Tree In The City Thomas Shapcott Summary

Before reading the third chapter of “The Forest and the Trees”, I remember learning in the second chapter about symbolism, ideology and the construction of life in different cultures and societies around the world. For example, something interesting I remember learning was how every social system has a culture, consisting primarily of symbols (including words), ideas and practices. I believe this also connects and refers to how we tend to build our own sense of reality through the words and ideas that we use to mean something and people may use to name interpret what they experience and how cultures consist of symbols of ideas or words being portrayed. Based on what I read in the second chapter and the title of the third chapter, “The Structures

The book "The Baron in the Trees," by Italo Calvino is about the Baron Cosimo Piovasco di Rondò, or simply known as Cosimo, spent almost all of his life living up in the trees of Ombrosa after refusing to eat the disgusting plate of snails that his sister had made for the family dinner one night when he was twelve. Cosimo kept to his word "I'll never come down again!" (Calvino 13) and he never set foot on the ground again. Cosimo was not bound to one tree though; he was able to travel to many parts of Ombrosa by tree, and lead a very adventurous and full life. The main point of my essay is to discuss the ongoing relationship between Cosimo and the environment.

Bruce Dawe is one of the most inspirational and truthful poets of our time. Born in 1930, in Geelong, most of Dawe’s poetry concerns the common person – his poems are a recollection on the world and issues around him. The statement ‘The poet’s role is to challenge the world they see around them.’ Is very true for Bruce Dawe, as his main purpose in his poetry was to depict the unspoken social issues concerning the common Australian suburban resident. His genuine concern for these issues is

Baldwin gives a vivid sketch of the depressing conditions he grew up on in Fifth Avenue, Uptown by using strong descriptive words. He makes use of such word choices in his beginning sentences when he reflects back to his house which is now replaced by housing projects and “one of those stunted city trees is

“[E]nvironment is a tremendous thing in the world, and frequently shapes lives regardless.” (“Although it’s origins…”) Stephen Crane was influenced to write his 1893 novella, Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, as a result of his religious family, the secrecy to publish a novel that reveals the reality and impurity of the real world and from the impact of needy, urban landscapes that ended realism and began naturalism.

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.

In Allen Johnson’s “The Forest, The Trees, and The One Thing”, he expresses that in order to understand sociology we need to be able to understand the relationship between biography and history. To explain this, Johnson uses five rules to sociology called the sociological imagination. These rules explain how an individual relates to social systems.

Both speakers ply nature as setting to express their emotion.the speaker in the poem “The Lonely Land”apply “cedar and jagged fir’s action” as setting to express the lonely environment of the poem and the negative attitude.

The Wild Trees is a book by Richard Preston about a small group of botanists that are curious about what the canopy of the redwood holds. The redwood tree comes from the sequoia family and is the largest single organism in the world. A group of people that include Michael Taylor, Steve Sillett, and Marie Antoine. Michael Taylor came from a wealthy family. His father did not want Michael to grow up spoiled. He tried to raise him as a middle class child who did not get whatever he wanted. Eventually when Michael went to college he did not pass his classes and decided to change his major. Michaels father was not very happy about this and gave him one last chance. Eventually when the time came again, Michael did not complete his classes for the

This very well-known poem ‘Sanctuary’ was written in the early ‘50s by Judith Wright. Judith was a prolific Australian poet, critic, and short-story writer. She was also an uncompromising environmentalist and social activist campaigning for Aboriginal land rights. She believed that the poet should be concerned with national and social problems. The poem ‘Sanctuary’ was written as a great expression of environmental concern from her. The poem begins with a shocker. Sanctuary, implicitly, is a place of habitation which is safe. However, the first lines of the first stanza, “The road beneath the giant original trees sweeps on and cannot wait” represents a contrast. Here the road is used metaphorically to symbolise today’s modern developments taking place at the cost of all round natural destruction. The poem then unfolds the gloomy mood of the poet in the description of dangerous driving in the night on the road through the Sanctuary to the city: “only the road ahead is true.” In the last line then she is simply sarcastic: “It knows where it is going: we go too.” In fact the road never knows where it is going, but we know where we are going! The poet subtly asks: do we know where we are going by destroying our own habitation, native forests, plants and animals?

In Toni Morrison's novel Beloved, each character holds a special connection to trees and each places different meaning in them. The motif of trees and plants represent a calming force, escape from hardship, and circle of life that can heal the wounds of slavery. Paul D and Sethe are two characters in particular who place unique meaning in plants and use them as a way to escape their painful memories and the horrors of slavery.

Poetry is an art form that has been used to express certain messages or beliefs, and can potentially change a reader’s view on a subject. Suburban Sonnet, written by Gwen Harwood has a lot of social commentary and is speaking to you about a lot of things that it feels are important. It is looking to make a lot of points about Australian society and the sacrifice of having children and of living a suburban lifestyle. Gwen Harwood’s ‘Suburban Sonnet’ is a fourteen line poem with strong values of urban Australia.

“She would suffer all the rest of her life every time that she remembered that she had not smiled back,” (234). This sentence, written by Betty Smith, author of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, is in reference to when protagonist, Francie Nolan, had not allowed herself to smile back at a seemingly bad girl named Joanna because she thought she was not meant to be friendly with people like her. What struck me the most about the instance Francie says she will suffer all her life, is the almost immediate guilty feeling that Francie portrays after she saw Joanna being taunted later on. Francie seems to think that in that particular moment, not smiling back at Joanna was one of the worst things she could have

The speaker refers to the night as his acquaintance. This implies that the speaker has a lot of experience with the night, but has not become friends with it. Thus, because even the night, which has been alongside the speaker in comparison to anything or anyone else, is not a companion to the speaker, the idea of loneliness is enhanced. In addition, “rain” (2) is used to symbolize the speaker’s feelings of gloom and grief, because there is continuous pouring of the rain, which is unlikely to stop. In line 3, “city light” is used to convey the emotional distance between the speaker and society. Although the speaker has walked extensively, he has not yet interacted with anyone – thus distancing himself even further from society. Moreover, the moon, in lines 11 to 12, is used as a metaphor of the speaker’s feelings. The speaker feels extremely distant from society that he feels “unearthly.” The idea of isolation and loneliness in this poem is used as the theme of the poem; and the use of the setting and metaphors underscores the idea that the speaker feels abandoned from society.

and that he believes them. The poem also translates into how living in the city is toilsome and that the city is unrelenting. On the other hand it shows how the city can be prosperous and happy with the city’s disadvantages. in the second half of the poem it’s telling how nomatter what is wrong with the city, the people are still proud of who they are.