The Uses Of Figurative Speech In The Wood Bird

Having weird pets such as a snake, spider, or iguana can be an enormous amount of fun but having a deer as a pet is a completely different story. The yearling is a novel about a boy who befriends a deer and takes it in as a pet. Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings won a Pulitzer Prize for her novel The Yearling in 1939 for her use of syntax, figurative language, and sensory details.

Parents cling to their children wanting them to stay young forever, wanting endless memories and nothing to change, yet they must be able to part from these feelings to allow the child to grow. In the story “A Private Talk with Holly”, the author, Henry Felsen, uses symbolism to convey the central idea that if you love someone you have to let them go. When Holly, the main character of the story, talks to her Dad about changing her plans, he is faced with a difficult decision, but in the end he allows Holly to chase her dreams for her own good.

Some fancy that it is easiest to believe that things mean precisely what they appear to on the surface. However, to understand the world and thoughts of others in a more profound way, it is necessary to accept the fact that things may not always be just as they seem. It is imperative that one adopt this same attitude when reading poetry. One poem in particular that exemplifies this is John Updike’s “Telephone Poles”. Within the work, telephone poles are compared to trees by way of extended metaphor. “Telephone Poles” conveys the message that when nature is destroyed to make way for technology is harmful to nature itself and humankind as well by using an extended metaphor; this is enhanced and made clear by Updike’s usage of supporting metaphors, similes, verbal irony, and imagery.

Childhood is arguably the most exciting time of a person’s life. One has few responsibilities or cares, and the smallest events can seem monumentally thrilling. Often, people reflect on the memories of their youth with fondness and appreciation for the lessons they learned. Sarah Orne Jewett captures this essence perfectly in the excerpt from “A White Heron.” Jewett uses many literary devices, including diction, imagery, narrative pace, and point of view to immerse the reader in familiar feelings of nostalgia and wonder, and dramatize the plot.

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.

In the poems “A Barred Owl” by Richard Wilbur and “The History Teacher” by Billy Collins, each poet illustrates adults who are providing explanations for children to protect them from the harsher realities of life. In “A Barred Owl”, Wilbur conveys his point that children should be shielded from these harsh realities, through the use of personification and understatements. However, in “The History Teacher”, Collins conveys his point that protecting the students’ innocence is a lost cause, through his use of metaphors as well as understatements. Both poets use similar and different devices to convey their respective points.

The appreciation of nature is illustrated through imagery ‘and now the country bursts open on the sea-across a calico beach unfurling’. The use of personification in the phrase ‘and the water sways’ is symbolic for life and nature, giving that water has human qualities. In contrast, ‘silver basin’ is a representation of a material creation and blends in with natural world. The poem is dominated by light and pure images of ‘sunlight rotating’ which emphasizes the emotional concept of this journey. The use of first person ‘I see from where I’m bent one of those bright crockery days that belong to so much I remember’ shapes the diverse range of imagery and mood within the poem. The poet appears to be emotional about his past considering his thoughts are stimulated by different landscapes through physical journey.

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

There is a conflict between practicality and sentimentality conveyed through the use of both literal and figurative language by poet Mary Oliver in “The Black Walnut Tree.” There is an alternation from a debate between mother and daughter rationalizing reasons of selling the black walnut tree- that sits in the family’s backyard- in order to pay off their mortgage, to the symbolic viewing and characterization of the tree as a reflection of the family’s history and what value it holds to further generations. Despite the “whip-crack of the mortgage” experienced every month, cutting down the black walnut tree would be a heinous deception on the family’s heritage.

“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.

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

If you’ve ever seen the movie Mary Poppins you are probably well aware of the “Chim Chim Cher-ee” scene with the dirty and unkept men that are covered in black soot. They dance around and sing merely, but there is a harsher reality to the act of chimney sweeping. Since chimneys are very narrow, children were often sold, by their parents, to chimney owners. They lived, they breathed, they slept, and they played in the treacherous soot. Despite the harsh conditions in which they lived, the children’s imagination kept them going through the deadly job.

In the once delightful town of Gwyneth where the suns saffron colored rays shined down on the town, the sky once held the color of an iris, and the people in this beloved town lived a happy life. Until one day a single event sent the whole town into chaos and made them feel fear like no other, and the lives of Catherine Martin and Layla Bloom. How this happened? You may wonder well it all started with poor Alaric Mitchell.

Humans are inherently tied to the natural world. From changing the way they think to affecting the way they act, nature tends to have a certain degree of power over the lives’ of all people. Two poems, “The Widow’s Lament in Springtime,” by William Carlos Williams, and “River- Merchant’s Wife,” by Ezra Pound, use the strife of people experiencing sentiments of loss to explore the intricacies of the relationship that people share with the natural world and its effect on them. In “Widow’s Lament in Springtime,” a widow mourns the loss of her late husband by utilizing the image of her yard as an extended metaphor to describe how she is feeling internally. Only through analyzing her own perceived changes in the natural world around her is she able to adequately cope with the sense of sadness that consumes her. In “The River Merchant’s Wife,” a young woman writes a loving letter to her husband who has temporarily left, in which she describes her longing for him while commenting on the state of the natural world around her to represent her feelings. The two woman both experience a sense of loss and isolation in the absence of each of their respective significant other as well as a deep connection to the natural world through this sentiment. The contrast arises, however, with the way in which each of them feels about this regard. Their different attitudes raise questions about the impact of the natural world on not only the psyches’ of the two women but also the impact of the

The use of nature in poetry and stories has a long history in Ireland going back to the early use of bird song to describe divine messages. (Melia, 1999). The natural world gives writers the ability to communicate expression through the use as symbols and Celtic traditions describe how animals and birds were important parts of society. The use of natural world subjects give a poet such as Oscar Wilde the inspiration for some of his best works in poetry and short story. Oscar Wilde's use of birds and how they are used throughout his writings show great examples of the use of the natural world. The connection to nature in Irish literature can be shown by examining some of Oscar Wilde's most important works such as The Nightingale and the Rose and The Happy Prince as well as poems such as Magdalen Walks.