Comparing And Contrasting The Poems The Trees by Phillip Larkin and The Trees Are Down By Charlotte Mew

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                        Comparing and contrasting poems The Trees and The Trees are Down

The poems The Trees by Philip Larkin and The Trees are Down by Charlotte Mew are works that share a number of similarities and differences. While the seemingly positive and negative approaches to the subject are conflicting, there is more value to be found by comparing and contrasting the two pieces on a deeper level. In The Trees, Larkin uses metaphor and in The Trees are Down, Mew uses tone and allusion, but both poets utilize symbolism, format, meter and repetition to evoke contrasting messages; Larkin’s being that the cycle of life is set and cannot be changed while Mew’s emphasizes the message that the destruction of nature can be prevented.

In the poem The Trees, Larkin uses metaphor to help express a deeper meaning behind the use of trees as his subject. He metaphorically uses the trees in order to represent people and the cycle of life. The process of growing up, who you are, the reputation you create for yourself and the lasting memory of it when one reaches death. Larkin uses the trees as a metaphor for people, because they, too, have a reputation, though its not like peoples. For trees their “reputation” or merely their appearance is renewed every spring by “Their yearly trick of looking new” (7). Though the appearance of the trees may have changed, their “past” or age is still visible in their trunk since it “Is written down in rings of grain” (8). This relates to people because, like trees, the outward look can change, but there will always be an internal resistance and past that one can never change.

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In the poem The Trees are Down, Mew uses tone and allusion to support with her argument and protest against the persecution of the trees. Her tone in this poem is defensive and sorrowful. When she writes, “It is going now, and my heart has been struck with the hearts of the planes” (26) it expresses her deep sadness for the loss of the trees. The source of her frustration being the men who “… are cutting down the great plane-trees…” (1) Mew talks about “ the small creeping creatures in the earth where they were lying” (33), meaning the ...

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