Mary Oliver Extended Metaphor

Similarly to how society shapes its inhabitants, the palpable world of Delia Owens’s Where the Crawdads Sing molds the subjects of its influence from nondescript clay with potential into great statues whose lives were successful and full. Where the Crawdads Sing creates a tacit dichotomy that discriminates the swamp from the marsh in a relationship seen similarly in the interconnection of life and death. The impact of the icy, polluted environment of the swamp in unity with the warm, earthy marsh fosters the protagonist, Kya, through the troubles of her adolescence and early life by providing her a space in which she can express herself free from the heavy chains of society. Despite the chasm of difference between the representations of the marsh and the swamp, they equally promote growth within Kya; however, their methodology, and thus symbology, highlight the contrast between the two.

Oliver starts off by using imagery to describe the struggle with the swamp as a sense of hardship, and challenge. Her descriptions utilizes dark diction such as “endless,” “wet,” “dark,” “pale,” “black,” “slack,” “pathless,” “seamless,” and ‘peerless”, which gives the reader a sense of hopelessness and despair. Oliver also uses enjambment to emphasize the swamp as a never ending trail and symbolize

In Crossing the Swamp, Mary Oliver exposes human nature to its simplest state; the passion for life present in the natural world transforms the individual by bringing one closer to the sublime. The spirituality teeming in Oliver’s swamp metaphorically represents hidden beauty within the mundane, as a call for shifted perspective and dignified appreciation permeates the passage.

The poet starts the poem with “the endless/ wet thick/ cosmos, the center/ of everything,” which represents

Through the use of extended metaphor, Mary Oliver is allowed to express both the mentality and physicality when writing a poem, which is able to show the differences and similarities by comparison. The extended metaphor works to compare the process of writing poetry to that of building a house,

According to the speaker, the swamp is “endless wet thick cosmos, the center of everything,” (line 1). The implication that this swamp is the center of everything can allude to how long the speaker may have been engulfed within it. It seems as if he/she has reached a point in which the swamp is infecting his/her mind as much as it is taking over the body. The speaker even begins to compare him/herself to “a poor dry stick given one more chance by the whims of the swamp water.” (line 28). This person, in beginning to view him/herself as part of the swamp, communicates to the reader effectively describing the direness of the situation, and the point of return that seems to be slipping away.

The swamp serves as a symbol to represent how greed and selfishness corrupt Tom Walker’s morals. Being a man who likes to take the easy road, “One day that Tom Walker had been to a distant part of the neighborhood, he took what he considered a shortcut homeward, through the swamp” (204). The narrator says that Tom is one of the only people who would walk through the swamp because he is cold-hearted and does not mind the dangers of the eerie swamp. However, the swamp has a deeper meaning. Shortcuts typically are ways to cut corners, but for Tom Walker, he cuts them all throughout the story because he is full of greed. Whenever he takes shortcuts, it is because he wants to get ahead of others so he can benefits himself, even if others are harmed.

The writer wields literary devices such as figurative language to establish an earthy connection between the swamp and mankind. Then, he uses personification to coalesce life within the swamp and relate the harsh environs of the swamp to the struggles we encounter in life as human beings. Finally, the author uses a shifting tone to enlighten both the harsh swamp and struggling speaker with a sense of optimism. After all, even in the darkest times and in the darkest swamps, we can take a mere stick, nurture it, and "make its life a breathing palace of leaves"

Dark words and phrases are initially sprinkled throughout the poem giving it a sense of despondence. For example, Oliver uses the phrase, “the dark burred/ faintly belching/ bogs” which describes the swamp as dark and grim (6-8). The imagery of the swamp is very dark because it symbolizes the hardships that people may have during their lifetimes. Crossing the swamp is a very difficult task, and Oliver compares it to the challenges of life. Therefore, she states “My bones/ knock together at the pale/ joints” (13-15). This once again demonstrates the difficulty of crossing the swamp as Oliver faces many physical challenges including the pain of her old bones. The author transitions from these dark and negative images to illustrations of hope and growth in the next few lines. For example, she describes “a poor/ dry stick given/ one more chance by the whims/ of swamp water” to take root and grow (28-30). This demonstrates how people may face tremendously difficult obstacles to overcome in their lifetimes similar to a dry stick having difficulty taking root. However, these challenges allow people to attain success. Without struggle, there would be no achievement in life. It is the hardships in life that truly allow people to appreciate success once it is achieved. Oliver concludes the fabulous piece with more uplifting and positive imagery of a

In the poem crossing the swamp the relationship between the speaker and the swamp is that the swamp is what the author puts in as her problem. She’s trying to compare the swamp to her problem, “here is the endless wet think cosmos” both of the speaker and the swamp share fear “I feel not wet as much as paintable and glittered.”

The thoughts and emotions that occur in connection with water are triggered by the lake, and they help Ruth choose transience over any other form of existence. When water floods Fingerbone, the boundaries are overrun, exposing the impermanence of the physical world, and the world’s own natural push towards transience. Water shifts the margins, warning us that the visible world only shows us part of the whole--or perhaps even a mere reflection of a false reality. After the fantastic train wreck in which Ruth’s grandfather perished, the lake sealed itself over in ice, changing boundaries again, while it concealed, like a secret, the last traces of the victims with the illusion of its calm surface. The lake, a source of beauty and darkness, life and death, is “the accumulated past, which vanishes but does not vanish, which perishes and remains” (172). Water carries the symbolic possibility for rebirth– the flood causes the graves in the town cemetery to sink, “so that they looked a little like…empty bellies," suggesting that the dead were born into the receding waters (62). As water and death are so pre-eminent in Sylvie’s consciousness, in dream, she teaches Ruth to dance underwater, to live a life of transience to be

In any form of literature, it takes a masterful author to connect the abstract to the concrete. There are many techniques to use to make these connections, but they only work in the right hands. Crossing the Swamp by Mary Oliver subtly, but expertly, makes such connections. Oliver has written many poems in a similar vein to this one, all in which she develops a connection from the narrator to the very setting and themes of the poem. Connecting the narrator to the very ground they walk on in such abstract ways allows the reader to better understand the message.

In addition, these lines also serve as a metaphor. The entire setting of the swamp can also be viewed as such. It is now not as imposing as before, but has grown along with the speaker and reader, into a learning experience. Within the entire section, alliteration

The story begins with a man who has a pregnant wife and continues to further with the woman’s cravings and desires. Within this description the author uses his or her individual style and chooses to capitalize two phrases “Sky World” and “Great Tree”. When capitalizing phrases that grammatically do not need to be capitalized it gives the phrase significance. In the case of “Sky World” and “Great Tree” these objects are made to stand out to the reader, in order to show that they are important for the continuation of this story or they have a deeper meaning. The “Great Tree” was styled in this manner to present how sacred it was to these gods and goddesses.

The speaker also chooses her diction precisely, so that there is clear contribution to the overall idea that the poem is indeed about the quest for change and longing from escape from the swamp. Two very different forms of description are used to represent this source of dread: once by the simple name, swamp, and