The trees Flashcards
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The poetess emphasises the idea that God’s creation is a composite phenomenon. Trees, forests animals, human beings and other agencies of nature are interlinked. The poem has four stanzas of an unequal number of lines. The poem is rich in visual power. The use of personification ‘no sun bury its feet in shadow’ is quite effective. The use of simile in stanza 2, where ‘cramped boughs’ are compared to the ‘newly discharged patients’ is an effective poetic device used in the poem.
Roots Work All Night to Free Themselves:
The roots continue struggling all night. They want to free themselves. They try to come out from the cracks in the veranda floor. The leaves strain themselves moving towards the glass. Small twigs have become tough and hard. The long-cramped and crushed branches move repeatedly from one position to the other under the roof. These moving branches look like the patients who run out of the hospital in a hurry. Almost half-dazed, they move to the doors of the hospital to escape from it.
Empty Forests:
Human civilization and progress have led to the cutting of trees on a large scale. Without trees, forests have become empty. There are no trees left now where birds can perch themselves on their tops. Even Insects have lost the places where they could hide inside them. There are no trees left in the forest where the red hot sun could find some cooling by burying itself in their shadows. However, the poetess is hopeful. The forest which remained ’empty all these nights’ will be full of trees.
Trees Moving Out:
The trees inside are coming out. They are coming out of those artificial glasshouses where humans have so far confined them. The trees are freeing themselves from human bondage. They are moving out into the forest. The forest has been and will ever be, the natural habitat of trees. `The trees’ are metaphors for nature itself.
Head Full of Whispers:
The poetess is sitting inside. The struggle of the roots, leaves and branches to free themselves from their artificial habitat continues. Her head is full of whispers. These are whispers of the struggling trees. Then, she asks us to listen to those struggling sounds. We will notice that the struggling trees have come out breaking the glasshouse. They are still stumbling but marching forward victoriously towards the forest. Winds rush forward to welcome the victorious trees. The trees have grown up to such dimensions that have even covered the full moon. Covered by the leaves and branches of the trees, the full moon looks like a broken mirror into many pieces. These broken pieces of the moon can be seen through the holes of the tallest oak at the top.
From where are the trees moving out into the forest?
The trees are moving out of the mind of the painter and coining on the canvas.
Adrienne Rich has been known to use trees as a metaphor for human beings: this is a recurrent image in her poetry. What new meanings emerge from the poem if you take its trees to be symbolic of this particular meaning?
If trees have been used as a metaphor for human beings, then the poem would mean that like the trees, humans too want to break free of the boundaries that life puts on them. Modern life with all kinds of physical comfort has also brought a lot of moral downfall. Our lives have become busy and we have become selfish and greedy. Man would also want to enjoy the beauty of nature and go out in the open and be free, just like trees.
Conflict between human and nature is always there. Nature is also rebelling against civilization and becoming destructive. Explain.
Yes, the poem presents a conflict between man and nature. Man has always caused much harm to nature, without realizing that it actually is a harm to the human race. Humans cut down forests for forest goods, which has destroyed a lot of natural beauty. By keeping trees inside walls and denying them their natural home, they are denying them their freedom. That is why, the trees want to move out.
Man has been destroying nature due to personal and material pursuits. He is endlessly playing havoc with nature. He is trying to harness wind, solar energy and flora. In this pursuit man has forgotten that excessive destruction can carry us to any situation.
Why do you think the poet does not mention “the departure of the forest from the house” in her letters?
The poet hardly mentions about “the departure of the forest from the house” in her letters because it is humans, who did not care for nature in the first place. So, maybe, the poet now thinks that nobody would be interested in knowing about the efforts that the trees are making in order to set themselves free. If other men cared about the trees, they would not have destroyed them. It seems that this whole beauty of trees moving back to forests can be seen and felt only by the poet.
What does the poetess compare the bough with and why?
The boughs are long and cramped. The poet compares the boughs with the patients who have been recently discharged and are moving out of the clinic doors because the boughs also move out in the same semi-dazed state as if they are under a spell.
The poem ‘The Trees’ presents a conflict between Man and Nature. Discuss.
The poem ‘The Trees’ presents the rebellion of the tree against the human oppression and imprisonment within walls. The forest is the natural habitat of the trees. The trees feel suffocated in houses. They rebel against it and move out.
Why is the poet writing long letters? Why does she not mention the departure of the trees?
The poet can feel the sorrow of the trees imprisoned in the cities. So, she is writing long letters or poems voicing the trees’ right to be in their natural habitat i.e., the forest. She does not mention the departure of the trees in her letters as she is too embarrassed for imprisoning them ever.
‘Give me liberty or give me death’. How far does this phrase illustrate the theme of the poem ‘Trees’?
This poem, dwelling upon the rejuvenating spirit of liberty, likens it to reforestation. Without a forest,(freedom), the birds lacked a perch, the insects a hiding place, the sun a shady footrest and nights were empty. Freedom is a hard-won, but silent battle, like disengaging roots from cracks in a verandah floor.
The foliage, like secondary freedom forces, strives to break free through the window glass, and boughs shuffle out from under the roof. Chroniclers of freedom take an overview, as if from a verandah. Their writings hail freedom but scarcely record individual struggles towards freedom.
