Contrasts in Richard Jefferies'The Acorn-Gatherer
Abstract: Richard Jefferies’ The Acorn-Gatherer unfolds a picture of the mirable life of an illegitimate boy in an old-fashioned village. Without any interference in the story, the author succeeds in arousing strong sympathy in the readers’ heart. The paper intends to explore how the infectious effect is achieved by means of the author’s tactful application of three pairs of contrasts.
Key words: The Acorn-Gatherer, infectious effect, contrasts
Richard Jefferies remains one of the most thoughtful and most lyrical writers on the English countryside. He is noted for his depiction of English rural life in essays, books of natural history, and novels. In the 19th century, Britain was going through a ries of radical changes followed by fierce social conflicts. Showing little interest in the dramatic changes occurring in the urban areas, Richard Jefferies, an admirer of nature, however, c
hoos to focus his eyes on the agricultural issues of his day and explores the whole rural society in some of his stories. He tends to depict the miry of human life in sharp contrast to the beautiful nature. The Acorn-Gatherer is typically a story of this kind.
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The story is t in a backward village where the orthodox moral values prevail and any behavi回答英语or violating the so-called “right code of behavior” is doomed to be despid and get punished. It is just in such a rigid and conrvative village that a tragedy inevitably happens. An illegitimate boy leads a wretched life and results in a tragic death. While reading the last scene of his death, the readers would be strongly stirred, with the poor boy’s silent cry echoing in their ears. There is no doubt that this infectious effect has been achieved by the author’s witty writing skills, such as the deliberate u of symbols, the adoption of narrative point of view and other rhetorical devices as well. But through the cond thought, we may note that the effect also stems from the author’s skillfulness in forming contrasts. This essay attempts to explore the strikingly infectious effect achieved by the meticulous adoption of veral pairs of contrasts by the author, through which the readers are propelled to make their own judgments.
1.The Boy’s Miry in Sharp Contrast to the Beautiful Lavishness of Nature
At the very beginning of the story, both the rooks and the boy are mentioned, which actually implies the possible connection between them. The boy is depicted like this: “In his slumber his forehead frowned…the t angry frown was the only distinguishing mark.” His frown is compared to grooves in a tree, hard to be smoothed. The readers may get shocked and wonder: what is it that deprives him of happiness a teenager should otherwi have enjoyed?
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pep小学英语 By comparison, the rooks at the acorns are the we will rock you什么意思happiest creatures in the world. “the fluttering up there and hopping from branch to branch…the inward chuckling when a friend lets his acorn drop tip-tap from bough to bough…they cannot quarrel or fight, having no cau of battle. ” The happy shouting of the rooks is a striking contrast with the iron t frown on the boy’s brow. Happy rooks are described vividly to indicate that the boy’s fate is even much wor than that of rooks. As we can e, the wretched little boy has neither friends nor parents who should have otherwi offered him their affection. Not
media centerhing, nothing in the world belongs to him, but the hatred and maltreatment from his grandmother and apathy from the villagers. How sharp is the contrast formed here and how saddening is the fact the readers have found!
When the boy’s grandmother notices the boy sleeping under the tree, she beats the boy with the ash stick, “heavily enough to bare broken his bones.” One more time, the rooks appear. They shout “caw” and then fly away while the boy only darts “straight for the gap in the corner” without even a cry. The rooks have the instinct to shout out, but the boy just keeps silent and run away just like “a piece of machinery suddenly let loo, without a cond of dubious awakening.” Upon reading the lines, the readers’ sympathy begin to wax: he must have been beaten cruelly like this for so many times that it has become a habit for him to run away in no time without uttering a word. After all, it may turn out to be uless for him to beg for his grandmother’s forgiveness. Compared with the shouting of the rooks, the silence of the boy again arous the readers’ sorrow for him, leading them to ek for the answer to the doubts on their minds: how can a grandmother abu her grandson like this? What is the hidden truth? In the latter part of t
he story, the readers’ doubts begin to be dispelled. He is the son of her indecent daughter, an illegitimate. The boy is just a“scarlet letter”, keeping reminding her of the disgrace her daughter brought to the family. No wonder the old woman beats so verely the boy, becau of whom she is looked down upon by others in the village. The description of the scene contrasts the rooks’ shouting with the boy’s silence, succeeding in prenting the boy’s wretched life. associate
In a sharp contrast to the cruel, dark and hell-like human society, nature is such a beautiful and pleasant paradi everyone is longing for.
苏州mba学校>英语 单词 “This was going on above while the boy slept below. A thrush looked out from the hedge… The sunshine gleamed on the rooks’ black feather overhead.” Wi readers are likely to detect a pair of antonyms here. “Above” may refer to the paradi whereas “below” may imply the hell. All the living beings, like rooks, bees as well as the lotus, are enjoying their sunshine. However, the harmonious picture is soon torn into pieces by the following sudden beating of the boy by the old woman. The contrast rves to strike shoc
英文情书k into the readers’ heart: how can a tragedy take place in the village with so beautiful surroundings?
2.Narrator’s Biad Discour in Contrast to the Author’s Unbiad Discour