Draft 1:
The poem opens with the narrator and mother deliberating over whether to sell the black walnut tree. They offer reasons as to ways the tree is making their lives hard, but avoid talking about their consciences. “Some storm anyway will churn down its dark boughs, smashing the house” (Ll. 6-8) they say to make it seem that the tree’s demise is inevitable. “Roots in the cellar drains” (L. 11) the narrator offers. The tone is tense, like two kids trying to justify an action for which they already feel guilt. This changes, however, when the topic changes to why they keep debating and why they haven't cut down the tree yet. The voice that keeps telling the “no”. It is not what their brains think, but what their hearts feel that prevails. They feelin in their blood “something brighter than money” (ll. 16-17) and their insignificant problems and desires. The shift from thought to emotion implies that the black walnut tree is more than a plant waiting for an end and greater than the present.
The “something” that the narrator and their mother feel is more real than their own realities. “Sharp and quick” (l. 18) it is like steel: hard, concrete. The comparison to a “trovel” (l. 18) and the mention of “dig[ging] and sow[ing] ( l. 19) allude that the relationship between the black walnut tree and the two women is related to the earth, and is so piercing it makes them feel their emotions more clearly than the feeling of their problems in real life.
When they make up excuses and reasons the tune is tumultuous, almost guilty, but as they dream it is peaceful. The descriptions of the “blue fields of fresh and generous Ohio with leaves and wines and orchards” (ll. 23-25) illicit a serene and optimistic feeling, in contrast with the darkness and guilt of reality. The polysyndeton creates a sense of fullness and content. To remove the black walnut tree, the narrator and their mother would feel “shame in the emptiness” (ll. 27-28). For this reason, they are content with the overbearing mortgage, for the sake of their fathers’....
Draft 2:
In the Black Walnut Tree, Mary Oliver reveals the tension between surviving in the present and maintaining a connection to your ancestral ties. As the narrator and her mother face the decision between practicality and sentimentality in cutting down the black walnut tree, the differences in what they say to each other and what they both understand to be true about their about their past ultimately lead their desire to fulfill their gender expectations to win over their immediate needs, leaving the tree to see another year.
The author begins with the word “debate”, describing the narrator and her mother’s exchange about the black walnut tree. They know they could pay off their mortgage if they cut down the tree, but they also know that they can’t do it. They list off reasons for why they should get rid of the tree - petty reasons: the tree will tear it down “anyway” (L. 6), the roots have found their way “in the cellar drains” (L. 11). Their voices are desperate, aware of the weakness of their rationalizations. They scrabble like mice drowning in a puddle, aware of what fate has in store. Try as they may to convince each other and themselves that they should cut down the tree, they both know “that [they]’d both crawl with shame in the emptiness we’d made in our own and our fathers’ backyard”(Ll. 27-29). Even though practicality and the need to pay off the mortgage call for the black walnut tree’s demise, their obligations to sentimentality and respect for their forefathers’ labor drown out their justifications, letting it “[swing] through another year” (L. 31)
Another factor of their desire to let this tree live another year falls in the time period this poem was written. Because this poem was written in 1979, at a time when familial roles were still very much present, the tree is worth much more than its monetary value, its so much “brighter than money” (l. 16) because women are the bearers of their culture. Since this discussion when on between the mother and her daughter, there was this understanding that it’s the women who teach children the values and stories of their past. It was this ability to shape their children’s understanding of the past, that they deemed “Republican Motherhood”. Republican motherhood is the power the mother has to carry on the values (whether it be politically) or in this case (culturally) to the children. The tree represents the work ethic of their forefathers who came “out of Bohemia” (l. 22) to fill “the blue fields of...Ohio with vines and orchards” (l. 23-25). Thus their obligation to sell things in order to carry on the day to day necessities is made more arduous by the societal pressures for women to carry their pasts into their present to shape their children’s future.
Their understanding of societal expectations ultimately shapes the way Mary Oliver writes their discussion. It results in the shift of tone and focus between what they understand they should do and what is understood that they must do. Ultimately society asks two things from them: to get-by in the day to day things, and to pass on your pass as bearers of your culture, and the women know the choice lies where their hearts lie- with their forefathers who worked their souls out in the field of Bohemia.
Reflection:
The first time I wrote the poetry passage benchmark essay, I scored a 5/9. As I was writing, I felt that I'd done a better job of identifying binary opposites within the passage than I did in the prose essay, although I scored lower on this essay. I think this was because I lacked depth in my analysis, only identifying these binary opposites, and not actually showing their impact on the MOTWAAW. On the second draft, which I worked on with Jenny, we scored a 6.5/9. In this essay, I improved in the fluidity of my thoughts as well as depth of analysis, but still lacked the impact of the author's choices on the work as a whole. In the future, I plan on improving in this area by finding devices and choices on the author's part and connecting it to the MOTWAAW.
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