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In The Orchard Essay examples

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An Interpretation of “In the Orchard”

For any educator that is searching for a poem to arouse the interest of students enlisted in upper level literature classes, the poem “In the Orchard” by Muriel Stuart, written in the early twentieth century, conveys the ageless theme of unrequited love. The poem has all the elements of making students understand how far back the feeling of unrequited love has been around. We can understand these elements better through the rhetorical strategies.

A rhetorical strategy that this poem has is dialogue. The whole poem contains dialogue between the boy and girl who plan to meet each other in the orchard to be alone. …show more content…

The girl says, “I thought you loved me.” The boy answers her by saying, “No, it was only fun.” She tries to find someway to see this boy again. Maybe she wants to see him again to find out if he does have feeling for her. When they are getting ready to part ways she quickly tries to find something to say to him to see if she will get any reaction of any kind of feeling from him. She half asks, half states that she will see him at the dance next week:

Yes, it’s late. There’s thunder about, a drop of rain

Fell on my hand in the dark. I’ll see you again

At the dance next week. You’re sure that everything’s right?

The boy simply replies that he will see her there. They then go their separate ways.

Good news and bad news is another rhetorical strategy used throughout the entire poem. The poem starts out with bad news. The girl first realizes that the boy may not have the same feelings that she has:

“I loved you. I thought you knew

I wouldn’t have danced like that with any but you.”

“I didn’t know.

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