrison uses the elements of symbolism and metaphor to create a powerful depiction of emotions. The imagery of beautiful trees in Beloved attempts to mask the horrors that took place among them. Ironically ,beautiful Trees are perverted into a symbol of horrible acts. The characters of Beloved were faced in a time period where they have been oppressed to the point of dehumanization and subjected to the idea of companionism of inanimate objects (trees, in this case). Morrison crafts the novel around the idea of trees, how we see them today, and what they meant to people who witnessed the evil in other aspects of their life. It seems as if the characters' interpretation of what trees are gives the reader insight to fully analyzing a character. The characters' responses to trees give the reader insight to how, through horrific experiences , one can still find serenity within nature and trees, usually the only beautiful things when living life as a slave. Toni Morrison does an excellent job of piecing slavery hardened characters together that are ultimately formed by one element. The trees are there as a symbol of not only life, but death, and all the bad in between. The perception of this novel is totally up to the reader and interpretation is key to analyzing the element of trees…