Section Viii. Line 12,
“frightened forests”
The diction in this short piece of text strongly influences the reader’s emotions and interpretation of the literary piece. Within the forests we see this notion of fright, or fear, to an inanimate idea, a forest. Through this use of personification, Osundare is not only able to more strongly connect with his reader but also convey the message that even forests can develop “fright” so to speak, as a result of the environmental injustices existing in society. It is certainly salient to mention that the adjective of being frightened is generally attributed to humans, but in this poem Osundare chooses to attribute this emotion to forests, which are non-moving concepts that are evidently incapable of displaying any kind of emotions. The use of the adjective “frightened” also elicits an innumerable number of hazardous and precarious situations, thus allowing the reader to decipher the cause of the “fright” on the basis of his or her imagination. The ambiguity in this piece of text allows for the reader to ultimately thread the story in his or her own way. This is not to say that one will misinterpret the meaning of the poem, but rather that there is no “correct” interpretation and that ultimately, the feelings of “fright” exhibited by the forests may be evaluated based upon the emotional standpoint of the reader.
Works Cited
Cavallari, Dan, and Bronwyn Harris. WiseGeek. Conjecture. Web. 24 Nov. 2015.
Joshua Kohan
1 response so far ↓
JMERLE // Nov 29th 2015 at 2:48 pm
Yes, Joshua, your chosen quotation, “frightened forests,” is a most important one. You do a nice job discussing the various connotations of the word frightened, and in this personification, Osundare is asking us to connect more deeply (as you imply) to the world itself. There are other instances in the poem where Osundare uses personification to connect to the reader, and we’ll discuss these together in class.