Owls by Mary Oliver

In the passage “Owls” by Mary Oliver, the author portrays her experiences when she is surrounded by nature. She conveys her both fear and admiration for the owl in this excerpt. She does this through her writing style by using similes,descriptive language and imagery. She responds to nature with a description of an owl’s habitat and its habits.

Oliver uses descriptive language to inform the audience of her relationship with the owl. Throughout the passage Oliver expresses her relation with nature as she is exploring the woods. She describes the “owl” as a hunter which delivers fear to its prey, but also conveys the fear to a symbol of happiness for the owl. “But the scream of the owl, which is not of pain and hopelessness, and the fear of being plucked out of the world, but of the sheer rollicking glory of the death- bringer, is more terrible still.” Oliver portrays her life to the life that the owl lives by a world where “terror is naturally and abundantly part of life, part of even the most becalmed, intelligent, sunny life --as, for example, my own.”

In the passage “Owls” by Mary Oliver, the author portrays her experiences when she is surrounded by nature. She conveys her both fear and admiration for the owl in this excerpt. She does this through her writing style