Flame Tree In A Quarry Analysis

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Nature and humanity are innately intertwined, and their differences only amplify their connection. Judith Wright’s poems ‘Brothers and Sisters’ and ‘Flame Tree in a Quarry’ unravel the wonder of nature and its correspondence with humanity’s attitudes at various stages of its interaction with the landscape. Meanwhile, the album cover of ‘River of Dreams’ by Billy Joel explores society and the landscape’s common origins, and powerful potential for action that morphs with time, into new values and behaviours. All texts acknowledge the embedded shared values susceptible to resculpting, which continually carve the framework for a closer, more interlinked relationship between humankind and the landscape.

Humanity stems from nature, possessing a …show more content…

Time has a crippling effect on humans, making them ‘cracked and old’, where the onomatopoeic imagery in Brothers and Sisters symbolises the ever-evolving attribute and weakening of mankind, physically and morally. This is complemented with the haphazard arrangement of small men with differently coloured horses at war on a dark plain (River of Dreams), which represents humanity’s constant activity in its hasty attempts to claim ‘more’ before its time ends: more land, more wealth, more time. This is similar to colonialism, in which humans were greedy for a constant conquering and advancement that resulted in endangering the Indigenous Australians during Wright’s time, and thus demonstrates the transition of society from content stewardship of the land, to a battle for gain. Contrastingly, nature in Flame Tree in a Quarry is depicted as a ‘living ghost of death’, in which the oxymoron indicates its immortalised, transcendent state that persists and remains alive regardless of its encounters, untouched by time and consistent with its original state. However, its negative connotation indicates that despite the patient, majestic power of nature, its immaculate state is not necessarily ideal either. Thus, the passing of time pressures the common values within nature and humanity to diverge with differing modes of expression, where nature is unblemished in patience while humanity undergoes rapid change …show more content…

Despite nature’s capacity to exist without humanity, ‘orchards would never be planted’. The high modality of the metaphor of an orchard and its fruit unable to be formed reflects the absence of human drive for a set goal nor its deliberately planned path of growth– bearing no ‘fruits’ or rewards in the long run. In comparison, when humanity’s rapacious attempts strip the landscape of its resources (Flame Tree in a Quarry), nature ‘springs up this scarlet breath’ where the sibilance and personification of the earth emphasises the sharp pain and loss. Furthermore, the symbolism of ‘scarlet’ as blood from a wound also exemplifies humanity’s self endangerment upon damaging the land, in spite of their temporary materialistic gain. Therefore, although both the land and humans may, at least momentarily, survive with the absence of the other, both have their progress capped. Accordingly, the River of Dreams illustrates humanity and nature’s reliance on one another in the ship on the luminescent blue ocean in the background’s centre of the River of Dreams. The ocean symbolises nature’s patience and gentle nurturing power being the medium of support for the ship that represents humanity. This conveys humanity’s striving intention for an advance to a pinpointed destination, sanctioned by nature’s serenity and stability to prevent society’s total submergence in greed

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