RR - “Emperor of the Air”
Connections
Our traditions are what keep families together. From a gold locket to an old photograph, these items are irreplaceable. What they hold to them are memories of those before us and moments in history that have passed. In the story, “Emperor of the Air” by Ethan Canin, an elderly man is forced to give up the one thing that his family has left behind: a two hundred year old elm tree. It holds the memories of his childhood and still shows signs of life that may still last for years to come.
As the story begins, the narrator, introduces himself as “sixty-nine years old, [who] lives in the same house [he] was raised in, and [has] been the high school biology and astronomy teacher” (3) in the same town. Though he is married, he has no children which gives both he and his wife Vera opportunities to travel the world. However, due to a heart attack, his wife now travels solo because his body has weakened from the occurrence. He often feels lonely because his wife travels for weeks and his only entertainment are stars.
A sudden situation erupts between he and his neighbor, Mr. Pike. His neighbor informs the man that he must cut down the old elm tree because it is infected with insects that may cause the tree to fall on his home. However, the man is reluctant in doing so because it is over two hundred years of age and holds value to him. It is considered a family heirloom. In an attempt to preserve the tree’s life, the elderly man combines several poisons and spreads it around the tree. For a short while it actually works, but soon the insects reappear causing the situation to escalate. Mr. Pike with no other alternatives, contacts the authorities and the request to cut down the elm tree is granted. In order to save his tree, the old man decides to take some insects from his tree and spread it to his neighbor’s elm trees.
Many typical adventures in classic novels follow a pattern of events using the archetype, the Hero, which defines the nature of the protagonist’s journey. However, some stories don’t fit the layout of a Hero’s journey. The nature of this story structure often limits itself to the interpretation of a male’s heroic quest involving accomplishments in order to prove one’s masculinity. The alternate story pattern, a heroine’s journey, was created to satisfy the type of journey a female would experience. The heroine's journey defies the general perspective of heroism, instead highlighting the bravery in defying expectations of one’s character and refusing to be held back by the expectations of others. Walk Two Moons is a book written by Sharon Creech which tells the story of Salamanca Hiddle, a teenage girl who retraces the journey of her mother who left her. On her journey, Sal is able to relive her own story through her friend, Phoebe, whose mother also left. The book Walk Two Moons is representative of a heroine’s journey rather than a hero’s journey because Sal must leave her home to escape
The tree “swings through another year of sun and leaping winds, of leaves and bounding fruit.” This sentence evokes images of happiness and serenity; however, it is in stark contrast with “month after month, the whip-crack of the mortgage.” The tone of this phrase is harsh and the onomatopoeia of a “whip crack” stirs up images of oppression. The final lines of the poem show the consequences that the family accepts by preserving the tree—their family heritage. When the speaker judges the tree by its cover she sees monetary value, but when she looks at the content in the book she find that it represents family. Even though times may be tough for the family, they are united by memories of their ancestors.
remember our sacred connections, to transform that hollow tree into the sacred tree it was
Cheng, Ah. The King of Trees. Trans: Bonnie S. McDougall. New York,NY: New Directions, 2010. Print.
In Christianity, trees were viewed as a primary source of life and knowledge, exhibited in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 2:9). Denver used trees as a safe haven for her; a safe place where she can hide from her mother after the trauma that transpired the night that crawling already? was killed. “Veiled and protected by the live green walls, she felt ripe and clear, and salvation was as easy as a wish,”(Morrison, 29). Contrasting with the safety of the trees for Denver, Sethe’s idea of trees has much darker connotations. As a child, she saw “Boys hangin’ from the most beautiful sycamores in the world. It shamed her-remembering the wonderful soughing trees rather than the boys,” (Morrison 6). For Sethe, the symbolism of trees has been twisted into viewing trees not as hope, but as death, and the pain from her past. As Amy had observed, the scars on Sethe only served as reminders of her painful time at Sweet Home, where she had very little hope for the future. A lesson that should be derived from this book is that the perspective from which you look at the past could help it become less painful. Sethe is too focused on the pain of her past, so therefore she is unable to see trees as they were meant to be seen, while Paul D views them as a pathway to second chances. He views trees as “inviting; things you could trust and be ear; talk to if you wanted to as he frequently did since way back when he took the midday meal in the fields of Sweet Home,” (Morrison,
...accepts his wife’s life of royalty, and assimilates into an unfamiliar family, ending his journey.
He gives stories such as how the owner gave away the priceless bonsai tree to the enemy that had bombed. He then gives some stories about how the curator of the bonsai organization has to take care of that tree. The curator must take special care of the tree, because the tree is irreplaceable. Art however can be copied onto another canvas or even on a sheet of paper but that tree can never be regrown. He tells of a story about Moses Weisberg, who was riding his bike until he came upon the tree in Washington. At that time the tree was located in National Arboretum in Washington. The use of anecdotes was well used in the article to give relatable stories of how the bonsai plant came to
Cheng, Ah. The King of Trees. Trans. Bonnie S. McDougall. New York: New Directions, 2010. Print.
Imagine walking down an ancient path amidst a forest of tangled and twisted trees, some of which have existed since before a time even great grandparents can remember. The air echoes with sounds of life, and the fragrance is that of cedar or juniper… or something not quite either. The living things that dwell here, bridge a gap in time that many are totally unaware of and for the reasons about to be explained, may never become so. The beauty that surrounds this place is unexplainable in the tongue of man, yet its presence can be felt by all who choose to behold it. At least for now…
This story, written as the thoughts of the narrator, is about an old blind friend of his wife’s coming to visit for the first time. The story focuses on the narrator’s cynicism toward the blind man and the way his wife seems to look up to him. Through out the visit there is halting interaction between the blind man and the narrator, however in the end the narrator experiences something he never could have imagined. Through the eyes of a blind man, he gains a better understanding of who he could be.
By early morning, almost everyone from the Mohawk community stepped outside the village to admire the large White Pine Tree that Amarco grew. Amarco could not believe what he was seeing. The gopher was right! It was absolutely astounding; from the smell of the fresh green needles to the texture of the rough grey bark. Amarco gathered everybody’s attention to inform them of the benefits his tree has to offer. Everyone cried in joy and happiness knowing that they’re at peace, now that the disease that they’ve dreaded for the longest while, is now curable.
This is about how a man broke into the orchard, took a bunch of cherry
The high level of expertise by the author using the third person narrative of the view of the protagonist husband shows that he was oblivious to the fact that his wife was ver...
Many sands had the tree known; many green neighbors had come and gone, yet the tree remained. The mighty roots had endured such whips and scorns as had been cast upon it, but the old tree had survived, a pillar of twisted iron and horn against the now sickly sky. In the waning light of evening, the tree waited.
Many of the classical travel narratives of the past are presented with a main character, with the story revolving around their journey and experience in foreign places. Examples of the traditional way of travel writing are classics like Love and War in the Apennines by Eric Newby which is about the writers’ journey to Italy and how he met different people, including his wife, throughout the trip (Dalrymple & Theroux, 2011). There are also recent books like Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert which talks about a middle-aged woman’s travel experience as well as her self-discovery during her trip to India. It is a traditional way of travel writing to be a personal narrative and focus on a hero or a heroine. In this essay, I will talk about a