The Good Ol’ Days As humans, our lives are always filled with nostalgic feelings whether it be happy memories from the past or the emotions related to those memories. Every day we are surrounded by objects, people, and places that evoke feelings of nostalgia whether it be from something as simple as a smell or something as major as a piece of literature. Literature can evoke feelings of nostalgia by creating a world that opens a portal to the past and can remind readers of happy events that leave longing or wistful affections to relive those moments. This is especially true of the poem “Snow-Bound: A Winter Idyl” written by John Greenleaf Whittier since the poem describes a specific point in time of Whittier’s childhood. Whittier uses childhood…show more content… Whittier demonstrates an ability to illustrate such vivid images that allow the reader to relive the moment and feel the same sensations felt at the time the event happened. An example of his descriptive abilities that allow one to relive the past is when he suggests “We almost felt the gusty air/…Heard…The flapping of the fisher’s sail/ Or saw…The duck’s black squadron anchored lay” (Whittier 276-281). At this point in the poem Whittier’s mother depicts a nostalgic scene from her past, which is such a vivid and detailed image that it’s almost as if you can feel, hear, and see the story as it unfolds. The description is so seemingly tangible that it allows the reader to feel the same sensations the mother felt at that moment in time and figuratively relive the past via her vivid descriptions. Whittier’s use of seemingly tangible vivid descriptions allows readers to relive the past by figuratively traveling through time via his literature. The literature is so realistic that it provides the illusion that readers are teleported back in time to relive the story as if they themselves are there. Whittier provides an illusion of time travel in the poem when he remarks “Our father rode again…/ Sat down again to moose and samp/ In trapper’s hut and Indian camp” (224-227). At this time Whittier’s father reminisces riding through the open outdoors and eating cornbread mush while living in an Indian camp or in a trapper’s hut. The memory was retold in such vivid detail that it creates an illusion that readers are able to transport through time to ride, eat, and live with the father as the story unfolds. Whittier’s seemingly tangible images allow readers to figuratively time travel to the depicted timeframe of the story in order to relive the past via vivid
