Summary Of Woodchucks By Maxine Kumin

I read the book Woods Runner by Gary Paulsen. Woods Runner is about a 13 year old boy named Samuel whose parents get kidnapped in the Revolutionary War. His parents have been taken to New York City and Samuel has to go there to find them. He goes on the path to New York and meets unexpected allies.

"Children of the Forest" is a narrative written by Kevin Duffy. This book is a written testament of an anthropologist's everyday dealings with an African tribe by the name of the Mbuti Pygmies. My purpose in this paper is to inform the reader of Kevin Duffy's findings while in the Ituri rainforest. Kevin Duffy is one of the first and only scientists to have ever been in close contact with the Mbuti. If an Mbuti tribesman does not want to be found, they simply won't be. The forest in which the Mbuti reside in are simply too dense and dangerous for humans not familiar with the area to enter.

Maxine Kumin?s, Woodchucks provides an interesting and creative perspective into the mind state of those influenced by nazi warfare. What begins as a seemingly humorous cat and mouse hunt, reminiscent of such movie classics as Caddyshack, soon develops into an insatiable lust for blood. Kumin?s descriptive language provides the reader with the insight necessary to understand to the speaker?s psychology as they are driven beyond the boundaries of pacifism.

He died down in the everbearing roses.” This paints a picture of how the woodchucks face looked as he died in the bed of roses. Moving into the fourth stanza, the speaker creates another vivid picture of killing the mother when he says, “She flip flopped in the air and fell, her needle teeth still hooked in a leaf of early Swiss chard.” This imagery backs up the line in which the speaker realizes he’s in the wrong. “The murderer inside me rose up hard, the hawkeye killer came on stage forthwith.” Here, he realizes that no killing is justified and he is in the wrong.

When she reaches deep into the forest, she then listens for the voices of the kids to guide her back onto the path, and she vows to never go near the mountain alone again. Then she flash forwards back to the present and she reassures her daughter that they do not have woodticks in Saskatoon. From reading the poem it can be determined that the speaker is the author, Joy Kogawa. One of the major giveaways of this is name of the daughter: Deidre.

Maxine Kumin uses metaphor, allusion, and imagery to compare the character in the poem to real life people and to represent historical events. Throughout the poem, it seems that the author was referencing the Holocaust. This is revealed in the last stanza when she uses the word “Nazi”. She compares the killing of the woodchucks to the killing of the Jews during the Holocaust. The woodchucks symbolize the Jews as the gardener in the poem symbolizes the Nazis. The gardener killed the woodchucks just like Nazi party killed the Jews. In the third stanza Maxine Kumin includes the line, “I, a lapsed pacifist fallen from grace puffed with Darwinian pieties for killing”. She uses Charles Darwin’s concept of “survival of the fittest” to support her reason for killing the animals. Maxine Kumin also uses allusion throughout the poem to reference the Holocaust. The last stanza of the poem stated, “If only they’d all consented to die unseen gassed underground the quiet Nazi way.” This line clearly reveals how the poem connects to the Holocaust. The first stanza stated, “But they had a sub-sub-basement out of range.” This also references the Holocaust because the woodchucks had other hiding places just like many Jews did while trying to escape Hitler’s ruthless ways.

     In the fourth stanza, the speaker’s killing instinct has taken over her body. She shows no pity towards the woodchucks as she takes the mother woodchuck and shoots her, watching it fall to its helpless death. She then takes another baby woodchuck, looking in its eyes, and kills it. She continues to kill the rest like a trained assassin, or psycho killer driven by pure frustration.

Death is something that at some point will come to each of us and has been explored in many forms of literature. “The Raven” and “Incident in a Rose Garden” are two poems that explore common beliefs and misconceptions about death. Though both poems differ in setting, tone, and mood there are surprising similarities in the literary tools they use and in the messages they attempt to convey. The setting and mood establish the tone and feel of a poem. In “The Raven” we are launched into a bleak and dreary winters night where a depressed narrator pines for his dead girlfriend.

She admits that a “lapsed pacifist” such as herself can be filled with “Darwinian pieties” to murder, specifically referencing the woodchucks destroying the landscape. Though the narrator may seem to simply realize her obsession with killing the woodchucks, her overall connotation leads readers to consider the possibility of a preoccupation to execute humans as well. This theme continues throughout the remaining stanzas in the poem, as the speaker utilizes phrases such as “the murderer inside me” and “if only they’d consented to die unseen.” These lines insinuate that the speaker represents one who murders people rather than a hunter of rodents. The use of violent, personified vocabulary throughout the entire poem also signifies the speaker’s focus on human violence. The strand of harsh and sometimes humanized words such as “beheading,” “gassing,” “nipping,” “killing,” and “bullets” inflict a negative connotation for the narrator’s actions. These words are not always used when referring to the woodchucks; the “beheading” refers to a patch of carrots, which signifies that this violent connotation is intentional. If the speaker simply aims to reflect an innocent woodchuck hunt, she should not use such violent or personal vocabulary. Therefore, the incorporation of this strand of words along with the narrator’s description of her own actions signifies the overall personification of the rodents in the speaker’s

The Light in the Forest book was about an Indian boy, True Son being forced to return to his white parents that lived in Pennsylvania. True Son went back to his white parents and his younger brother, after being an Indian for eleven years in Ohio. With him was a white soldier, Del Hardy that spoke the Delaware language. Myra Butler, Harry Butler, and Gordie Butler were excited for his return. When he arrived home, his Aunt Kate disliked True Son and his customs. His Uncle Wilse made fun of his language and his people. Uncle Wilse hated True Son what he was, an Indian and slapped True Son. True Son got into a lot of conflicts with other whites because of his Indian mindset.

Mary Oliver’s poem, “Sleeping in the Forest,” presents a peaceful and vivid representation of death and its relationship with nature. As the poem begins, the reader is introduced to the earth welcoming the speaker back into the realm of nature. Man was created from the dust of the earth and when we die, our bodies return to the dust. However, this poem presents a more beautiful image of what death is composed of. Death is often portrayed as being frightening and disturbing. When individuals are presented with the thought of death, they often push this thought away out of fear and ignorance. Everyone will die someday whether we ignore the thought of death or not. However, Oliver creates a relaxing and welcoming image for the reader on what death (ideally) is. Obviously, since Oliver is still alive, she doesn’t know what death feels like. However, the way she describes death, I hope that it feels like sleeping in a forest; full of stars and enchantment.

History has presented hunting as a job and pastime for men for thousands of years. Ancient civilization’s livelihoods rested on the hunting and gathering that men performed for a tribe while the women stayed back to care for the young and cook. It truly is a tale as old as time; however, over time, a very long time, women have found their way into this historically male dominated arena. Women have begun partaking in the “sport” of pursuing animals more frequently than ever before. Despite this, though, females can still find themselves receiving criticism and wayward glances for stepping outside the traditional views of gender roles. In H. William Rice’s collection of short stories, The Lost Woods, the tale “Gobble, Gobble” offers a firsthand account from a young lady who seems to have decided to turn her back on society’s view of femininity to take on her own idea of what her role should be in her family.

How much deer could a woodchuck chuck, if a woodchuck were driving down the road and came across a dead, pregnant doe? Well, the woodchuck chucking the dear is a bit irrelevant. Rather, the two poems Traveling through the Dark by William Stafford and Woodchucks by Maxine Kumin respectively focus on the relationship between humans and nature. Woodchucks takes an allegorical approach, with a heavy handed political message. Traveling simply examines the significance of human life in the context of nature. If the poems were literary characters, Traveling would be Jane Eyre, Woodchucks would be Brutus. Traveling is personal, with the narrator having a strong sense of humanity, but ultimately basing his actions on logic.

Publication Information: Houghton Mifflin published this book on September 28,1999, and the book has a total of 123 pages.

Kumin uses vivid imagery to describe the destruction that the woodchucks caused. “They brought down the marigolds as a matter of course” and “beheaded the carrots.” This introduces the speaker’s adversarial tone throughout the rest of the poem. She immediately seeks revenge on the woodchuck family. The author states that the speaker, at one point, was not a violent person. “I, a lapsed pacifist fallen from grace puffed with Darwinian pieties for killing.” Now, the author shows the speaker’s “survival of the fittest” beliefs in order to express the ongoing adventure of killing the woodchucks. She shot the smallest woodchuck first and watched it fall into the roses. The author provides more imagery to describe the manner in which the mother woodchuck died. “She flip-flopped in the air and fell, her needle teeth still hooked in a leaf of early Swiss chard.” By doing this, it is easy to imagine the ball of fur tumbling through the air, dead. Kumin shows the speaker’s seek for vengeance when she begins to kill all of the woodchucks. “O one-two-three the murderer inside me rose up hard.” Here, the revenge that the speaker is in search of is noticed. The author puts into her poem that the last woodchuck is an “old wily fellow,” implying that he is clever and sneaky. The