Rhetorical Analysis Mary Oliver

Period 4B In this very lyrical excerpt, Mary Oliver has a great attraction to nature beca uptake of its paradoxical yet balancing form. By being both terrifying and graceful, nature fills the world with courseing entities that brook be death-bringers or bring immobilizing gladness. Oliver uses imagery, parallelism, and contrasting to express her swaying emotions of fear, awe, and happiness towards nature. The imagery creates the very distinct contrast betwixt terrifying and beautiful parts of nature.The frightening great pierce owl has razor-tipped toes that rasp the ramification and a hooked beak that makes a heavy, crisp, breathy snapping. The physical form is gravelly and rugged, reminiscent of a terrifying being. The owl is presented with characteristics of the night and blackness, The flowers, on the another(prenominal) hand, are like red and pink and white tents. The color contrast reinforces the complete oppositeness of the flowers and the owl. Contrasting continue s throughout the excerpt to display the unconnected character of nature. disposition is so difficult that even very alike(p) animals have very differing aspects.Oliver can imagine the screech owl on her wrist and she can learn from the snowy owl, but the great horn owl will cause her to fall if it should touch her. Even though this great horned owl is terrifying, Oliver still is in wonder of it. She says it would accommodate the center of her life. While the scream of the rabbit in pain and hopelessness is terrible, it is not comparable with the scream of the owl which is of sheer rollicking glory. Nature has extremes, and the owl is the extreme of terror. The flowers, however, represent the extreme of happiness.Through parallelism, Oliver exemplifies the happiness stipulation by the fields of flowers. The flowers have sweetness, so palpable that it overwhelms Oliver. She uses phrases continually starting signal with Im and then a verb, to show how the fields eat up her like a river. She is then replete, supine, finished, and filled with an immobilizing happiness. The continual use of adjectives reinforces how the field is so vast and excessive that it creates an al close to surreal flavor of satisfaction. Parallelism is similarly used to describe the great horned owl. The barbarous elentlessness of the owl is so great that it hunts even skunks, and even catsthinking calm thoughts. Its insatiable craving for the taste of brains is so excessive that the owl is infinitely hungry and endlessly on the hunt. The uncontrollable, terrifying nature of the great horned owl further emphasized because if it could, it would eat the whole world. The owl causes so much terror that soon enough the terror becomes naturally and copiously part of life, any life of any world. The terror even fills the most becalmed, intelligent sunny life that Oliver lives in.Despite the massive contrast between the two extremes of nature, there is still a universal conce pt of nature. some(prenominal) the owl and the field of flowers are overwhelming, vast and excessive. The owl is so vanquish that if it could, it would eat the whole world. The fields increase in manifold creating an stable force. Oliver asks two rhetorical questions, And is this not too terrible? and Is this not also frightening, to describe the excessiveness of the fields and also the owl. But, even though Oliver is frightened, she is also amazed.While continuously describing the owl as terrifying, Oliver still acknowledges that the owl is meliorate and swift. Even though the fields of roses seemingly engulf in a terrifying manner, it still creates a feeling full of dreaming and idleness. The combine of opposites, the owl and the field of roses, shows how nature can be seemingly paradoxical by being both cruel and sweet at the very(prenominal) time. By being so complex, nature also requires a complex response. Olivers emotional and sensuous response is filled with con flicting feelings of fear, happiness, and amazement to show her attachment to nature.