Sunday, May 3, 2015

The Tree Worksheet


Title: The Tree        Author: Maria Luisa Bombal (Chile)             Year of Publication: 1982
Genre/Sub-genre: Short Story, slice of life, Drama, Magical realism, Dreamy
Language Style: Poetic, dreamlike, mysterious
Tone: Dramatic, Cluttered, childlike, sad, surreal, introspective

Place/Setting:
  • Symphony hall
  • Bedroom: hot (188), harsh light
  • Dressing room: refreshing, mirrors
  • the father's house
  • dining room
Social Class: Upper Class     Time Frame: about 2 hours
Characters:
  • Brigida: youngest of six girls, pretty (186), brown eyes, chestnut hair, 18 years old (188), married but childless, “stupid as she is pretty” (186), “silly, playful, and lazy” (186), “But everybody was bored with her” (188)
  • her father: tired of caring for his daughters by himself
  • Luis: friend of Brigida's father, grey hair, much older than Brigida, tired, sleepy. “he had got up cautiously and had left without saying good morning” (188), mechanical smile (189), “stubbornly silent” (191), “his wrinkled face, his hand crossed by coarse, discolored veins, and the cretonnes with gaudy colors” (193), “the false laughter of a man who had become skilled it laughter because it is necessary to laugh on certain occasions” (194)
  • Carmen (185): the absent mother
  • the sisters: married, worldly, talented, intelligent
Ambiance: hopeful, Dream state, tension, 
Themes/Motifs: Music, Oppression, self liberation, Love / Hate / Sadness / Loneliness, silence, water
Proper Nouns:(person, place or thing)
  • Europe:
  • Mozart (185): musician, a bridge, a garden, white laced dress, a fountain, blue marble
  • Beethoven (187): musician, the ocean swelling, pulling and pushing
  • Chopin (191): summer, rain, silence, murmuring, humidity, swamps
  • Scarlatti: Famous classical composer, Brigida wasn't sure if she was listening to Mozart or Scarlatti
Senses:
  • auditory: the music of famous composers, : Hearing: “hear beat so deep inside that she could rarely hear it” (187), “all night long she could hear the rain” (191), “she would hear the old trunk of the gum tree creak and groan (191), “the soft chirping of a cricket” (192), smell: “an odor of river and pasture floating in that kindly room” (191), sight: “watching the trembling of the foliage” (192)
Symbolic Images:
  • The gum tree = 
  • The father = Luis
  • The husband = Father 
  • the mirrors in the dressing room (191) =
  • a garland = Brigida(186) 
  • “He leads her across a bridge suspended over a crystalline stream which runs in a bed of rosy sand. She is dressed in white, with a lace parasol” (186), 
  • “the tree that cast shadows on the walls like rippling, cold water, the mirrors that reflected the foliage and receded into an infinite, green forest” (188), 
  • “it was the only tree on that narrow, sloping street which dropped down directly to the river from one corner of the city” (188), 
  • “Handfuls of pearls that rain abundantly upon a silver roof” (191), 
  • “and the room now seemed to be submerged in a goblet of dull gold” (193), 
  • “a terrible din, then a flash of light throws her backward” (193)
Symbolic Elements: Water, ocean, salt, lilies, Red (193), Golden swords (192),
“The tree that cast shadows” (188), the tree hitting the window after Luis left the dinner table (190), the tree being cut down (194)
Oddities
  • Love yet not loved, 
  • Machismo is there but not there. 
  • “This child is retarded” (185), 
  • “His hair is all white” (186), 
  • “dressed in black” (187), 
  • “she didn’t know anything, anything at all. Not even how to insult” (189)

Cultural Elements: Machismo, love, religion, music, nature, children, family, dreams. The hot summer in Buenos Aires (189)
Literary Devices:
  • personification: The tree "rapped with his knuckles" (190), "breath of the swamps" (192)
  • metaphor
  • simile: "Waves toss and break very far away, murmuring like a sea of leaves."; "cast shadows on the walls like rippling, cold water" (188); "pages of an unwholesome humidity like the breath of the swamps" (192)
  • foreshadowing
  • alliteration: "first five" (186), "rested, refreshed" (188) "Her husband's  heart" (187)
  • Personification: “as a musical phrase begins to rise in the silence” (185), “the water sings” (186), “How that huge gum tree chattered” (188), “the room stood still in the shadow” (191), Simile: “Like a downpour of rain” (186), “like a plant shut up and thirsty which stretches out its branches in search of a more favorable climate” (188), “It seemed like a world submerged in an aquarium” (188), “Luminous and blinding pages fell like golden swords” (192), “but when her pain increased to the point of wounding her like a knife thrust” (192), Metaphor: “You are a garland” (186), “the eyes of a frightened little doe” (187), Hyperbole: “a thousand duties”(190)
Intriguing Quote:
  • "He showered her with caresses from which he was absent." (189)
  • "No reason, Just to call you. I like to call you" (189)
  • "Carnation of the air..." ( Note: whole paragraph 192)
  • "she had became his wife again without enthusiasm and without anger."(193) - as if they got a divorce within those 2 hours.
  • "he closes the door on her past with a note at once firm and sweet-leaving her in the concert hall, dressed in black, applauding mechanically, as the artificial lights rekindle their flame"
  • “Luis loved her with tenderness and moderation; if some time he should come to hate her he would hate her justly and prudently. And that was life.” (191)
  • “It may be that true happiness lies in the conviction that one has irremediably lost happiness. Then we begin to move through life without hope or fear, capable of finally enjoying all the small pleasures, which are most lasting.” (193)
Foreign or Unfamiliar Terms:
  • Cretonnes (191): strong white fabric
  • Etude (191): music by Chopin
  • Warblers (Warblering => Brigida's Voice)
Dictionary Work:

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