Analyzing The Theme Of Nature In Literary Devices English Literature Essay

Analyzing The Theme Of Nature In Literary Devices English Literature Essay The theme of nature is very important to each of the texts to be discussed in this essay: The Fat Black Womans Poems by Grace Nichols; Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller and Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys. In a sense, the fact that each work is created within a different literary genre to some extent dictates the essential differences amongst them. However, this essay sets out to examine how, in addition to comparing literary devices, nature is used as a different imperative in each of the selected texts. Throughout the play, Willy escapes back into his memories and it is deeply significant, therefore, that the countryside is allied to this: I was driving along, you understand? And I was fine. I was even observing the scenery. You can imagine, me looking at scenery, on the road every week of my life. But its so beautiful up there, Linda, the trees are so thick, and the sun is warm  [3]  Loman both belongs in the country and out of it because he has simply used it, as he has used both things and people, to get ahead. The fact that he has been unsuccessful is therefore a betrayal of his own and a generic dream that is never fulfilled nor justified, just as the story he begins to tell Linda, his wife, ends not in reverie on the idyllic, as it started, but on loss of control: all of a sudden Im going off the road!  [4]  Miller uses nature, therefore, as an emblem of Willys displacement: Many of Willys activities can be seen as highly symbolic. He plants seeds just as he plants fal se hopes: both will die and never come to fruition, largely because the house has become too hemmed in by the city.  [5]  In addition, a further lost dream of Willys has been connected with nature, that of his brother, Bens, offer to join him and make his fortune beyond the suburban life Willy has lived: William, when I walked into the jungle, I was seventeen. When I walked out I was twenty-one. And, by God, I was rich!  [6]  For Willy, therefore, nature has become a place of lost hope where the grass dont grow anymore  [7]  ; it does not belong and nor does he: A victim of both a heartless capitalist society and his own misguided dreams, Willys eventual suicide is presented with tragic dimensions. His beliefs may be misguided, but he stays true to them to the end. Although he has neither social nor intellectual stature, Willy has dignity, and he strives to maintain this as his life falls apart around him.  [8]   Displacement is also a major feature of Jean Rhyss novel, Wide Sargasso Sea. First published in 1966, it is a prequel to Charlotte Brontes Jane Eyre, first published in 1847. The novel uses nature as a means of developing the narrative of Rochesters first wife, Bertha Mason, here known as Antoinette Cosway, a young woman who feels herself displaced following the freeing of the slaves who had worked on her familys plantation. The very word place occurs many times in the novel  [9]  and Antoinette seeks solace in what she sees as an Eden garden, her former home, from which she is cast out: A very important early set piece is Antoinettes description of the garden at Coulibri, where she was a child, a garden which was probably based on Rhyss memories of her mothers family estate at Geneva. It marks childhood as taking place in a damaged Eden.  [10]  The description of the garden is thus very important to an understanding of Antoinette and of the way Rhys uses her connection with nature to aid her character and thematic development: Our garden was large and beautiful as that garden in the Bible the tree of life grew there. But it had gone wild. The paths were overgrown and a smell of dead flowers mixed with the fresh living smell. Underneath the tree ferns, tall as forest tree ferns, the light was green. Orchids flourished out of reach or for some reason not to be touched. One was snaky looking, another like an octopus with long thin brown tentacles bare of leaves hanging from a twisted root. Twice a year the octopus orchid flowered then not an inch of tentacle showed. It was a bell-shaped mass of white, mauve, deep purples, wonderful to see. The scent was very sweet and strong. I never went near it.  [11]   The possessive pronoun with which this paragraph opens immediately establishes the dichotomy of Antoinettes situation. This is her home, it should feel like hers but it does not. The beauty she infers has a duplicitous lushness because it has gone wild, emblematic of a land which has lost control, albeit for a positive reason. The living and the dead mix and encroach upon one another, and there is a serpent in the garden in the snaky orchids. Moreover, the twisted root implies a distortion of what was meant to be, metaphorically echoing Antoinettes displacement. In addition, this is not the only example of places appearing resonant of disposition and/or situation: Places are extremely alive in this novel: the menacing, lush garden at Coulibri, the mysterious bathing pool at Coulibri, sunset by the huts of the plantation workers, the road from the village of Massacre up to Granbois, the sea and sky at sunset from the ajoupa or thatched shelter at Granbois, the bathing pools at Granboi s (the champagne pool and the nutmeg pool) the forest where Antoinettes husband wanders until he is lost, the road to Christophines home, the trees and bamboos around the house at Granbois.  [12]  Here, Antoinette appears simultaneously intoxicated and repelled by the sweet and strong of the garden, which perhaps says something about her similarly ambivalent attitude towards those around her and they to her: The picture we now have of Rhys and her heroines is that of a passive, impotent, self-victimized schizoid who, comfortable with failure, wields her helplessness like a weapon all as natural as being female.  [13]  The presentation of nature at the honeymoon house is similarly difficult to place, seeming to be one thing but actually being another, but her former home is a sacred space where Antoinette hugs to herself the secret hidden in Coulibri.  [14]  It is, indeed, these secrets in isolation, echoed in the descriptions of Antoinettes homeland that make the repres entation of nature in Wide Sargasso Sea so clearly an imperative of the text: As long as Antoinette can remember and order the events of her memories into a temporal or causal sequence, create even an illusion of sequence and maintain a measured sense of space and time, then she can hold her life and self together. Her act of narration becomes an act of affirmation and cohesion, a nod to the world and its conventions, an attempt to prevent herself from dissolving. When, in Part Three, Antoinette lies encaged in Thornfield Halls dark, cold attic, the threads that hold her to the reality that the world perceives as sanity finally break. These threads are the elements of conventional narrative: linear chronology, sequence, narratorial lucidity, distance. She herself admits at this point that time has no meaning; sequence disintegrates into a confusion of present and past and ultimately into a dream which narrates her future.  [15]   This has been quoted at length because it addresses many of the literary devices that the novelist, as opposed to the playwright or poet, can use to develop a theme. With regard to nature, it is used by Rhys, as suggested above, to create a temporal space for Antoinette that is emblematic of the identity she has lost. The wildness which is encroaching upon the Eden of the garden, later to be completely destroyed, is an example of the way in which the novelist can use one strong image to lead into another, both being resonant of the past. Indeed, again as stated above, the act of telling the tale creates the character in the mind of the reader and the locations in which she is placed are connected to that, as is the temporal dislocation which memory produces and which is often, as with Antoinette, indicative of her state of mind. The evocation of nature as a turbulent and emotive presence adds to this, with the sea as the ultimate semiotic of challenge, chaos and dislocation. Grace Nichols second collection of verse, The Fat Black Womans Poems, published in 1984, also uses nature to evoke a particular image. However, as this is poetry, the linguistic and literary devices used are very different from either those of the playwright and/or novelist. Nichols grew up in Guyana  [16]  but has made her life and career in England, she has lived and worked in Britain since 1977  [17]  , and this cross-cultural imperative is very much evident in her work: her poems frequently acknowledge the alien climate, geography, and culture of Englands cities  [18]  Within The Fat Black Womans Poems, Nichols seeks to evoke a different perception of beauty from that which is shown in white Western culture: Nichols also deploys the fat black woman as a powerful challenge to the tyranny of Western notions of female beauty  [19]  and thus engender a new heroine, a woman who revises the aesthetic of female beauty.  [20]  One of the techniques Nichols employs to do this is combining nature with an aspect of the physical self, as here in Thoughts drifting through the fat black womans head while having a full bubble bath: Steatopygous sky Steatopygous sea Steatopygous waves Steatopygous me  [21]   The unfamiliar word, steatopygous (meaning having fully rounded buttocks) is repeated for emphasis and juxtaposed with images of nature so as to produce an emblem of the black woman as close to nature, her body shaped like the sky, waves and sea. Nichols is empowering black women in image by doing this as she does by giving the black woman her own unique voice: In making the fat black woman the speaking subject of many of these poems, Nichols signals her refusal to occupy the subject(ed) position designated for the black woman by history and to insist on more complex subjectivities.  [22]  Nichols is also concerned that the voice should seem naturalistic and therefore the natural images perform yet another function: Like many Afro-Caribbean writers, Nichols infuses her poetry with the spiritual energy of the tradition of women before her, a tradition that has little written record.  [23]   In another poem from the collection, Beauty, this reproduction of a different image of physical appeal can also be seen to be connected with nature: Beauty is a fat black woman walking the fields pressing a breezed hibiscus to her cheek while the sun lights up her feet Beauty is a fat black woman riding the waves drifting in happy oblivion while the sea turns back to hug her shape  [24]   Again, the woman is juxtaposed with nature, providing a unity between the persona and her surroundings which is both literal and metaphorical. Repetition is used once more by the poet to emphasise the connection between the theme of the collection and beauty in abstract. Indeed, the word Beauty, the only capitalised word in the poem, is set alone on a line, as is hibiscus, as if to stress its importance as an emblem or iconic of what Nichols says is an imperative i.e. that this is what beauty unequivocally is. There is a mutual embrace between the woman and nature, she pressing the hibiscus/to her cheek and the sea turn[ing] back/to hug her shape. It is as if Nichols is suggesting that the fat black woman who is riding the waves/drifting in happy oblivion is in unison with nature and recognised by it as being so. All of nature, indeed, like the sun [that] lights up her feet is glorifying her and she it. There is no punctuation in the verses, emphasising the smooth, natural flow of th e descriptions and the way in which they are intended to imply all that is inherently natural. As Nichols writes in The Assertion, This is my birthright  [25]  and thus the investigation of beauty within the poems becomes a socio-political imperative, too. In conclusion, all three texts Millers Death of a Salesman, Rhyss Wide Sargasso Sea and Nichols The Fat Black Womans Poems all use nature as a way of enlarging upon and more effectively demonstrating their central concerns. An important element of this is the way in which pathetic fallacy is used by the authors, i.e. nature reflecting and/or suggesting a mood or theme. As the three texts discussed here are from different genres, they of course use nature in different ways, employing different literary devices, as has been shown. However, for each of the authors nature is singularly important and enriches the individual texts immeasurably. In the final analysis, therefore, it might be suggested, indeed, that nature itself becomes almost a communicative character within each of the very different works discussed within this essay, as its importance to the creation and communication of each cannot be overestimated.

“Red” by Ted Hughes Essay

‘Red’ is a final collection by Ted Hughes in 1998 before he died. It has also engages the final death of Slyvia Plath in this piece of poetry. Ted Hughes has used ‘Red’ and ‘blue’ to describe Plath’s view of life and character from the day they got married and lived in their house. In the beginning of Red, it has defines Plath’s favourite colour that seems to wrap her entire life and movement. In line 4, ‘blood-red’ may have constitute a certain image caused in life that can be related to violence or conflict inferred to Plath. Life and death signifies nothing important for her to continue life and seems to live in remembrance in her deceased family members in line 7. In the second part of the poem, Ted and Slyvia had married and she had stepped into the life of her husband. In line 2, ‘Our room was red. A judgement chamber’ refers to how deeply in love Slyvia was to the colour that mades Ted shivers upon thinking of jurys. Everything was red from the ceiling to floor, the settings of their room was like a throbbing cell in line 9 which set his heart pounding. The only colour that can escaped from Slyvia were the bookshelves which can represent a glimpse of hope and meaning to the both of them. In line 1 to 3 of ‘Red’ third portion, it tells us how Ted tried to runaway from the blood chamber by looking out to the windows but to no avail. He could not help himself from not thinking of his wife’s saddening and crimson red image. He describes his feeling like blood tossing from a wound in line 5 that eventually will lead to a sense of impending doom (line 7). In the fourth paragraph, it tells readers how Ted finds his wife’s clothing and sensual lips which spells blood and rawness. ‘A swathe of blood’ that envelopes or enfolds a hidden blood (line 1). In line 2 to 4, the way Slyvia revelled the lavish, generous red burgundy gives an imaginary picture of she was painting the town in red too. Once again, he feels the blood shimmer from the gash (line 7). From the fifth part of the poem, it depicts the gleam of hope has been  splashed with blood too. In this part, those roses refer to the colour ‘red’. Slyvia began to lose herself deeper into the helpless world of her own with occasion of optimism. Lastly, ‘Blue was better for you. Blue has wings’ express the kind of life Ted prefers his wife to be. The only times where she liked ‘blue’ was when she was pregnant. He really liked her to be like an angel or guardian in the sky as the colour of blue sky. But Slyvia Plath chose to lose herself, lost her soul in the pit of red. Ted Hughes feels guilty and remorseful of her death although he may not be the entire cause of her suicide. He uses poem to convey his feelings to the readers and to Slyvia Plath.

I’m the King of the Castle Essay

(i) With close reference to the passage, give evidence to show how Hooper knew that locking Kingshaw in the Red Room would scare him. From the beginning of this chapter three, we have already been exposed to the fears of the despondent young boy – Kingshaw. In this passage, Hooper welcomed the supposed to be honoured Kingshaw into the Red Room. When the door was opened wide for Kingshaw, he stepped a little into the room and then he stopped. While Hooper was standing â€Å"beside the doors, the keys in his hand†. With a tuck from Hooper’s challenge to go on into the room and look around, â€Å"Kingshaw stiffened and moved slowly towards the first of the glass cases† and then â€Å"drew in his breath sharply†. Hooper was watching him intently waiting for the next chance to attack his prey. Kingshaw also gave his fear away when he stuttered upon asking, â€Å"who†¦where did they come from?† while trying to act interested about the dead moths in that dark and dreary room. The despot’s wit took him nearer to his opportunity. He offered the small key to â€Å"open one of the cases† so that Kingshaw could touch them but Kingshaw was very overwhelmed by his fear that he replied Hooper with a straight â€Å"No.† four times. That only led himself deeper into the tyrant’s trap. Not only did Kingshaw’s answers betrayed himself, he also started â€Å"moving backwards† and â€Å"only wanted to get out of the room†. This incident in the room only brought Hooper to confirm his suspicion of Kingshaw having a fear for dead things. Hooper was first given an impression with his first attempt of scaring Kingshaw upon his first meeting with him. The young tyrant lied to the vulnerable Kingshaw about his grandfather dying in the room and on the bed that Kingshaw was about to use. At that time, the young boy was oblivious towards Hooper’s tormenting words. Yet, his reaction said a lot about his inner being. Kingshaw upon knowing of the past of his new bedroom only â€Å"went to the suitcase and squatted down†. It was very obvious to Hooper that he was trying to act as if the fact that someone died in his room did not scare him at all. At ten years old, any young boy would have protested for another room and demand a confirmation from an adult but Kingshaw just kept mum. Hooper put Kingshaw to another test of a dead creature again after watching the boy being attacked by the life crow. He confronted Kingshaw about his fear – â€Å"You were scared. You were running away.† The helpless Kingshaw then got reminded of his encounter with the scarlet red mouth of the carrion crow and was very agitated when he asked Hooper to â€Å"Shut up, shut up†. Kingshaw obviously didn’t want to recall that terrifying incident again. However, the scheming Hooper placed a stuffed crow on Kingshaw’s bed at night. As Kingshaw was already very afraid of his room, as he believed Hooper’s lie that his grandfather died in his bed, Hooper wanted to use the stuffed crow to make the terror of the attack of that crow return. Also, considering Hooper’s devious mind, I believe he also placed the stuffed crow on Kingshaw’s bed in the night also to create an impression on him that it could be Hooper’s dead grandfather. When Kingshaw saw the stuffed crow on his bed the next morning, he knew for sure that Hooper was behind it. He also developed a fear towards Hooper from this as he realized that that tyrant was capable of anything to scare him even more. Yet, Kingshaw was so afraid to put himself to shame if he ever did cry out for help as he remembered his father was laughing at him about his childhood fear of drowning. Kingshaw also knew that Hooper was waiting for him to scream and yell thus he decided to consume his fear so that he could get the overhand over this psychological battle against Hooper. Hence, we can see very clearly that Hooper did very careful planning and made specific interpretations about Kingshaw’s fear of dead things and yearns for the stronghold against Kingshaw and his emotions. Thus upon confirming Kingshaw’s fear, Hooper moves on to locking him in the Red Room with the dead moths and other stuffed animals with very dark surroundings enhanced by the rain and grey skies outside that creates a threatening mood in Kingshaw. (ii) Describe one other incident where Hooper preys on Kingshaw’s fears and discuss the effect of that incident on Kingshaw. Write with reference till where we stopped – Chapter 6. One other incident apart from that of locking Kingshaw in the Red Room on that rainy night, I believe very strongly that the stuffed crow created a very deep threat in Kingshaw’s life in Warings and he was bent on running away from his greatest fear right now – Edmund Hooper. Kingshaw was exceptionally traumatized from his attack of the living crow. It was like Hooper – aggressive, territorial and left no space for him to escape. The crow caused him â€Å"to scream in a queer, gasping sort of way† which shows us how terrified of the crow Kingshaw was. The crow seemed to have a craving to hurt him and Kingshaw was left totally helpless and almost unable to make a sound because of his terror and shock. The vicious attack of that crow showed how trapped and isolated Kingshaw was in Warings. Hence when Hooper exploits Kingshaw’s fear of the crow and dead things, Kingshaw started to have a fear for Hooper grow in him. Especially when he realizes that Hooper used the stuffed crow to terrorise him and also to hint to him about himself being kept under close observation and can be defeated anytime by a click of Hooper’s fingers. Although the living crow attacked Kingshaw physically, he knew very clearly that the stuffed crow was to attack him psychologically and that Hooper has had seen through his brave front. Kingshaw tried very hard to battle the fear inside him so that Hooper would not win him. However, after being locked inside the Red Room with all the dead animals, Kingshaw yearns for somewhere he can hide away from Hooper’s supervision. He hates Hooper now. Kingshaw did find a room of his own, his personal space in Warings somewhere that Hooper does not hold control of. It was a small room that â€Å"seemed never to have had any particular function of its own†. Although the room was small, Kingshaw was not afraid of it. The author was trying to tell us that the claustrophia was towards being locked up and not of minimal spaces. Kingshaw was actually fine with the idea about locking himself in that room full of antique dolls as a way of â€Å"defending himself† against Hooper. He only panics when somebody else locks him in a room, against his own will. His secret room was a very little room compared to Hooper’s confident Red Room. This tells a lot of Kingshaw’s insecurity and his sensitive and gentle character as the room was filled with a collection of female dolls. However, Kingshaw’s temporary sanctuary was not occupied for long, Hooper found his hiding place. His freedom was short-lived.

Business Overview Pursuits - 1491 Words

Plummy Pursuits 1. Official Statement 1.1. Business Overview Plummy Pursuits is another business that means to offer crisp foods grown from the ground juice arranged locally with a divine normal flavor. We would like to develop products of the soil stand that will give the freshest and heavenly foods grown from the ground sorts of organic product squeeze that are privately arranged. We plan to source every one of our fixings from natural product sellers who buy organic products straightforwardly from homesteads. We will set up our juices on location to guarantee our customer base get the freshest juices with its characteristic flavor conceivable. With a sharp concentrate on particular ranchers and cultivators, we plan to customize†¦show more content†¦Year 1 deals are anticipated at $55,568 taking into account a moderate improvement of the business through catching more customer base each month. I construct these anticipated figures with respect to the inclination to buy a range, putting different components into contemplations, for example, football games on the primary road and having the capacity to get more customer base from my rivals. To ensure that the working capital accessible is reliably adequate in the primary year, the main least sum will be drawn from the business. 1.3. Vision Statement To be the best products of the soil juice merchant shop in the district and be prestigious for giving quality neighborhood sustenance’s and supporting agriculturists and cultivators. This can be accomplished by giving customers quality leafy foods at focused costs. 1.4. Business Objectives Our fleeting goal is to endeavor and develop the business by no less than 12% after at regular intervals, with aggregate offers of $55,568 in the principal year. This will require offering 15 liters of organic product juice and 55 kilograms of natural products. I plan to keep developing my business in years two and three and extend the outlets in the area as I anticipate winning Young Entrepreneur of the Year. There are two schools in the close-by, and new workplaces are being developed in the zone. My sort of administration to customer base is one of a kind in the region, and an entertainment focus is exceptionally