Similarities Between Audubon And Annie Dillard

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.

Among other animal imagery, birds appear frequently throughout the story in times of crisis. The birds often foreshadow dangers that lie ahead. For instance, when Robert's team takes a wrong turn, "the fog is full of noises"(80) of birds. Then the birds fly out of the ditch and disappear. Robert and Poole know that "[there] must be something terribly wrong...but neither one knew how to put it into words. The birds, being gone, had taken some mysterious presence with them. There was an awful sense of void--as if the world had been emptied" (81). The birds return and when Robert nears the collapsing dike and "one of the birds [flies] up cut[s] across Robert's path" as if it is trying to prevent him from going any further. Robert does not heed the warning and almost dies in the sinking mud.

Unlike Audubon’s lengthy, complex syntax, Dillard employs a variety of sentence lengths and structures. She uses simple sentences and complex sentences to show the constant movement and rhythm of the birds. Dillard also uses a multitude loose sentences to emphasize her descriptions of the murmuration. For example, she writes, “They seemed to unravel as they flew, lengthening in curves, like a loosened skein,” which allows each additional phrase to deepen her description. Dillard used words such as “strayed… unraveling… sifting… rushing” to describe the murmuration of starlings. These words all create an image of movement and life. She also mentions

“Our mouths opened and shut and we froze where we sat. I suppose we could have honked and waved and it wouldn’t have raised any more pandemonium than this poor mother already had to deal with but instead we held perfectly still. Even Turtle, after a long minute or two the quail got her family herded off the road into some scraggly bushes” (96). The birds are significant symbolism in this book. They often appear in the book to symbolize Turtle; Kingsolver did this to show Turtle is a strong survival instinct child. First, when Taylor took Turtle to doctor and discovered that she has been abused and raped. As she makes this discovery, she sees a bird nest on a cactus. This shows that Turtle, in spite of her surroundings she keep persists. Also, when Turtle met the robber, a sparrow got caught in Lou Ann’s house, the bird getting scared shows the Turtle’s confusion and fright. But sparrow survives and leaves the house; this shows that even though Turtle is going through confusion she will survive. Finally, the quote shows the moment when Lou Ann and Taylor found a family of birds on the road. This quote symbolizes how Turtle is satisfied with her small family, feel safe, and she is happy.

The poem The Great Scarf of Birds by John Updike is something of a chronological piece that walks the reader through a day beginning with a normal day of golf that leads to a witness of nature’s beauty and a heart-wrenching, bleak statement of self discovery. The organization of the poem is purely time-based, using cues such as the tinting of the sky to exhibit a passage of time. The diction of the poem is mostly delicate language rife with imagery to try and show the reader the extent of the feelings of wonder that the narrator is holding for nature at this time. Uses of phrases such as “swaying vases of sky,” show the author’s rich language used to describe their surroundings. There is also a line that displays the intensity the author has for the image of the swelling flock above him, “It dartingly darkened in spots darkened in spots paled,pulsed, compressed,distended yet held an identity firm.” This line is set up to be read fast, the closeness of the words leading with hard syllables leads you feel the shock that the narrator is at the sight of the massive, awe inducing flock.

“Birds bring beauty into the world,” Mrs, Bundy tells a distraught Melanie Daniels. But do they? In the film,”The Birds,” directed by Albert Hitchcock, Melanie Daniels chase's lawyer Mitch Brenner to the small town of Bodega Bay, gifting him a pair of lovebirds for his sister. Melanie however, gets caught up in the rampant bird problem that plagues the town when she arrives. Hitchcock creates suspense in the movie by using the element of dramatic irony, in order to instill a sense of helplessness into the audience as they watch disaster unfold before the characters of the picture.

One of the women made the comment that Mrs. Wright used to be pretty and happy, when she was Minnie Foster not Minnie Wright. This is just the beginning of realizing that she was just pushed to far into depression and couldn't live up to John Wright's expectations anymore. The Wrights had no children and Mrs. Wright was alone in the house all day long. The women perceive John Wright to be a controlling husband who in fact probably wouldn't have children and this may have upset Mrs. Wright. They eventually find vacant bird cage and ponder upon what happened to the bird, realizing Mrs. Wright was lonely they figured she loved the bird and it kept her company. The women make reference to the fact that Mrs. Wright was kind of like a bird herself, and that she changed so much since she married John Wright. They begin looking for stuff to bring her and they find the bird dead and they realize someone had wrung its neck. This is when they realize Mrs. Wright was in fact pushed to far, John Wright had wrung her bird's neck and in return Minnie Wright wrung his.

She writes about a skein and describes how “each individual bird bobbed and knotted up and down.” she compares the birds’ beating wings to rugs as they fly out of view, notes her “eyes… trying to trace a feathered dot’s passage through a weft of

Some believe that birds help express spiritual freedom and psychological liberation with the different colors of birds that are associated with various meanings; specifically the yellow bird means you should keep your guard up. In the novel, The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers, John Bartle becomes guarded and isolated because of his internal battles created by his experiences from war. Bartle struggles with the lack of control he has over the events that happen to him in during his time in the military. He fights with his helplessness when he tries to transition to his lifestyle at home. He also cannot control how he changes as a person. When we think of war we think of the physical damage we see on the exterior but what we cannot see is the psychological damage in the interior of a person.

When birds fly, or “lose the run”; they slip out of the physical world and into an unknown realm. The speaker recognizes that there is something strange that occurs when something is no longer grounded, when “tern prints on snow…almost lead somewhere, but then break off and stutter” (Groarke, 56, lines 18-20). The birds that were on the earth have left without a trace; they are the only beings that are capable of breaking free from the barrier that the sky has created. Flight, therefore, directly suggests “a refusal to connect to the world…and suggest new aesthetic departures” (Collins, 214). In this way, it seems as though Groarke has been able to answer the question she poses in ‘Quill’ in the affirmative: the feather and blood of a bird, or birds in general, possess mystical power that no other being

Overall I thought The Birds was a very boring and fake book and movie. I would probably never watch it again. I think the reason why the book and movie were so different is because the book didn’t have enough information, excitement, or details. I think the idea of birds attacking isn’t very scary, but I could see it being scary back in the day. These are all reasons why I didn’t like The Birds, and all the similarities and

He wonders why the birds are just waiting in the sky as if they are waiting for a command, why they are restless, and he thinks it is strange that they are little birds and they are the type of the birds that normally keep to their own territory and don’t have a history of attacking people . When he looks out toward the coast, he sees the birds flocking in his direction and he believes that for some odd reason, they are going to come down to the

All children grow up under the influence of a similar style of learning. From a young age, we have been taught that knowledge comes from the understanding of textbooks, history, and algorithms. This is commonly known as the Western Tradition. Through this, we have been trained to think and respond a certain way to different events that occur throughout our lives; it’s very one-dimensional. I would agree with this, because up to this point in my life, I have not been taught to think any other way.

When examining the bird in its natural habitat, Wordsworth acknowledges that it has a home for a family and for relaxation, and yet can still fly whenever and wherever it may please. While he lives the life of a traveler as

After watching Alfred Hitchcock’s The birds, maybe you’ll start to get frightened by birds. The crying and whistling sound of millions of birds, disgusting dead bodies will might make you feel strongly detestable. However, the messages of human drama and environmental issue behind this movie, 1960s unique lifestyle, acting and beautiful sceneries appeared in the movie will remain in your heart clearly.