Analysis Of The Grass

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The typical human considers grass as mere terrain, as something to step on while walking. Most mere mortals do not view it as mighty, but they often forget that grass will cover any and everything if given enough time to grow. The speaker of Carl Sanburg’s “The Grass,” grass itself, utilizes quantitative adjectives and the comparison between imperative and stative verbs to convey its superiority and nature’s permanence compared to ephemeral human life. As a feature of nature, the grass demonstrates its omnipotence over humanity through the use of quantitative adjectives. By “[covering] all,” especially human bodies, the speaker conveys its all-encompassing power over anything humanity can possibly achieve (3). ‘All’, which describes piled …show more content…

By describing itself with the word “am,” the speaker provides a solid, definite presence in the poem (10). The grass knows what it is and what its duty entails. Its simple stative sentence conveys its confidence in its place in the world, and its power over humanity. The speaker uses stative verbs about humans exclusively in questions, depicting uncertainty in the human’s place in the world. “Where are we now?” is the most obvious example of the uncertainty and temporary placement of humanity in time and the Earth (9). The humans of Earth have a rocky, unsure presence on Earth in comparison to the simple, solid statement of the grass’ purpose on the …show more content…

These imperative verbs are the grass’ commands unto humans, telling them to stop interfering when they do not possess as much power as they believe they do. Imperative verbs take priority as the first or second word in the speaker’s sentence throughout the piece and describe a simple, firm command. The grass, in this case, is frustrated with the interference of humanity on the world through bloody battles and conveys simple, easy-to-understand commands to the humans to follow so it can do its job: engrossing all of mankind’s fleeting, insignificant attempts at changing nature’s landscape. These commands are also impermanent: vanishing once humanity fulfills it. This parallels to the ephemerality of humankind and the inevitability of its failure to sway nature’s influence on the world. Imperative and stative verbs describe the grass’ confidence in its position and nature’s power over

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