• American Literature II
• Instructor: Prof. Cecilia Liu
• Group Members: Tom,
Christina

• The Pictures of Birches
• Summary
• Rhymes
• Structure
• Setting
• Themes
• References

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• The silver birch with its characteristic white bark http://upload.wi
kimedia.org/wik ipedia/common s/5/5a/Betula_p endula_winter.j
pg

1. The birches are bent: by the boy’s swinging or by the storm
2. The boy is swing the birches
3. Climbing a tree becomes a retreat for the adult speaker

• Blank verse
: a type of poetry, distinguished by having a regular meter, but no rhyme. In English, the meter most commonly used with blank verse has been iambic pentameter. Source: Wikipedia

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1~5:
The speaker is guessing which factor causes the bending of the birches.
6~13:
The scenery of snow falling from the birches.
14~20:
The dragging birches are like girls throwing their hair to dry.
21~40:
A boy swinger is swinging the birches
41~59:
The speaker sees climbing the birches as a retreat from the heavy-loaded pressure in life until the branches of the tree could not undertake and then send him back to earth.

• An outside scenery with birch tree
• Or in his imagery recall in his mind?
(Dramatic Monologue)

• Swinging birch tree as a transcendent escape
Binary opposites:
• Earth V.S. Heaven
• Boy V.S. Man
• Reality V.S. Transcendence

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Sparknote
http://cgi.sparknotes.com/hlite.rmpl?words= birches&pd=0&page=section8.rhtml&nfs=0
&guide=%2fpoetry%2ffrost
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Wikipedia
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Wikipedia