Ursela LeGuin’s Direction of the Road is a short story detailing the primary events of an Oak tree’s life. The Oak tree creates a bridge into their own world for the reader by using speculative fiction to help provide insight on their perspective. Throughout the paper, Leguin anthropomorphizes the Oak tree by giving them common human characteristics so the reader will realize that the Oak tree can conceptualize and has feelings. The discourse of the story follows a linear trend that reveals the plot as the story progresses. The narrative is told from the Oak tree’s perspective, which allows for the reader to access the protagonist’s internal thoughts. Fr example, the oak tree states “For I am not death. I am life: I am mortal” (LeGuin 274) …show more content…
Immobile organisms, like the Oak tree, are non-humans that experience events through internal realities. The Oak tree, who appears to be nameless, focalizes their experiences on their interactions with the nearby environment such as animals, humans, cars, and the construction of a nearby road. For example, the oak tree gives attention to a passing car as they state: “I observed this one with attention. I approached it at a fair speed, about the rate of a canter, but in a new gait, suitable to the ungainly looks of the thing: an uncomfortable, bouncing, rolling, choking, jerking gait” (LeGuin 269). By focusing on objects that pertain to its proximity in relation to the tree, it demonstrates that the Oak tree is most concerned with objects that are capable of affecting their life. The Oak tree provokes its readers to have empathy towards itself by anthropomorphizing itself in a variety of ways. The Oak tree states “I had learned the basic trick of going two directions at once” (LeGuin 270) which demonstrates that they have the ability to learn, an attribute many people only give to humans or animals. In addition to this, the protagonist relates itself to “a family of rigid principle and considerable self-respect” (LeGuin 268). By doing so, the tree uses characteristics that are commonly relatable to human nature to invoke the reader to empathize for the tree without having the reader forget …show more content…
By using specific imagery to provoke the reader’s thoughts on how the Oak tree lives, the reader becomes more intrigued on their life. For example, as the car crashed and approached the tree, it was forced “to leap directly at it” (LeGuin 273). The purpose of this statement is to personify the tree by relating an action, uncommonly associated with a stationary object, to the tree. LeGuin’s use of defamiliarization attracts the reader’s interest because it creates interest in a nonhuman being represented through a human act. In addition to this, with the construction of a nearby road, the tree reveals one of their human-like tendencies which is the capability to move around the
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter focuses on a small Puritan town in Massachusetts during the seventeenth century. Through the use of setting, The Scarlet Letter reflects the romantic idea of society as a destructive influence on humanity while presenting nature as a transcendent experience. In the novel, the town and the forest serve as opposing settings that affect how the characters express themselves and interact with others. The town forcibly prohibits the expression of true emotion, while conversely, the forest serves as an escape from the harsh rules of Puritan society.
In the novel The road by Cormac Mcarthy, the son is one of the main characters along with the man (his father). The main purpose of the son is to be the reason of the father to keep going, to stay alive and survive. The son symbolizes goodness and pureness, in the book the son is very much like a representation of god as we appreciate in the next quote where the author writes referring to what the father is thinking: “He knew only that the child was his warrant. He said: If he is not the word of God God never spoke”.(page 5)
The Devil’s Highway is a creative non-fiction novel by Luis Alberto Urrea and published in April 1, 2004. This resentful Novel tells the true story of 26 men who in May 2001 attempted to cross the mexican border into the desert of southern Arizona, through the deadly region known as the Devil’s Highway, a desert so harsh and desolate that even the border patrol is afraid to travel through it. Only twelve of those men made it out. The outcome of this was 14 people died and the person to blame were the coyotes that lead them to their death. Mendez was fully responsible for the walker's demise on May 23.
That was the kind of tree it was. It was like poor people.” It grows from sour ground out of the sewer. It only grows in the poorest of neighborhoods and it grows no matter how poor the circumstances are. It symbolizes hard-work, perseverance, the tenacity and the strength of the poor inhabitants of the neighborhood, who survive with little food or money.
In the description of Living like a weasel , Dillard uses naturalistic diction and pure phraseology to contribute to her aim increasing such a contrast and guiding the reader towards a path of instinct above all else. The weasel, described as, “gazing”, “blossomed” and “disappeared” . She utilizes those words that usher in an ambience of natural beauty, letting the reader imagine being nested in the woods. Dillard introduces a contrast between the “musky” and “tender” nature of woods and pond versus the “beer can” filled and “threatened” tracks imprinted by human exploration and “physical senses”. She develops the idea by bringing the reader into her childhood world in pennsylvania suburbia with nature oriented diction and imagery.
For two hours after he had been left at his lonely post that Saturday night he stood stock-still, leaning against the trunk of a large tree, staring into the darkness in his front and trying to recognize known objects; for he had been posted at the same spot during the day. But all was now different; he saw nothing in detail, but only groups of things, whose shapes, not observed when there was something more of them to observe, were now unfamiliar. They seemed not to have been there before. A landscape that is all trees and undergrowth, moreover, lacks definition, is confused and without accentuated points upon which attention can gain a foothold. Add the gloom of a moonless night, and something more than great natural intelligence and a city education is required to preserve one 's knowledge of direction.
“Mom and Dad smiled at each other and laughed. It was a sound that Tree hadn’t heard from them in the longest time” (132). This shows how Tree wasn’t sure his parents were ever going to get along again, but they end up having a good time. This is an example of how family matters most and hope is always around. This situation gave Tree strength to preserve.
The books also evolves around her in art class having an assignment to draw a tree and really express what your feeling through it. At first she really doesn’t know what to draw or how to express herself but then starts to have ideas and try to make it very well drawn and sculpted. The tree helps her a lot because it turns out she was very sad and she put her emotions on the tree she makes. As the book continues she starts to say she feels guilty and wants to leave because of what happened.
A Sand County Almanac has many themes. One theme that stood out was the relationship between history and nature and its possible future. This theme was prevalent in the essay “Good Oak”. In this essay Leopold saw the Oak tree as a historian. Within the rings of the tree lies the history of the world.
Jewett uses imagery as a tool to make the audience feel what the character Sylvia is feeling. Jewett uses phrases such as “More than all the hawks, and bats, and moths, and even the sweet-voiced thrushes, was the brave, beating heart of the solitary gray-eyed child” (49-52) to have the audience see what the tree itself feels. She uses this imagery to give personification to the tree, as the tree can feel too; the tree is a living thing just like Sylvia is. Jewett uses the point of view to sell to the audience how Jewett dramatizes the story more than diction and
Adventure and desire are common qualities in humans and Sarah Orne Jewett’s excerpt from “A White Heron” is no different. The heroine, Sylvia, a “small and silly” girl, is determined to do whatever it takes to know what can be seen from the highest point near her home. Jewett uses literary elements such as diction, imagery, and narrative pace to dramatize this “gray-eyed child” on her remarkable adventure. Word choice and imagery are necessary elements to put the reader in the mind of Sylvia as she embarks on her treacherous climb to the top of the world. Jewett is picturesque when describing Sylvia’s journey to the tip of one unconquered pine tree.
Dana Gioia’s poem, “Planting a Sequoia” is grievous yet beautiful, sombre story of a man planting a sequoia tree in the commemoration of his perished son. Sequoia trees have always been a symbol of wellness and safety due to their natural ability to withstand decay, the sturdy tree shows its significance to the speaker throughout the poem as a way to encapsulate and continue the short life of his infant. Gioia utilizes the elements of imagery and diction to portray an elegiac tone for the tragic death, yet also a sense of hope for the future of the tree. The poet also uses the theme of life through the unification of man and nature to show the speaker 's emotional state and eventual hopes for the newly planted tree. Lastly, the tree itself becomes a symbol for the deceased son as planting the Sequoia is a way to cope with the loss, showing the juxtaposition between life and death.
The theme is that because the tree has a great bond with the boy and can’t let go of that even when the boy has taken everything from the tree. It also is the theme because the boy keeps coming back because he needs/wants something from the tree like when we go to are parents for something we need/want. Some examples from the book are that the trees keeps giving things to the boy so the boy could be happy. “...Take my apples, Boy, and sell them in the city. Then you will have money and you will be happy” The tree keeps saying “then you will be happy” The tree only benefits by the boy being happy, but really the tree doesn't benefit at all.
“I am the lorax. I speak for the tree’s.” (Seuss). This quote, simple as it is, is one that can be recognized throughout the world. The Lorax by Dr. Seuss is the enlightening story of a stout creature named the Lorax.
1. This song personifies nature. How many different ways has nature been personified in the class reading (The Giver through The Two Towers)? Think of examples that involve more than just trees.