AskEssays.com - Discover essay samples

David Guterson And His Use Of The Theme Of Nature

4.9 of 5.0 (199 reviews)

Contains
743 words
Category
English

David Guterson And His Use Of The Theme Of Nature Page 1
David Guterson And His Use Of The Theme Of Nature Page 2
David Guterson And His Use Of The Theme Of Nature Page 3
David Guterson And His Use Of The Theme Of Nature Page 4
David Guterson And His Use Of The Theme Of Nature Page 5
The above thumbnails are of reduced quality. To view the work in full quality, click download.

David Guterson, a young American author, has written two major works
regarding aspects of human nature and human emotions. His first publication, a
collection of short stories, entitled The Country Ahead of Us, The Country
Behind addresses some of the moral dilemmas that humans face throughout their
lives. His first novel, Snow Falling on Cedars, narrates the trial of a
Japanese man accused of murdering a white man in the post World War II era.
Throughout his literary works, Guterson uses elements of nature: land, trees,
water and especially snow, as literal and metaphorical tools to develop and
resolve conflicts.
David Guterson uses the same aspects and characteristics of nature in
two different ways. First he describes in visual detail the literal or actual
effects that elements of nature have on the characters in the story. But more
importantly Guterson uses nature to convey substantial and symbolic meaning in
the lives of the characters in his stories.
One of the elements of nature that Guterson uses as a tool to develop
the conflicts in Snow Falling on Cedars are the strawberry fields on the island.
These fields represent an important source of income for the community.
Traditionally the Japanese laborers worked the fields and the white Americans
owned the fields. The question of the ownership of seven acres of strawberry
fields serves as the apparent motive for the murder of Carl Heine. To a local
Japanese fisherman, Kabuo (accused of murdering Carl Heine), the ownership of
this land promises a secure future and ultimately independence. '...she knew
that Kabuo wanted a strawberry field.. nothing more than that' (Snow Falling 89).
'His dream...was close to him now, his strawberry land, his happiness' (Snow
Falling 456). The strawberry fields connected Kabuo to his past and symbolized
a continuity of life. 'My father planted the fathers of these (strawberry)
plants' (Snow Falling 362).
Guterson also uses snow metaphorically to make the ownership of the
strawberry fields disappear and seem unimportant in life (Snow covering the
fields permitted the reader to veiw the ownership of the fields as a very
materialistic and selfish thing). After the snow has fallen it acts as a
purifier to all the wrong that has come of the fighting over the ownership of
the fields. 'Center Valley strawberry fields lay under nine inches of
powder...the snow fall obliterated the boarders (of the fields)... all human
claims to the landscape were... made null and void by the snow'(Snow Falling
320). The snow covered the fields; all of the fields seemed as one field. The
nine inches of snow caused a visual unity of the strawberry fields. '..the
world was one world'(Snow Falling 320).
The element of water is used as a paradox in Guterson's novel Snow
Falling on Cedars. Water is both the sustainer and taker of life. The damp and
misty climate on San Piedro Island is the reason why the community grows and
prosper off of the strawberry based economy. Without the water, and the wet and
nurturing environment it provided to the island there would be no foundation for
life. The ocean is also one of the key sources to the community. It provides
the community with a way to make a living.
Water, the source of life in Guterson's literary works, is also the end
of life. In several of his works water is portrayed as the place where life
ends. '...the wall of water rose up from behind...Carl Heine fell swift and
hard against the Susan Marie's port gunnel. His head craked open above the left
ear and then he slid heavily beneath the waves'(Snow Falling 458). The tidal
wave was the cause of Carl's death; the water, this element of nature was truely
responsible for the death of the fisherman. In that sense Gutersonn uses water
metaphorically to represent the circle of life; the source of life, the
maintenance of life, and the end of life.
Guterson uses trees as a metaphorical device to portray and predict
events in his literary works. He also uses them as literal tools to develop his
work, beautiful cedars and elms which ...

You are currently seeing 50% of this paper.

You're seeing 743 words of 1485.

Similar essays


To An Athlete Dying Young By A

Dying young is thought to be one of the most tragic of circumstances. The thoughts of lives wasted, dreams unattained, memories never conceived. It is sad fate uncontrollable by any earthly being. Most people desire to live to a ripe old age as to take full advantage of their time on earth, to experience as much as they can, and would be aghast to...

52 reviews
Download
Essay on separate peace

ESSAY ON "A SEPARATE PEACE" John Knowle's A Separate Peace is novel that focuses in on characters and their reaction to the world around them. Since the book was written in the forties the reader knows that the backdrop is WWII. The author uses the backdrop of war to show how young boys develop bonds of friendship. So, therefor, the two themes...

174 reviews
Download
Emily Dickinson 3

The complex fate of human beings in this tragic yet beutiful world and the possible fortunes of the human spirit in a subsequent life is what interests us all in life, and this is the central theme in most of Emily Dickinsons work. In her enticing poetry, Emily establishes a dialectical relationship between reality and imagination, the known and t...

148 reviews
Download
Negro essay

Black Negro Essay In John Howard Griffin's novel Black Like Me, Griffin travels through many Southern American states, including Mississippi. While in Mississippi Griffin experiences racial tension to a degree that he did not expect. It is in Mississippi that he encounters racial stereotypical views directed towards him, which caus...

49 reviews
Download
Beloved by Toni Morrison

In Toni Morrisons? novel, Beloved, the main character Sethe, is a former slave who chooses to kill her baby girl rather than allowing her to be exposed to the physically, and emotionally damaging horrors of a life spent in slavery. There is no other way to say it: she murdered her child. By killing her child, so dear to her heart,...

149 reviews
Download
The Bluest Eyes

A Search For A Self Finding a self-identity is often a sign of maturing and growing up. This becomes the main issue in Toni Morrison's novel . Pecola Breedlove, Cholly Breedlove, and Pauline Breedlove are such characters that search for their identity through others that has influenced them and by the lifestyles that they have. First, Pecol...

137 reviews
Download
Great Expectations And Oliver

During his lifetime, Charles Dickens is known to have written several books. Although each book is different, they also share many similarities. Two of his books, Twist, are representatives of the many kinds of differences and similarities found within his work. Perhaps the reason why these two novels share some of the same qualities is because th...

114 reviews
Download
Charles Dickens 2

Charles Dickens has been acclaimed as one of the foremost satirists of the nineteenth century. In his novel A Tale of Two Cities Dickens finds fault with the social structure of the society. A few of these social problems are the difference between the classes, the lunacy of the revolution, and the judicial system in effect as this...

212 reviews
Download
A Clockwork Orange Calculated Captivity

A Clockwork Orange - Calculated Captivity Calculated Captivation "Goodness comes from within, 6655321. Goodness is something to be chosen. When a man cannot choose he ceases to be a man." In Anthony Burgess' A Clockwork Orange, a sadistic adolescent of the not-so-distant future is 'rehabilitated' of his violent nature by a special conditioni...

4 reviews
Download
Irish Literature And Rebellion

In the heart of every Irishman hides a poet, burning with nationalistic passion for his beloved Emerald Isle. It is this same passion, which for centuries, Great Britain has attempted to snuff out of the Catholics of Ireland with tyrannical policies and the hegemony of the Protestant religion. Catholics were treated like second-class citizens in...

185 reviews
Download
Bio of David Lawrence & Analysis: Snake

David Herbert Richards Lawrence was born in Eastwood, Nottinghamshire, England on September 11, 1885. His poem Snake was written while he was living in Taormina, Sicily in 1920. The poem is actually derived from an experience there(Groliers). In all, Lawrence published 11 novels in his lifetime, 5 volumes of plays, 9 volumes of ess...

183 reviews
Download
Freedom Bound

In his book, , Robert Weisbrot argues that the civil rights movement is interwoven with American political reform of the time, and furthermore, that "the black quest for justice and the national crusade for a 'Great Society' are best understood in relation to each other" (Weisbrot xiv). He traces the Great Society from its beginnings as Lyndon...

7 reviews
Download
Antigone 10

"The tyrant dies and his rule ends, the martyr dies and his rule begins." (Kierkegaard) In terms of Antigone, this quotation makes a lot of sense. If a tyrant's, or a cruel dictator-like person's, role is to diminish, he/she will not necessarily die, but his/her popularity will most definitely decline. As the contrary is true for a martyr, or a...

136 reviews
Download
Minor Charactors

There are many minor characters in Arthur Miller?s play, All My Sons. For instance there is Bert, a eight-year-old boy, who visits Joe Keller twice during the course of the play. there is also Frank and Linda Lubey, neighbors of the Keller?s. This couple bought Ann?s house after she moved out. There is also Dr. Jim Bayliss and his wife Sue, who...

191 reviews
Download
Atsisiųsti šį darbą