Summer Rain Essay

Lack of connection with nature and others has destructive impacts on the overall society. John Foulcher depicts the idea of the lack of connection of our society with the Mother Nature and with others through his poem “Summer Rain”. Not only this he also indicates that we are not only blowing the humanity away but also condemning nature. Foulcher starts his poem with an ironic topic ‘Summer Rain’ which usually sets up expectations of nature, joy, cleansing and beauty but instead we see disconnection from nature, traffic jam and pollution.
Our society plays a crucial role in the destruction of nature. John sets the frustrating and depressing tone of the poem by starting from an accident and with the use of alliteration, “Clutters” to capture the idea of frustration that he gets after seeing an accident on the highway. The idea of being trapped on a highway after an accident, where the cars stop one after the other and make the highway congested is shown by the use of simile “like abacus beads”. Foulcher personifies the ‘sunlight scrawls’ to reinforce the idea of struggle and pollution as the sunlight is desperate to come out but the pollution is stopping it from doing so. This idea of pollution and degradation displayed so far links back to the idea of us playing a crucial role in the destruction of nature as humans are the one who produce pollution and degrade nature.
With the fate of industrialisation, human life has become monotonous resulting in truncated connection with nature and loss of relationships with others, as the poet wrenches him from the road and instead of seeing nature around him sees the urban sprawl. The poet invites us into the poem by the use of second person ‘You’ to sense the depressing tone se by him and what he is going through. Foulcher uses the metaphor “sub-division houses-teacups/ of colour from television set” which evokes the image of overcrowded suburbia and the disconnection from the nature. John also comments on the monotony