Living in modern society, there are certain rules everyone must follow. People are to live by their moral compass and not to hurt one another, for any reason. All deals must be treated fairly and with honor and respect. Lastly, people expect that once they pass away, they are given a proper burial. However, in the wilderness, that all changes when every decision a person makes can mean life or death. When one person has his or her life at stake, that person will go to any lengths to survive in a cruel world. In the Revenant, Hugh Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio) is left for dead by his crew in the deep woods during the Northern American winter. While he is in the deep forest, the harsh environment changes him and the rest of his crew as they try to make it back to civilization. The savageness of the wilderness makes any civil man turn into the one things he never dreamed of becoming. The director, Alejandro …show more content…
G. Inarritu, used the nature around him to show the changes in man through cinematic art. In the changes of man comes the inhumanity of man towards man for survival of the fittest. The director used very little music in this film. The music is so scarce that it is almost unnoticeable. However, as the movie progresses, the music becomes louder and more prominent in certain scenes. One example is in the scene where Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy) is speaking to Glass after his attack when it was just Glass, Fitzgerald, Hawk and Bridger (Will Poulter) in the woods by themselves. Fitzgerald’s words were to persuade Glass that it would be better to die than wait for death. As Fitzgerald tells Glass that if he blinks, Fitzgerald would end Glass’s suffering. Fitzgerald would continue to pester Glass as a deep drone of music was in the back, building suspense. The music grows increasingly louder to symbolize the peak of the suspense, right before Glass can no longer keep his eyes from blinking. The music grew the intensity of the scene as Glass tried to force his eyes open. This inhumane request by Fitzgerald was intensified by the long, drone of the music that grew as the scene became a life or death scenario for Glass. After Glass can no longer hold his eyes open, the music changes as this scene continues. The director changes the music to a faster, more upbeat tune to show the speed of this scene. The music pounds in the background as Glass’s son, Hawk (Forres Goodluck), makes an appearance and stops Fitzgerald from killing his father. The small fight between Hawk and Fitzgerald is an aggressive fight, as the music shows. But the music changes as the Hawk is stabbed to death by Fitzgerald because Hawk got in the way of Fitzgerald’s plan to get rid of Glass for good. This small and quick scene displays the inhumanity towards man on Fitzgerald as he tried to rid of Glass to make his journey easier and ensure he gets his pay for his ‘good deed’ by staying with the boys and Glass. The music that was used was able to take this scene and change it into something more. Before, the music was almost unnoticeable, but in this moment, it is powerful as it makes a point that Fitzgerald’s encounter with Hawk is aggressive. The director used the nature around him to show how the wilderness can change any man.
Nature is a symbol of life and death in many cultures around the world. In the movie “The Revenant”, nature plays a key role in the lives of anyone in the woods. At the beginning of the movie, Glass’s wife was killed and a bird flew out of her chest after she died to show her soul flying away. Birds make a strong appearance throughout the movie. One example is when Hawk was stabbed to death by Fitzgerald because Fitzgerald was greedy and didn’t want Hawk to get in his way, the sound of a distant bird's chirp is heard as if the mother was calling out to her son. Whenever Glass’s life is at stake, the sounds of the bird’s chirp is always heard. She calls out to her husband and tells him to keep being strong. In the words she said before she died, she said “As long as you can still grab a breath, you fight. You breathe. Keep breathing.” She said these words, even in the form of a bird calling out to Glass in the woods, to tell Glass to keep fighting through others’
inhumanity. The director’s use of symbols had not stopped with Glass’s wife. The director continues to use the characters as symbols to show that not every man who enters to wilderness becomes a savage man. Bridger is one of the director’s symbols of goodness in the world filled with terror and greed. Bridger had no relations with Glass, yet he was willing to stay with Glass and Hawk because he wanted to make sure that Glass had a proper burial if it ever came to death. But when Fitzgerald had tricked him into leaving Glass behind to cover Fitzgerald own tracks, Bridger first thought of Glass, who was in too bad of condition to travel, and of Hawk, who was currently missing. Fitzgerald’s greed and arrogance caused him to lie to Bridger and did a half-ass burial for Glass. While Bridger didn't want to disobey Fitzgerald, Bridger still gave Glass his canteen so he could have something to drink. Also, the snail shell on the canteen is a symbol of life and strength. Bridger carved the symbol of the snail shell for Glass because Bridger was there to help him be strong and wanted his life to keep going. Through the hard times, Bridger is a driving force to Glass that there is hope in the world that seems to be filled with hate. However, the kindness in the characters doesn't stop with Bridger. The choice of characters was done very well by the director. He chose men that could show acts of inhumanity as well as men who showed acts of kindness and compassion. Besides Bridger, the lone native man was another person who listened to his moral compass rather than lashing out on Glass. When Glass and this new stranger had met, it was late winter turning into early spring. When the daytime came, the snow and ice would melt and grass began to grow. But as nightfall came, snowstorms blew across the plains, setting Glass back and making survival hard. Not knowing what Glass might do to him, this native offered a liver to Glass when Glass had nothing in return. Once Glass was able to tell the native man about the bear attack, the native man looks at Glass’s injuries and helps to stop infection. This stranger goes on to build a sauna for glass during a snowstorm so that his weakened body had somewhere warm to sleep and regain his strength. This character was more than someone Glass happened to run into. This lone native man was a symbol of someone, who was raised in a savage society, be a better human being than other men in the film. In the deep west, people went to look for new homes and job opportunities to start a new life. But when the wilderness throws its worst at those in the deep forest, many turn on each other to survive. Humanity is forgotten and people will always put themselves before others to make it out alive. In the “Revenant”, nature, music, and the natural moral compass of humans show how man can turn on each other. Glass deals with those around him willing to kill him to make their lives easier. It isn’t until two people help him before they help themselves that give him life and keep him going. The wild can change us all, but it is up to those how it changes them.
In his poem “The Great Scarf of Birds”, John Updike uses a flock of birds to show that man can be uplifted by observing nature. Updike’s conclusion is lead up to with the beauty of autumn and what a binding spell it has on the two men playing golf. In Updike’s conclusion and throughout the poem, he uses metaphors, similes, and diction to show how nature mesmerizes humans.
As a way to end his last stanza, the speaker creates an image that surpasses his experiences. When the flock rises, the speaker identifies it as a lady’s gray silk scarf, which the woman has at first chosen, then rejected. As the woman carelessly tosses the scarf toward the chair the casual billow fades from view, like the birds. The last image connects nature with a last object in the poet's
Throughout the book, it is shown that Robert has a special connection with animals and the environment. The many animals he encounters throughout the story are symbols which reflect on him and his actions. After Robert accidentally kills the German sniper who spared the life of him and his men, he feels guilty for taking an innocent life. This is reflected in nature by the bird which “sang and sang and sang, till Robert rose and walked away. The sound of it would haunt him to the day he died.” (Findley 131) This scene uses the readers’ knowledge of Robert’s deep emotional connections with animals to emphasize the sadness and guilt that he felt after shooting the German. Robert is often shown as innocent and caring, traits he shares with animals. Rodwell realizes this and draws a picture of Robert in his sketchbook (otherwise full of animal sketches), although “the shading was not quite human” (Findley 138). In the sketch, Rodwell is able to show both the human and non-human side of Robert. Finally, Robert’s strong love for Rowena, his sister, is mainly because of her innocence. As a result of her disability, she is innocent and naïve like a child or animal; she relies on Robert to be “her guardian” (Findley 10)....
The diction surrounding this alteration enhances the change in attitude from self-loath to outer-disgust, such as in lines 8 through 13, which read, “The sky/ was dramatic with great straggling V’s/ of geese streaming south, mare’s tails above them./ Their trumpeting made us look up and around./ The course sloped into salt marshes,/ and this seemed to cause the abundance of birds.” No longer does he use nature as symbolism of himself; instead he spills blame upon it and deters it from himself. The diction in the lines detailing the new birds he witnesses places nature once more outside of his correlation, as lines 14 through 18 read, “As if out of the Bible/ or science fiction,/ a cloud appeared, a cloud of dots/ like iron filings, which a magnet/ underneath the paper
Mary Oliver’s unique responses to the owls illustrate the complexity of nature by displaying its two sides. Mary Oliver at first enjoys owls and all they have to offer, yet she later emphasizes her fear of a similar animal. The visual imagery she uses in her descriptions
In the short story “The Possibility of Evil,” Shirley Jackson uses several symbols to tell the story about Miss Strangeworth. One symbol she uses consist of the roses that Miss Strangeworth treasures. The roses represent the love and perfection of Miss Strangeworth. As we know, Miss Strangeworth believes that the world is horrible and unclean and that she is the only perfect person. She loves her roses dearly which emphasizes her needs for everything to be perfect just like her. She values her roses so much because only she takes care of them making them a symbol of perfection and becomes one of the items that Miss Strangeworth loves and sees as superior to other roses. Another symbol Jackson uses compose of Pleasant Street, the street that
Everything was great, every day was the same except that particular day when your life
The tile of the poem “Bird” is simple and leads the reader smoothly into the body of the poem, which is contained in a single stanza of twenty lines. Laux immediately begins to describe a red-breasted bird trying to break into her home. She writes, “She tests a low branch, violet blossoms/swaying beside her” and it is interesting to note that Laux refers to the bird as being female (Laux 212). This is the first clue that the bird is a symbol for someone, or a group of people (women). The use of a bird in poetry often signifies freedom, and Laux’s use of the female bird implies female freedom and independence. She follows with an interesting image of the bird’s “beak and breast/held back, claws raking at the pan” and this conjures a mental picture of a bird who is flying not head first into a window, but almost holding herself back even as she flies forward (Laux 212). This makes the bird seem stubborn, and follows with the theme of the independent female.
In the book The Giver, Louis Lowry uses symbolism to induce the reader to think about the significance of an object or character in the book. She uses symbolism using objects or characters to represent something when she wants readers to think about its significance. She chooses not to tell her readers directly, but indirectly, by using symbolism. For example, she used light eyes, Gabriel and the sled as types of symbols with different meanings.
A.S. Byatt uses symbolism in her story “The Thing in the Forest” to show how children in England during World War II, like herself, felt and reacted to the events that they knew where bad but didn’t understand. This can easily be shown through the sequencing of the plot, the deeper meanings behind characters and places, and the post effects it had the main characters.
Sylvia was a 9 year old “nature girl” who met a charming ornithologist hunter on a mission to find the allusive white heron. Sylvia was about 8 years old when she moved with her grandmother from the city to a farm, “a good change for a little maid who had tried to grow for eight years in a crowded manufacturing town, but, as for Sylvia herself, it seemed as if she never had been alive at all before she came to live at the farm.” (Jewett, 1884, 1914, qtd in McQuade, et.al., 1999, p. 1641). Sylvia finds the secret, the white heron. Instead of telling the young hunter, she keeps the secret, because in her mind nature is more powerful than her feelings for “the enemy.”
The rope symbolizes death and destruction. When Mr. Wright was killed, he was chocked to death with a rope. The same way Mrs. Wright was killed, so was Mrs. Wright's bird. The death of Mr. Wright was Mrs. Wright's way of starting a new life. The bird's death symbolizes Mrs. Wright's dying because she is with Mr.
...lfill her newly awakened self. Edna finds suicide as the only option to pursue when she see that living in her world is purposeless and maintain her newfound identity is impossible. Within Edna was the desire that is within nearly every human being, the desire to be born free, to have live their own life, to, quite simply, embrace the value of independence. Edna drowning herself and not killing herself, draws a symbolism of the water as a representation of realizing freedom. Her suicide was meant to be a demonstration of her finally realizing that she couldn’t controlled by societal roles and expectations. Also, the symbolism of the bird offers a slightly different alternative; as a bird with a broken wing, Edna is a victim of fate and her society. Edna’s wings are not strong enough to overcome gravity; she weighted down by the forces that society imposes on her.
... the reader understand the meaning that is behind it, like so “the poem concludes by asking rhetorically whether its listeners now understand the truths produced by both birds and poetry” (SparkNotes Editors). Besides nature being compared from birds a deeper meaning is behind this symbol and this is “art produces soothing, truthful sounds” (SparkNotes Editors) just like the soothing sounds from a bird that anyone can enjoy.
“A Bird came down the Walk,” was written in c. 1862 by Emily Dickinson, who was born in 1830 and died in 1886. This easy to understand and timeless poem provides readers with an understanding of the author’s appreciation for nature. Although the poem continues to be read over one hundred years after it was written, there is little sense of the time period within which it was composed. The title and first line, “A Bird came down the Walk,” describes a common familiar observation, but even more so, it demonstrates how its author’s creative ability and artistic use of words are able to transform this everyday event into a picture that results in an awareness of how the beauty in nature can be found in simple observations. In a step like narrative, the poet illustrates the direct relationship between nature and humans. The verse consists of five stanzas that can be broken up into two sections. In the first section, the bird is eating a worm, takes notice of a human in close proximity and essentially becomes frightened. These three stanzas can easily be swapped around because they, for all intents and purposes, describe three events that are able to occur in any order. Dickinson uses these first three stanzas to establish the tone; the tone is established from the poet’s literal description and her interpretive expression of the bird’s actions. The second section describes the narrator feeding the bird some crumbs, the bird’s response and its departure, which Dickinson uses to elaborately illustrate the bird’s immediate escape. The last two stanzas demonstrate the effect of human interaction on nature and more specifically, this little bird, so these stanzas must remain in the specific order they are presented. Whereas most ...