This Is A Waste Land
The treatment of the natural world has become heavily examined in recent years by many authors with contrasting perspectives. “Waste” by Wendell Berry and “Waste Land: An Elegy” by Mary Oliver are examples of works that analyze this topic. Berry and Oliver use different strategies to make their arguments, which create contrasting tones. “Waste” uses a disgusted tone expressed through diction that portray Berry’s frustrations over the state of the environment; contrastingly, “Waste Land: An Elegy” uses pleasant sensory descriptions of nature to depict Oliver’s bittersweet nostalgia and admiration for the inhabitants of the old burn dump.
In “Waste”, Berry’s use of indignant diction creates a sense of revulsion that demonstrates…show more content… Near the beginning of the essay, Oliver describes the roses at the burn dump: “The pink roses, no longer a neat and civilized hedge but a thorny ledge, with darkness at its hem” (648). Many adjectives are used to provide a clear image of the roses. This passage helps to set the scene at the burn dump, and allows for a better understanding of why Oliver misses it so much due to its location in the essay. The detail with which she remembers the roses also demonstrates her loving remembrance for the wild beauty of the burn dump. Oliver states that “discarded peppermint and raspberries reconnected their roots to the gravelly earth and went on growing” (648). This passage expresses Oliver’s admiration for the resilience of the burn dump through the words ‘discarded’ and ‘reconnected’ in particular. They illustrate how the burn dump has been able to persevere, making the thought that it is finally gone for good all the more melancholy. While describing the moccasin flowers, Oliver says they, “blossomed, even in this thin soil, extravagantly. They stood in gatherings of six or seven, like small choirs getting ready to sing” (650). The use of words like blossomed shows that Oliver sees the destruction of the burn dump as a kind of premature death. It gives the sense that there was
