My Owl is Like a Red Red Rose
In the world, there are many things that cannot be separated from each other. For example, shadows and light, right and wrong, and the two atoms that make up a gaseous oxygen molecule all cannot exist on their own. Nature itself is composed of many things, but there are two conflicting yet vital characteristics that cannot be separated from it- beauty and terror. In her work, “Owls,” Mary Oliver explores this seemingly incongruous idea. She argues that, because nothing is completely good or evil, the beauty of nature cannot be separated from the terror of nature. She argues this through her discussion of the powerlessness of creatures to the extreme situations and the existence of a dual morality within animals.
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Mary Oliver argues in favor of the concept of the inseparability of beauty and terror in nature through the exploration of a creature’s helplessness in the face of extreme situations. While it is true that a being is sometimes able to influence its surroundings, certain situations simply cannot be changed, and these situations have huge effects on the creatures subjected to them. In the text, Oliver expresses this helplessness when the narrator is “struck... taken... conquered” by the “excessiveness” of the fields of roses. How the rose, a flower that is so “small and lovely,” fragrant, and felicific, can be overwhelming and “immutable,” is representative of the power that beauty holds over people, a power that is so intense, it is “terrible” and “frightening.” This is the power of pleasure; as a creeper vine clings to a tree trunk, pleasure holds a person’s attention and chokes out all other thoughts. In this way, the terror of nature is actually contained within its beauty. Just as the narrator was helpless to the scent of the flowers, the prey animals are helpless to the “swift and merciless” owl. Unable to protect themselves from the evil that swoops down upon them in the bitter cold, all the animals can do is cower in fear at the ominous call of the owl and hope they are not the next victim of its claws. This fear of the owl is representative of the helplessness of all creatures to the harsher sides of nature. The inseparability of terror and beauty in nature is represented in the reactions of animals to both pleasant and dangerous situations. The author argues that the inability to separate the beauty and terror of nature by stressing that there is a moral duality in all living things.
Each being has both evil attributes and good attributes. There is no life untouched by evil; no matter how ostensibly innocent or beautiful a creature is, evil infects the experiences of every creature. In the story, Oliver expresses this evil in the form of the great horned owl by likening the owl to an “insatiable” “death bringer” that revels in killing. Just as the owl preys on the most beloved of creatures, puppies and rabbits, and on the most hated, snakes and skunks, evil sinks its talons into the lives of all types of people. In this way, nothing can be completely pure or good. Oliver furthers this argument at the end of the passage by comparing the roses to the owl, which had, until that point, been described at a stark contrast to each other. By asking if the roses are “not also- even as the owl is- excessive,” Oliver is admitting that the gorgeous, fragrant flowers are not completely pure, but are in some ways, bad or evil. Likewise, the poppies and lupines that the narrator imagines when thinking of summerfields are beautiful, but also very poisonous to animals, suggesting that beauty does not preclude danger or moral contamination. Conversely, no being is completely evil, either. Thbe depravity of the great horned owl is redeemed by the attributes of its cousins; the tiny saw-whet is delicate and soft, and the snowy owl is bright and intelligent. By describing the other types of owls with words that invoke thoughts of beauty and goodness, Oliver is able to retain the use of the great horned owl as a symbol for evil while proving the dual morality of owls as a whole. Additionally, the great horned owl is described as a “pure wild hunter,” words that portray the animal favorably and turn it into something to be respected, rather than a mindless killer. The dual nature of a living being’s morality
prevents it from being truly good or truly evil, and thus shows that the beauty and terror of nature are inseparable from one another. The idea that nature is inherently both terrible and beautiful is one that has been around since the dawn of time. Ancient societies worshiped nature, but also recognized and understood its terrifying capabilities, which is reflected in their oral traditions. Cultures from across the world all have cautionary tales about the dangers and wonders of nature. For example, in Norse mythology, the ‘unkillable’ Baldr is struck down by a sprig of the lovely mistletoe, the only thing that refused to vow not to harm him. In some Native American and Japanese myths, a trickster spirit in the form of a fox wreaks havoc on the arrogant people who underestimate it. In Greek myth, Persephone is cursed when she eats the deep red jewels of the pomegranate. Other stories pay homage to the weather, or the geographical features of the land. In all these, though, is the theme of nature being both terrible and beautiful.
The bond between humans and nature, it is fascinating to see how us has humans and nature interact with each other and in this case the essay The Heart’s Fox by Josephine Johnson is an example of judging the unknown of one's actions. She talks about a fox that had it's life taken as well as many others with it, the respect for nature is something that is precious to most and should not be taken advantage of. Is harming animals or any part of nature always worth it? I see this text as a way of saying that we must be not so terminate the life around us. Today I see us a s experts at destroying most around us and it's sad to see how much we do it and how it's almost as if it's okay to do and sadly is see as it nature itself hurts humans unintentionally
This idea is expressed prominently in John Foulcher’s For the Fire and Loch Ard Gorge. For the Fire entails a journey of someone collecting kindling as they witness a kookaburra kill a lizard, Foulcher represents his idea through the use of metaphor, “a kookaburra hacks with its axe-blade beak.” This metaphor represents the beak in weaponised form, as it is compared with a violent axe. This evokes a sense of threat and intimidation towards the kookaburra, which contrasts to societies general interpretation of the ‘laughing kookaburra,’ thereby challenging the reader's perceptions of beauty in the natural world. Also, this comparison of the kookaburra offers a second understanding for the readers to interpret of the kookaburra. Similarly, in Loch Ard Gorge, Foulcher uses strong visual imagery, “savage dark fish are tearing their prey apart, blood phrasing the water decked with light,” to communicate the violence of the ‘savage’ fish to readers in a visual, gruesome manner. Thereby evoking a feeling of disgust towards the situation, as a visual description of blood is shown and Foulcher uses provoking, gruesome adjectives to communicate the fish's brutality. Foulcher expresses these ideas to communicate the abilities of nature, and provide a necessary ‘reality check’ for the readers, to review the beauty they see nature and understand the barbarity at the heart of everything. Although ruthlessness and brutality that nature can show are unintentional and immoral, this harm is a large part of the cycle nature needs to survive and thrive, and these factors can counteract assumed beauty and
Nature’s beauty has the ability to both entice its audience and frighten them. Mary Oliver in her passage explains her experiences with the two sides of nature. Her experiences with the owls elicit both an awe response and a frightened one. In connection, her experiences with a field of flowers draws a similar response where she is both astonished by them and overwhelmed. Oliver’s complex responses display the two sides of nature. It's ability to be both captivating yet overwhelming in its complexity. In “Owl” Mary Oliver uses descriptions of nature demonstrated by owls and fields of flowers in order to convey her complex responses to the two sides of nature.
... The creature separates how good and evil are both viewed by society and how much of both exist in the world. The creature has been admiring and discovering life by experiencing and learning the language, interactions, and overall love; he can’t believe how much evil there has been and how he hates it. The creature goes on to say that “To be a great and virtuous man appeared the highest honor that can befall a sensitive being; to be base and vicious, as many on record have been, appeared the lowest degradation, a condition more abject than that of the blind mole or harmless worm.”(52)
Therefore, Oliver’s incorporation of imagery, setting, and mood to control the perspective of her own poem, as well as to further build the contrast she establishes through the speaker, serves a critical role in creating the lesson of the work. Oliver’s poem essentially gives the poet an ultimatum; either he can go to the “cave behind all that / jubilation” (10-11) produced by a waterfall to “drip with despair” (14) without disturbing the world with his misery, or, instead, he can mimic the thrush who sings its poetry from a “green branch” (15) on which the “passing foil of the water” (16) gently brushes its feathers. The contrast between these two images is quite pronounced, and the intention of such description is to persuade the audience by setting their mood towards the two poets to match that of the speaker. The most apparent difference between these two depictions is the gracelessness of the first versus the gracefulness of the second. Within the poem’s content, the setting has been skillfully intertwined with both imagery and mood to create an understanding of the two poets, whose surroundings characterize them. The poet stands alone in a cave “to cry aloud for [his] / mistakes” while the thrush shares its beautiful and lovely music with the world (1-2). As such, the overall function of these three elements within the poem is to portray the
Did you know even though nature can be beautiful it can sometimes be deadly. In The Most Dangerous Game, Rainsford begins to see the awe-instilling power of nature and how it can hurt us. The Most Dangerous Game Written by Richard Connell is a story about the dangers of nature and the ethical question of if we should kill animals. Connell uses irony to instill a question in the mind of the reader”Is killing animals moral?” In “The Most Dangerous Game,”Richard Connell uses a flip between man and animal to convey irony in the story while also using the dangerous environment of the Island to show suspense.
From the lone hiker on the Appalachian Trail to the environmental lobby groups in Washington D.C., nature evokes strong feelings in each and every one of us. We often struggle with and are ultimately shaped by our relationship with nature. The relationship we forge with nature reflects our fundamental beliefs about ourselves and the world around us. The works of timeless authors, including Henry David Thoreau and Annie Dillard, are centered around their relationship to nature.
A devoted mother, Anne Bradstreet is concerned with her children as she watches them grow up. “Or lest by Lime-twigs they be foil'd, or by some greedy hawks be spoil'd” Anne Bradstreet uses to describe her fear for her children. Not wanting to see her children suffer, Anne Bradstreet turns to God to help her children. Bradstreet imagines her bird’s being stuck on a branch and a hawk eating them, a grim image of all of her sacrifice being lost in a single moment. “No cost nor labour did I spare” describes how much Anne loves her children.
Mrs. McIntyre is a divorced and widowed woman who has learned to depend only on her own strength during the day to day operating of her farm. She has created a comfortable world to exist in, and she fears change in that world. Mrs. McIntyre's lack of spiritual dimension stems from this constancy of her surroundings. She has never been challenged by her circumstances and was thus never forced to examine her spiritual beliefs and their depth. We can see her fear of change when she speaks of the peacocks. She if afraid to let them all d...
Distinctive voices offer many different types of perspectives of the world. This is expressed through the texts “Lady feeding the cats” and “Wombat" written by Douglas Stewart and“Shawshank redemption” also written by Frank Darabont. These notions are applied through exploration of humanity and connections between humanity and the nature. The unique interaction of the world offers us a better understanding of these perceptions.
Harwood’s poem Barn Owl, expertly conveys the poem with emotion and tells the story of a young girl losing her childish innocence by rebelling against her father and killing a barn owl. Using a variety of literary techniques, the poem has the ability to provide the audience a visual image of the scene. Expressed in great detail, the themes of innocence, death and rebelling against authority within the poem offer the audience another intriguing poem written by Gwen
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... Nature, including human beings, is `red in tooth and claw'; we are all `killers' in one way or another. Also, the fear which inhabits both human and snake (allowing us, generally, to avoid each other), and which acts as the catalyst for this poem, also precipitates retaliation. Instinct, it seems, won't be gainsaid by morality; as in war, our confrontation with Nature has its origins in some irrational `logic' of the soul. The intangibility of fear, as expressed in the imagery of the poem, is seen by the poet to spring from the same source as the snake, namely the earth - or, rather, what the earth symbolizes, our primitive past embedded in our subconsciouness. By revealing the kinship of feelings that permeates all Nature, Judith Wright universalises the experience of this poem.
Nature is often a focal point for many author’s works, whether it is expressed through lyrics, short stories, or poetry. Authors are given a cornucopia of pictures and descriptions of nature’s splendor that they can reproduce through words. It is because of this that more often than not a reader is faced with multiple approaches and descriptions to the way nature is portrayed. Some authors tend to look at nature from a deeper and personal observation as in William Wordsworth’s “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”, while other authors tend to focus on a more religious beauty within nature as show in Gerard Manley Hopkins “Pied Beauty”, suggesting to the reader that while to each their own there is always a beauty to be found in nature and nature’s beauty can be uplifting for the human spirit both on a visual and spiritual level.
I can picture him seeing life and feeling it in every flower, ant, and piece of grass that crosses his path. The emotion he feels is strongly suggested in this line "To me the meanest flower that blows can give / Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears." Not only is this showing the kind of fulfillment he receives from nature, but also the power that nature possesses in his mind.... ... middle of paper ... ...