Day 10 Blog

Day 10 Blog
The American Landscape
Nature is a very important shaping factor in our life today. It can bring pleasure and horror. For example, we can admire the beauty after a rainstorm bringing flowers, green, and rainbows, but we can also see the horror of nature evident in Joplin, Missouri. In the readings today, nature is present.
In Jewett’s, “A White Heron”, a young girl named Sylvia takes her cow Mistress Moolly out to the pasture every day. The cow took “pleasure to hide herself away among the huckleberry bushes, and…she had made the discovery that if one stood perfectly still it would not ring.” Sylvia loved this. It was as if the girl played hide and seek with the cow. This cow was her only friend because “the child had no playmates.” Once Sylvia would find Mistress Moolly, she would bring her home. On this particular day, “they were so late.” Sylvia’s grandmother, Mrs. Tilley, knew the “difficulty of making this errand a short one”; however, Sylvia wondered what her grandmother would say since she had been gone so long. Sylvia could tell that she “felt sleepy.” All of the sudden, “this little woods-girl is horror stricken to hear a clear whistle not very far away…a boy’s whistle, determined, and somewhat aggressive.” The girl was very scared. She tried to hide in the bushes and leave the cow, but it was too late. The “tall young man” saw her. The strange man told her “‘I have been hunting for some birds…and I have lost my way…you think I can spend the night at your house.’” Scared because the young man had a gun, Sylvia took the young man back to her house to meet her grandmother. Mrs. Tilley was surprisingly welcoming to the young man. She fed him a nice meal and gave him a comfy bed to sleep in. The next day Sylvia accompanied the young man on his search for two birds left to complete his collection of birds. He was in search of a white heron. The boy would kill this white heron and stuff it. Sylvia knew that she had saw this white heron before, but she would not tell the boy where. She had become more comfortable with this man, and she was not as afraid of him. Unsuccessful, the two returned home to Mrs. Tilley’s house. In the middle of the night, Sylvia left. She left to find a “huge tree asleep.” She was convinced that if she climbed this tree, she could see to the oceans and also to where the heron nest was. So she climbed careful, and it “was harder than she thought.” She endured many scrapes and clothing tears. Finally, she made it to the top. She could see “the sea with the dawning sun making a golden dazzle”, and “the birds sang louder and louder.” She looked in search of the heron, and she found “the heron has perched on a pine bough not far beyond yours, and cries back to his mate on the nest.” She had found the heron and the nest! Quickly and carefully, she climbed down. When she returned back to her house, she was a mess. She was questioned by her grandmother but would not talk. The boy knew that she had seen the heron. He asked her for help finding the bird he wanted most. However, she refused to help, and the boy left. By Sylvia refusing to help this young man find the heron, she showed her love for nature. She knew this boy would kill this beautiful creature just for his own satisfaction, and she wanted to protect it. She took pleasure in seeing this creature just live, and she did not want some stranger to take that from her. She obviously loved nature, and it was evident in the poem. She has respect and loyalty for nature. There were such vivid and positive images of nature. For example, she talks about “the bright sunset still glimmered faintly…sparrows and robins in the woods below were beginning to wake and twitter to the dawn.” I believe that nature plays so prominently in this work because the author is trying to portray to you how beautiful nature is, and how we must protect it. It can bring such satisfaction to some people. She just wanted us to open our eyes and see the beauty of it.
In Frost’s poem, “After Apple Picking”, we learn of a man who is “done with apple-picking“ for the day. There is “a barrel that I didn’t fill” and “apples I didn’t pick upon some bough.” The man is becoming tired and says that he is “drowsing off.” As he is drowsing off, he dreams strange dreams. I wonder if he is about to die because in the poem it says, ”my long two-pointed ladder’s sticking through a tree toward heaven still.” I think he is on his final days, and he is about to die because his ladder, that he used throughout his life to do his job of apple picking, is pointing towards heaven. He is looking back on life, and in his dreams he sees “magnified apples appear and disappear.” He is picking apples in his dream, standing on a ladder because “my instep arch not only keeps the ache, it keeps the pressure on the ladder round.” The man has had enough of picking apples; he is “overtired of the great harvest I myself desired.” I believe that this man is sick of picking apples. He has been doing it for so long that he has become tired. The poem’s closing lines are “long sleep, as I describe its coming on, or just some human sleep.” I interpret this, again, as the man is going to die. He will forever be in a deep sleep, at rest. To me, the man in this poem loved nature. It was something that he desired to do because he says, “’of the great harvest I myself desired.” He had picked apples all his life, and he was starting to become tired of it. I think that the nature in this poem is used in a symbolic manner to represent something in the Frost’s life. These apples to me seem symbolic. How do you think these apples are symbolic? I think these apples represent something in Frost’s life that he desired, possibly a dream or a goal; however, once he achieved it, he was no longer happy.
In the three poems by Emily Dickinson, nature is her driving force. She is someone who loves nature, and it motivates her. In her first poem “Some keep the Sabbath”, she talks about how some people go to church to listen to the sermon and hear the chorus, but she enjoys “staying at home.” At home, on the Sabbath, she has “a bobolink for a chorister…and an orchard for a dome.” This means that she sits under orchard trees listening to a bird sing. Instead of listening to the bells at church, she enjoys listening to the “little sexton sing.” She finishes the poem with “Instead of getting to heaven at last, I’m going all along” meaning that she never has to leave her backyard to be in heaven. She is at peace when she sits and listens to what is her church at home. The thing that I am confused about is when Dickinson says, “I just wear my wings.” What does she mean by this? In the second poem, I had some trouble finding the meaning. I know nature is involved. Dickinson starts off by talking about how she “taste a liquor never brewed.” I believe that this means that the poem is not about alcohol. There is no such alcohol brewed like this, so it cannot be alcohol. Instead, she must be tasting something else, and my guess is nature. She goes on to talk about how “inebriate of air am I” meaning that she is intoxicated on nature. There are several references to nature including “drunken bee…foxglove…butterflies renounce their drams.” When she speaks of these beautiful creatures, she says “I shall drink the more!” meaning that she has so much love for nature that once she sees it, she wants more and more. The final poem is about “light on a winter’s afternoon.” This special kind of light “oppresses.” In the rest of the poem, the poet talks about how this light oppresses. It oppresses “like the weight of cathedral tunes”, and “hurt it gives us; we can find no scar.” This means that there is no damage on the outside that we can physically see, but there is emotional hurt. The poet then talks about how nature notices this light when “the landscape listens, shadows hold their breath.” I do not understand the meaning of this poem at all. I think she is using nature her to describe a certain time in her life. Is she talking about an experience in her life that she thought would lead her to the right path (“light”), but instead only caused her more hurt?
Emily Dickinson loved nature. From her two poems, it is evident that she took pleasure from all the beautiful things around her. Nature plays such a prominent role in Dickinson’s life. From the poems, it is clear that nature puts Dickinson at peace. She talks about how she is in heaven in the first poem, and how she wants to get drunk off nature in the second poem. However, the third poem confused me. It almost seems like a negative poem about nature. But I do not see how someone who loved nature so much could write negatively about it. Am I correct? Dickinson reminds me of my grandpa. My grandpa loves nature just as much as Dickinson did. He will just sit outside and admire his beautiful surroundings. Also, he loves listening to the birds chirp in his backyard. The only difference between Dickinson and my grandpa is that my grandpa actually goes to church on Sundays, and he does not sit in his backyard and keep the Sabbath by “staying at home.”