Analysis Of Terrence Malick's Tree Of Life

In the day where technology is thriving, and the communication through email and text messages are now the common norm, there has been a steady decline and absence on the use of proper punctuation. The slow disappearance of punctuation standards, like commas and apostrophes, indicate the need for change towards the written world. Lynne Truss considers herself a stickler for punctuation, and her book, Eats, Shoots and Leaves addresses the minority of those who regard themselves as punctuation "sticklers" as well. Through the use of humor, figurative language such as relatable analogies and real life anecdotes, Lynne Truss creates a call to action for all the fellow punctuation sticklers: embrace proper punctuation, and require zero tolerance for those who use it incorrectly.

We are only a brief second in the long history of the universe; many things have preceded us to make us the most complex creatures that ever walked the Earth. We are a “new level of complexity” which makes us different from all other creatures that have come before us. Our species has only been around for 250,000 years, a short time compared to the formation of the Earth at 4.5 billion years ago and the creation of the Universe at 13.7 billion years ago, but the time we have had on this Earth has greatly affected the outcome of history. In an attempt to provide an overview of human history in his book This Fleeting World, David Christian introduces it in the context of the history of the universe and then systematically breaks it down

In “Defining Life”, Josh Gabbatiss expresses the difficulty of distinguishing between the living and the inanimate, and examines various attempts at this age-old yet still developing struggle through the perspectives of virology, chemistry, astro-biology, technology, and philosophy. “Defining Life” is contextualized by an extensive history of deliberation by both modern and historical figures such as Aristotle and Carl Sagan, and institutions such as NASA and the Christian Church. The relevance of this article is also shown through current advancements in physical and life sciences, engineering, and philosophical

The Hunt for the Wilderpeople is a Visual text about a 13-year-old boy named Ricky. Ricky changes and develops in the bush and at his new home throughout the whole story. He had never had a real family; he'd been thrust aside, from home to home, getting pushed to the side and abandoned. He never knew what it was like to have a real family who loved him. Since he never felt loved it caused him to retaliate and do many bad things.

The three pieces of literary art (Thanatopsis, Dust in the wind, and Don't fear the reaper) are sending a message that people live and they die. And we don't matter, but nature will always be a thing.

In Wendell Berry’s chapter, The Body and the Earth, he discusses the connection between all earthly inhabitants, and its descent into misguided chaos by impact of time, evolution, and industry. He uses evidence from historical literature, religious mindset, the development of gender roles and consumerism of the 1950s, and how one defines love, marriage, and interconnectedness between what Berry calls “members of Creation.” His opinions of sexual monogamy and the importance of self-discovery via entrance into the “wilderness” are expressed clearly, but as the essay moves through each sub-chapter, his explanations become scattered and difficult to follow. For example, Berry’s ideas on religion and the relationship between body and soul as

Death is inescapable. In the same way, life is inescapable. The Appalachian short story, “Jake Pond”, portrays this inevitable cycle through the depiction of a young boy enjoying nature. Lou Crabtree writes of the many inner workings of life through symbolism. While some would say this story is a literal telling of a boy and his surroundings, it does, in fact, include a plethora of metaphors to display the complexities of life through figurative language (Crabtree). In Lou Crabtree’s “Jake Pond” symbols such as the young boy, black snakes, pond, hollytree, and other natural entities portray themes of life and death, while detailing multiple aspects of change.

As I read the final chapter of Paul Chappell’s book, The Cosmic Ocean, I was interested to see how he was going to bring it all together. Chappell ended this book in a different way, not only did he wrap up previous arguments that he had stated earlier in the book, but he also introduced more new information in the final chapter. This information did not take his arguments in a different direction, but rather solidified and backed up some things that he mentioned in previous chapters. Chappell took the readers back to the first time he realized the mortality that existed in life, the moment he lost a flip flop and there was nothing he or his dad could do to bring it back because it had fallen into a sewer drain. This story led to Chappell discussing humanity’s obsession with immortality.

Is it worth to give up your lifestyle and force yourself to live a different one? Some people are willing to quit their own lifestyles to live a whole new different life. In the story “Into the Wild” Chris McCandless was running from his family because of all the drama that he had to face growing up. He even left Washington D.C to move to Alaska, he did this because he was very fond of nature. In the book “Into the Wild” the Author Jon Krakauer explains how Chris McCandless was able to sacrifice his life in order to live a life in the wilderness. A lot of people wouldn’t want to do this because people wouldn’t to want to be willing to give up their own lifestyle in order to start a new one from scratch. It’s not worth it to lose your own lifestyle because it could also result into you losing your life as well.

The world is advancing so rapidly today, it seems that it will never stop growing in knowledge and complexity. In the novel “The Time Machine” by H.G. Wells, The Time Traveler, as Wells calls him, travels hundreds of thousands of years into the future through time. He arrives at a world that, at first glimpse, is peaceful and clear of any worries. As The Time Traveler explores the world, he discovers that the human race has evolved into 2 distinct forms. Although the world appeared to be the Garden of Eden, it was, in reality, the Garden of Evil. Wells uses three aspects of the futuristic world to illustrate this: the setting, the Eloi, and the Murlocks.

The poem “Thanatopsis” by William Cullen Bryant reveals a very unusual aspect of nature. While most people think of nature as beauty and full of life, Bryant takes a more interesting approach to nature. He exposes a correlation between nature, life, death, and re-birth. Using nature as a foothold, Bryant exercises methods such as tone, setting, and imagery in a very intriguing way while writing “Thanatopsis.”

In the film the Learning Tree one “shared group value” presented in the film is in a small town located in Kansas; which is a home to both African Americans and whites. Racism is still presented in the film but the African Americans respect their community, are religious, family oriented, and educated. A scene in the film where African Americans respect their community is when Newt and his girlfriend are at an ice cream parlor and asked to leave since they were African American, instead of making a scene they calmly left and showed that they respect the area around them not to cause destruction out of anger, also showing that they are not brutes. Even though Africans American are still seen a lower than the whites in the film, they befriend

“Where what breathes, breathes / and what drinks, drinks,” the persona says (3,5). Natures relationships depicted in the first stanza are beautiful. At first, something as simple as the “islands” may seem unimportant (1). Once analyzed, its purposed is defined by providing a warm home for life to sustain. Without the “restless wind” and “incoming tide,” the animals could not sustain (4,6). Everything in the universe is interconnected.

Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life focuses on Jack, played by Sean Penn as a man and Hunter McCracken as a boy, adrift in his life and reflecting on his childhood in 1950s Texas in a nearly two-and-a-half hour drama. Though the film is difficult to follow because of its highly experimental nature, the audience is left with impressions of the film’s spectacular visual and aural presence, both of which show evidence of the influence of Christianity, which is omnipresent in the American South. The theme is introduced at the beginning of the film by Mrs. O’Brien, played by Jessica Chastain, as she speaks in a gentle voice-over about the way of nature and the way of grace. In his book How Should We Then Live?: The Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture, famous American theologian Francis Schaeffer concluded that nature is as “the lower” while grace is “the higher” (Schaeffer 55). In the religious context of the film, this means that as nature is self-serving and representative of humans on earth while grace is other-serving and representative of God in heaven. This divide between the way of nature and the way of grace finds itself present in various aspects of the film. While Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life does not offer conventional evidence of the theme because of its experimental nature, the visuals, music, and underscoring of the film support the audience’s interpretation of the main theme of nature versus grace.

Hanging from a noose, drowning under meters of water, and having a hand chopped off are perfect examples of the tribulations that millions of people face on a daily basis. These examples of meaningless, morbid death are the universe’s way of proclaiming the irrelevance of the human race and its desire to destroy it. In the poems ‘Out, Out—‘, by Robert Frost and A Man Said to the Universe by Stephen Crane, the world’s feelings about humans become clear as society’s sense of relevance versus the universe’s sense of irrelevance becomes the basis of the argument presented throughout both poems.