The Walnut Tree In Mary Oliver's The Black Walnut Tree

The oak tree is used to symbolize Ethan in the novel. The connection can be seen by comparing the characteristics of each. The Oak tree is seen by the characters in the novel as a solid, unchanging, and immovable object. The same can be said about Ethan. He has always has and probably always will live in Starkfield.

Everything seemed perfect in Gene and Finny’s relationship with each other; however Gene went above and beyond the limit by idolizing Finny. Competition arose between the two boys. A little competition between friends isn’t bad, but the element of competition was much stronger in Gene’s character. Eventually, this lead to Gene performing an act of jealousy to even out the competition. This is where the symbol of the tree comes into place. Gene’s act of jealousy was jouncing a tree limb causing Finny to

In the beginning, the pear tree symbolizes Janie’s yearning to find within herself the sort of harmony and simplicity that nature embodies. However, that

In the novel, Speak by Laurie Anderson, A Tree is a symbolism that represents Melinda's current moods and thoughts throughout the scenarios in the story. The main character traits of this story are Melinda's thoughts, emotions, and reactions to high school and within the people in it.

Abandonment and neglect results in many negative consequences on an individual’s life. These effect may include intrusive anxiety, insecurity, depression and isolation. Unfortunately, many characters in The Bean Trees experience these effect because they go through many hardships throughout their lives. However, the use of family, friendship, community and trust allows them to come together and face these predicaments together. The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver shows abandonment and neglect through various characters but it also uses it to demonstrate the benefits of positive relationships to heal the pain.

The tree represents Gene’s growth in maturity and age from being a teenager who is frightened by the magnitude of the tree to an adult who looks at it as unthreatening and small. Whilst revisiting the tree as an adult, Gene utters that the tree reminds him of the enemies of childhood that, once faced again, seem insignificant (14). When Gene is reflecting upon the first time he jumped off of the tree, he states the tree “flooded [Gene] with a sensation of alarm all the

any individuality or appreciation for beauty to show, nor is any notice of the tree mentioned.

By the end of the novel, Melinda finds a way to live again and bring the tree to life. Melinda finally overcomes her emotions about that night which has caused her lack of identify and paint a tree which symbolizes herself and her healing. The tree symbol reappears in Melinda’s beautification of her yard. Melinda rakes piles of abandoned leaves out of the bushes. She works with the "dead leaves still clinging to the oak branches by the street" (167). Melinda's life is symbolized by the leaves because she feels dead inside and struggles to find a safe haven, just as the leaves struggle to grasp onto the branches. The sick tree in the yard has a section dying which causes the entire tree to weaken and collapse. Melinda's life after the rape is like the sick part of the tree; her pain and suffering threaten to cross over to the other aspects of her life and ruin her entirely. On page 122, Mr. Freeman is trying to help Melinda develop an identity for herself because he tells Melinda when she is struggling with the trees, “The next time you work on your trees, don’t think about trees. Think about love, or hate, or joy, or rage. When people don’t express themselves, they die one piece at a time and walk through their days with no idea that they are.” Trees are a significant symbol throughout the novel as she experiences ninth

The tree in Speak symbolizes Melinda’s emotional state when at first she finds no meaning in drawing the tree then she finds the courage to speak up about her rape experience. As Melinda is starting her artistic path, Mr. Freeman says his opinion on her artwork and she develops an understanding that her art work could compare to her life.

Trees represent life because they aren’t simple, trees are large and strong, their roots are in the ground and its leaves sway in the sky. At first, Melinda’s life was as solid as the tallest tree in the world, the Hyperion. “This was the girl who suffered though Brownies with me, who

“He’s not chopping it down. He’s saving it. Those branches were long dead from a disease. All plants are like that. By cutting off the damage, you make it possible for the tree to grow again. You watch—by the end of summer, this tree will be the strongest on the block” (187). Melinda’s disease to an unhealthy tree was the silence of the rape. Melinda holding in the dreadful memory without telling anyone, kept her from becoming the tree she wanted to draw. Like removing the sick branches off to keep the tree healthy, Melinda had to speak up about the trauma. Once Melinda stood up for herself, the tree, which is actually her, can grow to its full

For example, there are moments throughout the novel in which the wind blows as Sethe is thinking and she is brought back to her days at Sweet Home, seeing the beautiful trees that surrounded the plantation. However, those were not nice moments to be reminded of as the particular trees she remembers are the trees that hung her fellow companions on the plantation. The story frames it as, “Boys hanging from the most beautiful sycamores in the world. It shamed her – remembering the wonderful soughing trees rather than the boys” (pg. 7). Thus, right off the bat, Sethe has a clear relationship with nature but it is so two faced that it could be something seen as a beautiful sight or a shocking reminder. Along with that, overall she has very bad experiences at Sweet Home when it came to having her milk stolen and just being a slave in general. But she is not able to control when those thoughts come to her as, “her brain was devious,” (pg. 6), so any sight of a tree could provide her with a sudden wave of depression, much different from what it would provide for the others. The inbetween of the positive and negative association with trees and nature would come in the moment that Sethe is running away from Sweet Home, going through the woods. Although that moment brought her freedom and a new life bringing her choice and much more, the process of it all was insanely brutal. All throughout her escape, she was pregnant with Denver and had extremely swollen feet, causing her to be tired out quickly. She reached a point in which she wanted to stop and die, but she is instead tended by a white woman in passing, called Amy Denver, stops to help her, bringing the positive association with trees for Sethe. As she is being cared for, Amy comments on Sethe’s back looking

As she is developing, she is tantalized by the societal norms he represents. She is ready to give up the backwoods (a symbol of herself) for all he (a symbol of society) has to offer. Convinced of that, she sets off to find the secret of the elusive white heron and in order to find the heron, she had to climb to what was literally the top of the world for her, the top of the pine tree. The world from the top was different than the city and it was different from the woods at ground level. From the top her perspective about the world changed, it was vast and awesome, and she understood her place in it more than before. She understood it to mean more than to sacrifice her own self for the gifts this man had to offer that were tantalizing but incapitable with her personality and true self.

The poem "The Black Walnut Tree" by Mary Oliver, starts with a mothers and her young daughter making a hard decision of how they will come up with the means to pay the mortgage. Since the young girl's mother is looking for ways to pay their mortgage, it can be reasonably inferred that the girls father has passed away. This mother has the option of selling a walnut tree in her yard that would cover her mortgage. The walnut tree in question is getting older and will not continue to be fruitful for long. This tree could be the answer to this family's problems, but it holds sentimental value.

This strong metaphor compares the narrator to the elephant who feels their fate is death. The third part of line 4 is the fine timbers that directly relate to the house previously mentioned. The purpose of the house fortifies the idea that what’s inside is of value. The house is nothing without its fine timbers and it is merely for protection and shelter. Just like a pregnant woman is for her unborn child. The fifth line represents the rising loaf like a child growing inside a womb. It is a pun on a familiar saying to pregnancy of a bun in the oven. “Money’s new minted in this fat purse” plays with the idea that the purse has no great value in itself but contains valuable things inside. Line 7 explores the narrator’s feelings towards having a child. She feels like “a means”, as if she is just a way for the baby to be born. As a mother she is just “a stage” and a platform but not a performance. She is “a cow in calf,” where many cows are separated from their offspring and have little to do with their mum. The final lines seem to break away from the rest of the poem and have a tone of darkness. After eating “a bag of green apples” one might feel sick especially since green apples are considered sour. The fruit is also unripe, signifying that the narrator is not ready to have a baby. Another point that can be found is that it is easy to see the resemblance of this line and Eve from the Bible. Eve was tempted to eat an apple and was cursed with the