A Walk by Gary Snyder - Book Report/Review Example

The social setting is not clearly identified but it is possible to assume that the speaker belongs to a low class: "we don't work: / Mules farting around the meadow, / Murphy fishing" (Snyder). The first two lines achieve a sharp focus for the individualizing sensuous details supplied in the second stanza. To demonstrate in detail how this occurs in the poem the author uses unique themes but the simple character. But it can be said that this correspondence and inter-connection of images is evidence both of the 'poet's grasp of the complexity of the total situation.

Snyder uses symbols of nature including 'sun', 'water', 'stone', 'clear sky', 'deep shimmering trout'. He uses these images to unveil deep personal feelings of the speaker and his unity with nature, his strong spirit and his unique personality. Before the detailed images are given, the "sun" is emphasized several times. The poem seems to say that so pure and intense a love is generated by genuine and full living that embraces all experience, even if it has to be viewed through wet eyes. Earth has so much that tries man's strength that experience without a challenge to his ability to conquer does not seem worth the concern of serious maturity.

The repetition of the sound [l] helps the author to attract readers' attention and create an atmosphere of calmness and peace: "I'll/ Take a walk, To Benson Lake. Packed a lunch" (Snyder). Thus, in many ways, the action of the stanza gets emphasized far more than the very general and static base images. In its lyric purity, this poem goes beyond saying that man loves the things of earth in spite of the weariness and pain they bring or the faults he finds in them; nor does it claim that man loves because he has faced the issue and surmounted the difficulties.

The title extends the meaning of the poem and explains the actions and intentions of the speaker. To balance the poem, the author must present something that is free, something not held, restricted, a thrall. Snyder settles on thought and nature. At the beginning of the poem, the author depicts the morning and the breakfast while in the end, he portrays lunchtime. This time markers allow the author to frame the poem and 'a walk' of the speaker. The tone of the poem unveils the speaker's satisfaction and desire for expirations and constant search.

Snyder restricts his material to a narrow range of society and events. He underlines a spirit of life and human power, the inner strengths of the speaker and his strong ideals. The tone of the poem inspires the imagination of the reader and appeals to their emotions through vivid and subtle images of nature.