Spanish moss covers the southern city of Savannah, Georgia. The moss looks as if it drips from the massive oak trees located in the south. Feathery and silver green the foliage creates a sense of eeriness. It appears as if it pulls the surrounding area into another time and place. The Spanish moss engulfs the city and covers it in a mysterious
The Sierra de la Serenidad is right between two settlement groups in a mountain pass. The mountain pass can lead up to a priest at the top of the mountain where there will be a lot of religious activity going on because the settlers feel like they need to be in a trance to relax. The climate is extremely dry around the area because it is surrounded by two rivers that go into the sea where there is a lot of humidity. Through the coastal plain and desert strip that goes down to the coast, climate and soil combine to support an agricultural economy based on maize. The pass system in the Andes was set up to control the commodity flow in the lake. This type of economy is thought to be around for 2,000 years. The settlers ate the fish that were in the water around the complex.
The urban setting can instantly be recognized as an antagonist to anyone who faces it. The imagery of the city reveals its formidable nature. The
Joan Didion uses words such as ‘eerie’, ‘depression’, and ‘unnatural’ bringing an unsettling and serious tone. Didion reflects this uneasiness on the people and how as Santa Ana nears, it affects them. “I have neither heard, nor read that a Santa Ana is due, but I know it, and almost everyone I have seen today knows it too. We know it because we feel it. The baby frets. The maid sulks (Didion).” As Santa Ana looms closer the people living in the area get a strange sensation, almost self preparing themselves for the worst. Linda Thomas however describes the atmosphere in a different light. Thomas uses words such as ‘undisturbed’, ‘undamaged’, and ‘natural’ bringing a more casual and normalized tone. “I awoke to air so dry that the graze of my nightgown against the down comforter created tiny orange sparks… And as I make the drive to work, I find myself beneath a smoky sky the color of fire (Thomas).” The self knowing that Santa Ana is there, just like with Didion, but there is no strange feeling present. It is almost as if the presence of Santa Ana is not bothering and
Hover, John C., Joseph D. Barnes, and Walter D. Jones. Memoirs of the Miami Valley. Chicago: Robert O’Law Company, 1919. Print.
Although southern beaches in the United States were originally composed of swamp land, sand was added to cover these swamp areas in the 1950s to make them resemble traditional beaches present in other coastal areas of the world, and therefore more appealing for human use and recreation (York). In her poem “Theories of Time and Space,” Trethewey directly references these spaces that have been changed under human influence, giving navigational directions to the reader to “cross over / the man-made beach, 26 miles of sand / dumped on the mangrove swamp – buried / terrain of the past” (11-14). The words “cross over” insinuates a passing by, or traversing of the “man-made beach” without much thought by whoever is traveling over it. The scenario is further illuminated by Trethewey’s use of the word “dumped” when describing the scenery as being “buried terrain of the past,” both holding a negative connotation which hint at something being deliberately concealed under the non-native
“[We are] down in Old Woman Swamp and it was spring and the sick-sweet smell of the bay flowers [are hanging] everywhere like a mournful song.” (Hurst 112).
His initial view is conveyed through the comparison between the Modern World and the Aztec world. The positive imagery of “passing under trees filled with birds” describes the free, peaceful and safe nature of the modern world through the symbolism of birds living in freedom and not locked up in a cage. This is contrasted with the metaphor of “He detached himself almost physically from the nightmare” when referring to the Aztec world shows that it is an unsafe and violent due to the world being described in negative connotations by the protagonist. However he realises that this peaceful world that he lived in was only his imagination. The realisation of his true reality occurs through the imagery of “He realised he was running in pitch darkness…the sky crisscrossed with treetops was less black than the rest” of the Aztec world. Coupled with the motif of smell in his dreams shown through “it was a curious dream because it was full of smells and he never dreamed smells” also reflects the idea that his real world is the Aztec world. The depth of description when describing his dream and the use
From the piece of artwork “Rain at the Auvers”. I can see roofs of houses that are tucked into a valley, trees hiding the town, black birds, clouds upon the horizon, hills, vegetation, a dark stormy sky and rain.
Orlean goes into the Fakahatchee Strand, which is a swampy area that provides a welcoming home to a wide variety of flora and fauna. She explores the area to get a sense for the environment that’s prized for the growth of wild orchid flowers. In The Orchid Thief, she discusses the history of this ecologically vibrant area and Florida as a whole, since the state is so unique in its environment and the biology that environment supports.
The author use of the simile, “The cat sneaked away toward the open barn shed and passed inside like a shadow” (48), is significant because it reflects the difference between life now and life as it was before the Dust Bowl. The shadow symbolizes the past because it is an optical illusion which always follows its object. By comparing the cat to the shadow, the author shows how everything about the farm is now apart of the past. Even the cat which is still with them, is seen as a fragment of Tom Joad’s
The Spanish eyewitness accounts of Florida made the first impression of the region as an untouched beauty, but it befitted the lives of the Native Americans. Historians held that Europeans believed that the natives symbolically represented the “purity” of the environment in resources and fertile land. Daniel Murphee suggest that the colonists actually inhabiting the peninsula and its hinterlands increasingly condemned natives whom, they believed, represented a bewildering environment responsible for European failures. The best description that Europeans gave to the native’s appearance is “barbaric” and “red savages”, which was significant in itself. After the first contact, Florida’s indigenous societies were suddenly thrust onto the universal
Schiebinger, Londa L. Plants and Empire: Colonial Bioprospecting in the Atlantic World. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 2004. Print.
My walk along Highland Park surrounded by with the water’s quiet flow that moves through the land, separating the two sides that were once connected. The waterfowl escape the heat of the sun by swimming happily with the current and in the process, diving to catch lunch. Trees are scattered all over the grass, soaring high above the ground creating homes for those who live by the sky. The dirt, leaves, bark, and water create the smell best classified as Earth, enriched by the uprooted trees from Mother Nature’s wrath. An old giant lay across the water connecting the two sides once again, similarly to the synthetic bridge conveniently located before the trees begin to hug the road.
Sitting in the back seat between two towering piles of clothes and snacks we drive up the abandoned streets of Adell. I see vast open fields of corn and dense wooded forest filled with life, along with the occasional, towering grain house. We pull into a dry, dusty, driveway of rock and thriving, overgrown weeds. We come up to an aged log cabin with a massive crab apple tree with its sharp thorns like claws. The ancient weeping willow provides, with is huge sagging arms, shade from the intense rays of the sun. Near the back of the house there is a rotten, wobbly dock slowly rotting in the dark blue, cool water. Near that we store our old rusted canoes, to which the desperate frogs hop for shelter. When I venture out to the water I feel the thick gooey mud squish through my toes and the fish mindlessly try to escape but instead swim into my legs. On the lively river banks I see great blue herring and there attempt to catch a fish for their dinner. They gracefully fly with their beautiful wings arching in the sun to silvery points.
Imagine a destiny so prestigious; a location where villagers nestle amongst quaint hidden valleys and majestic mountain peaks. A scene that conveys a lifestyle so diverse that one cannot find a culture so divine anywhere else. Accordingly, the people and the economy of the masked valleys are so intriguing that once one enters this superlative area, he or she will never wish to return home. Through visitation the particular image on has initiated, in his or hers’ gray matter, will unveil betwixt the mountain ranges of the Pyrenees. However, due to the Pyrenees’ disclosure on the border of Southern France, and Northern Spain it can be arduous for one to find convenient travel to the pulchritudinous cliffs. Conversely, if one chooses to overcome