The Trees Of Life Has Fallen
In The Trees Of Life Has Fallen I feel like Alice Walker is trying to convey to her readers that someone close to her(maybe her parents?) have passed. The line, “The tree of life has fallen on my small house. I thought it was much bigger,” repeats multiple times, which supports my idea of Alice saying she lost someone. I don’t believe Alice meant it as a literal speech of saying a tree literally fell on her house because her saying, “The tree of life,” can be an interpretation of life itself and the fact it says after, “The tree of life has fallen,” can mean that someone passed. Then all together I feel like the statement is saying that Alice believed someone in her life was strong and fighter, but then they passed and she thought the person had much more time of life. Throughout the other parts of the poem, it describes the views she sees around her as she’s sailing on the water, but she says although the water view and mountains are pretty, her mind wanders off because it’s not the same without her “fallen tree”. The final part of her poem communicates that she loved one that passing caused her much grief and pain, but she knows that they are in a better place with God. I like how the poem is taking a simple idea of grief from a loss and describing it as a metaphor by relating life to a tree and death to a fallen tree.
Torture
In Torture the words and idea repeat, but the scenarios in each line changes. For example, the first line says, “When they torture your mother plant a tree,” and then this line is followed with“When they torture your father plant a tree.” As one can see the scenario changes throughout every line, but the idea to “plant a tree” is the constant that’s used. Overall Alice Walker, of course, is using the tree repetitively as a symbolism for something, and in this case, I believe she’s using the tree as a representation of life itself. Each time she uses a new scenario I feel like she is using that as a representation of an obstacle that you make face in life and her meaning once you put these two together is that in life you are going to collide with obstacles but you must not just give up, instead you must use the strength within you and overcome that certain event. In the final line of the poem, it states, “When they begin to torture the trees and cut down the forest they have made start another,” which is using the forest in this line as a symbol of wisdom. Alice Walker is basically saying that the obstacles you face also give you a sense of wisdom that you’ll need in life so you must use it.
Women
The poem, Women, starts off by describing who the poem involves, which in this case is shown to be the women from her mother’s generation. During the era her mom was born in, I imagine that in this particular time period it was when women were beginning to stand up together and advocate for their rights. Alice Walker in this poem is telling the story of what her mother and other women in her mother’s generation had to go through in their time when women’s rights weren’t really established or cared upon. The one thing that made this women’s right poem stand out to me is not just because it’s about women, but because it’s about slave women’s rights and their path they had to travel through to reach an upbringing. Alice describes the story of all the hardships the slave women had to go through in order to try and provide a better life for their kids without any support from others. She is showing that although the women had to travel through many obstacles, they used their strength within and their children as a motivation to reach their target of a better life. The poem as a whole is about women being strong.
Be Nobody’s Darling
Alice starts off the first two lines saying, “Be nobody’s darling; be an outcast.” This already sets the stage or base of the poem by showing the reader that the theme may relate to standing out and being different from the crowd. The first stanza continues supporting my idea by telling the reader to instead of worry about all your flaws and problems in life just embrace them. The second stanza continues by saying that once you embrace who you are and what you are going through the people that were against you(ALERT: haters!!!) see you doing good they won’t have a reason to talk about you any longer because they’ll realize you don’t care. The other couple of stanzas are telling you to be an outcast and different ways you can be one and that it is okay to be different in general because no one is the same. The last stanza is the pivotal movement though because it’s basically saying how being an individual isolate oneself and this isolation can discourage someone because this is against society’s beliefs and standards that they placed. Most people want to fit in and not be called “weird” and “different” but Alice Walker in this poem is encouraging you as a reader to go against the rules and just act like yourself because being you is all you can be.
What Makes The Dalai Lama Lovable?
What Makes The Dalai Lama Lovable is already an interesting type of poem because the title is used as the first line of the poem. It is as if the title is asking the question and the poem is a response to the question by telling the story of a man and his life story as well as how others feel about him and his appearance/ life story in general. The poem is started off by describing the Dalai Lama’s appearance in how his posture and his walk are so odd and heart-breaking for others to watch because they can tell from his body language that he’s been through a lot. Next, the poem goes on describing how he bows his head, how his personality is very respectful and nice, and also just what his life has consisted of from childhood. Dalai Lama is expressed in a way that he is a good human being that is holy and accepting of all, and Alice makes sure to include that although his story may seem sad and pitiful for others that they shouldn’t spend their time on the bad. Instead, he says they should focus on the silver lining of things because the Dalai Lama himself probably too focused on the bad once before, but he got over it and still kept a good personality. The final stanza of the poem finally answers the title’s question in saying that the Dalai Lama is lovable because of his holiness.
Alice Walker is known for taking simple ideas like life, women’s rights, childhood, and other topics and making up great symbolism and metaphors for them, which ends up giving the poems a richer meaning. All the poems were similar in the way that they were upbringing or in a way incorporated finding the silver lining in difficult situations that people may face in their daily lives. Alice chose brought a broad idea as in life and in each poem, she focused on an aspect of life and made a meaningful moral behind it. For instance, in Torture it took the idea of how you encounter obstacles in life but you must try to overcome them but this was described in a way with using trees and a forest as a representation of life and obstacles.
