Death Of A Naturallist SS

Question 1

Death of a Naturallist

Answer 1

• ‘Naturallist’ —> refers to someone who studies or understands nature being in harmony with it and often embracing it. Can allude to the poem being about a person engrossed within nature.
• ‘death’ —> can refer to the end of someone’s love for nature or the close of the narrator’s love for his surroundings as he grows from childhood to adolescence.

Question 2

‘All year the flax-dam festered in the heart of the townland; green’

Answer 2

‘All’ —> refers a sense of consistency within the decay showing nature’s unwavering nature that does not change often.
- ‘flax-dam’ —> a ‘flax-dam’ is a muddy patch of earth that is soaked through. This makes it softer but can also lead to a rancid smell during decomposition. This creates a sense of disgust in nature.
- ‘festered’ —> when the ‘flax-dam’ festers, it creates strong connotations with decay and spoiling which can suggest that the landscape is being spoilt by pestilence and deterioration. This contributes to the sense of horror built up within the readership in response to these disgusting ideas. This prevents nature in a negative manner.
- ‘f’ —> fricative sound in ‘flax’ and ‘festered’ also is harsh in sound and reinforces the ongoing sense of disgust from pestilence within the landscape.
- ‘heart of the townland’ —> ‘heart’ implies the decay being in the Center and greatly affecting the settlement while ‘townland’ uses pastoral imagery to imply that nature is ruining settlements and the area.
- ‘green’ —> semiotic colour is also associated with a sense of disgust and strong dislike.

Question 3

‘Daily it sweltered in the punishing sun. Bubbles gargled delicately, bluebottles wove a strong gauze of sound’

Answer 3

-‘Daily’ —> uses a temporal marker to portray the issues as constant and consistently a problem. This portrays nature as negatively persistent.
- ‘sweltered’ —> connotes to a sense of discomfort from the heat. This along with ‘punishing’ portrays nature from a negative and horrific perspective.
- ‘sun’ —> creates a sense of ambivalence in its portrayal since the ‘sun’ can be the Center of life allowing prosper, however, in this context, it is most likely used as a catalyst for decay speeding it up and causing a terrible landscape.

Question 4

‘Best of all was the warm thick slobber of frogspawn that grew like clotted water in the shade’

Answer 4

• ‘best of all’ —> hyperbolic language makes ‘slobber’ appear to be fantastic and the pinnacle of nature. This perhaps alludes to the narrator being a child in the way that they glorify disgusting aspects of nature due to their like of the stretchy texture which can be used as a toy.
• ‘warm thick slobber’ —> the adjective ‘warm’ continually portrays nature as powerful in the way that it can decay by heating up the ‘frogspawn’. Also, ‘thick’ reiterates the sense of disgust in the way that there is an abundance of the horrific feeling ‘frogspawn’.
  ‘Clotted water’ —> the adjective ‘clotted’ refers to a thickened liquid. This makes it unclear and hard to see through which turn juxtaposes normal connotations of water which is meant to be clear. This makes it oxymoronic. This can highlight the disgusting description of nature.
  ‘Shade’ —> noun refers to an area with a lack of light. This creates negative depictions surrounding nature,

Question 5

‘On shelves at school, and wait and watch until the fattening dots burst into nimble-swimming tadpoles’

Question 6

‘Daddy frog was called a bullfrog and how he croaked and how the mammy frog laid hundreds of little eggs and…’

Question 7

‘One of day when fields were rank with cowdung in the grass and angry frogs invaded the flax-dam’

Question 8

I ducked through hedges to a coarse croaking that I had not heard before.’

Question 9

‘Gross-bellied frogs were cocked on sods; their loose necks pulsed like sails