1. Discuss Emily Dickinson’s “A Bird Came Down the Walk” as a minute observation of nature.

 

      Nature is a predominant theme in many of the work of the American poetess Emily Dickinson. Following this preoccupation, in “A Bird Came Down the Walk”, too, Dickinson offers a minute observation of the world around her to her readers. However, the poem is not limited to a mere observation of nature. Instead, the poem also deals with the all-important issue of man’s relationship with nature.

     In order to illustrate her points, Dickinson presents/ introduces a beautiful interaction between a human being and a small unknown bird. The poetic persona sees the bird coming down her walk looking for food. She observes how the bird catches food and then interacts with its environment. Next, the poetic persona offers some breadcrumbs to the bird. To her surprise, instead of accepting it, the bird takes off offended.

         Most of us would not note an everyday occurrence such as the one described by the poetess.  However, being a keen observer of both nature and human beings, Dickinson, shares with the reader her careful observations of the interactions between the bird and bird and its environment as well as the poetic persona and the bird making it a very special experience. One might say that a 19^th century white middle class woman had more time at hand to engage in activities such as “minute” observations of nature unlike most people today, especially women. The poetess sees a bird coming down her walk. It is either not a very special bird or the poetic persona does not know its name. the poetic persona says that this ordinary unknown bird “did not know” that she had seen it. The word “saw” underscores that this was an unplanned happening. Next, she observes the bird biting “an angle-worm in halves”. She makes known her revulsion or the surprise at the dining habits of the bird by placing the word “raw” after a comma. The poetic persona displays her fellowship with both the bird and the worm by calling them “he” and “the fellow”. Thereafter, she explains how the bird “drank a dew/ [f]rom a convenient grass”. Here, the poetic persona expresses her approval of the location of the grass in proximity to the now-full bird through the use of “convenient” as a pre-modifier for the grass. Now, satiated, the bird allows the beetle which he would surely have eaten had he not been full to “pass” by hopping “sidewise to the wall” – or so thinks the poetic persona.  Dickinson’s poetic persona notes next how the bird looks about “with rapid eyes/ [t]hat hurried all abroad”. She thinks that the bird’s eyes “looked like frightened beads”. The poetic persona makes note of the velvety texture of the head unlike ordinary people who come across such scenes.  The poetic persona then goes on to offer the visitor to her “walk” “a crumb. She does that cautiously. However, instead of accepting the offering the bird takes off. Here, to describe the way the bird took off, the poetic persona offers several images from nature and the human world. An sailing ship unrolling its sails getting ready to sail is used to show how the bird got ready to fly away. The effortless way the bird flapped its wings is compared to how “oars divide the ocean” – like the silver surface of the ocean would not carry the marks of the oars, the air would not carry the marks of the passage of the bird’s graceful flight. Through these two images from nature the poetic persona is illustrating the unfamiliar through the familiar. Here, the familiar is the man-made world and the unfamiliar is the natural world. Next, taking a bold step, the poetic person makes use of images from nature: the way the bird took off is compared to how butterflies leap “off banks of noon” and swim away “plashless” – a mixed metaphor. Through that this American poetess makes us question how much we might be missing out in life as a result of not looking at the world around us carefully enough.        

       In addition, the poetess offers her readers a unique and carefully observed picture of man’s relationship with nature as well. Due to human “progress” there is distance between 19^th century man and nature. No matter how observant she is, the poetic persona does not know the bird’s name. She does not have a clear idea of why the bird stepped sideways. She says that she thought the bird stepped aside to let the beetle pass. The bird’s feeding style surprises or shocks her. Finally, she offers a bird who was full and therefore had refused to eat a beetle some crumbs – this is a mark of her ignorance about how animals behave. Most animals don’t eat once they are full. At the same time, this bird seems to be a carnivore. The poetic persona does not note that. So it is quite clear that through the poetic persona’s ignorance, the poetess is trying to show the developing gulf between man and nature.

In conclusion, “The Bird Came Down the Walk” is indeed one of Dickinson’s minute observations of nature through which she is trying to illustrate a great tragedy she has noted: there is a developing distance between man and nature.