The Trees Summary Class 10 English First Flight Chapter 7

About the Poet 

Adrienne Rich, an American poet, essayist, and activist, was born in Baltimore, Maryland, USA, in 1929, and passed away in 2012. Known for her extensive body of work, which includes nearly twenty volumes of poetry, Rich has been recognized as a feminist and radical poet. Among her notable works, "Diving into the Wreck" stands out as one of her most celebrated poems.

Key Points of the Poem

• The poet symbolically compares women to trees, suggesting that they have been confined indoors but are now ready to venture out and fulfill their purpose. 
• The absence of women has left the forest empty, depriving birds and insects of shelter and preventing sunlight from reaching the earth. The roots of the trees, representing women, are striving to detach from the veranda floor, while branches and leaves move towards freedom like discharged patients leaving a hospital. 
• Despite the poet's presence indoors, she senses the urgency of the trees to escape. At night, with a clear sky and bright moon, the poet perceives the trees' desperate movement and hears the breaking of glass as they break free. 
• As the trees reach the forest, their collective presence overshadows the moon, creating the illusion of it breaking into pieces.

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Detailed Summary 

Stanza 1

The trees inside are moving out into the forest,
the forest that was empty all these days
where no bird could sit
no insect hide
no sun buries its feet in the shadow
the forest that was empty all these nights
will be full of trees by morning.

The poem's narrator observes a symbolic movement of trees from their house into the long-empty forest. This movement represents the poet's commentary on the destruction of forests and the artificiality of human attempts to preserve nature within their homes. Due to the forest's emptiness, birds couldn't perch on branches, insects had no refuge, and sunlight couldn't penetrate the dense canopy. The speaker anticipates that the forest will be replenished with trees by the following morning, symbolizing a restoration of nature's balance.

Stanza 2

All night the roots work

to disengage themselves from the cracks
in the veranda floor.
The leaves strain toward the glass
small twigs stiff with exertion
long-cramped boughs shuffling under the roof
like newly discharged patients
half-dazed, moving
to the clinic doors.

In the poem, the speaker imagines that the trees inside their house are symbolically moving out into the empty forest outside. This imagery highlights the destruction of natural habitats caused by humans, who try to keep a false version of nature indoors. Because the forest has been empty for so long, birds couldn't rest on tree branches, insects couldn't find shelter, and sunlight couldn't penetrate the dense canopy of the trees. The speaker predicts that the forest will soon be filled with trees again by morning, symbolizing a restoration of nature's balance.

During the night, the roots of the trees silently work to free themselves from the cracks in the veranda floor. The leaves strain towards the glass windows, exerting pressure to break free. The small twigs become stiff from the effort, while the larger branches, cramped under the roof, move slowly as if they were newly discharged patients from a hospital, half-dazed and disoriented. This imagery emphasizes the trees' determination to break free and return to their natural habitat.

Stanza 3

The speaker, possibly the poet herself, sits indoors writing lengthy letters, with the doors opening onto the veranda. Despite the trees' symbolic movement outside, she rarely mentions them in her letters. It's a serene night with a full moon illuminating the sky, and the air feels refreshingly crisp. The poet can detect the scent of leaves and lichens emanating from the trees, which reaches her like a distant voice. This sensory experience adds to the atmosphere of the night, heightening the speaker's awareness of the natural world outside her home.

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Stanza 4 

My head is full of whispers
which tomorrow will be silent.
Listen. The glass is breaking.
The trees are stumbling forward
into the night. Winds rush to meet them.
The moon is broken like a mirror,
its pieces flash now in the crown
of the tallest oak.

The speaker listens to the sounds of leaves and lichens coming from the trees, realizing they won't be there in the morning as the trees move out to the forest at night. She hears the glass breaking as the twigs exert pressure, prompting the trees to rush outside, where they collide and become tangled. As the trees reach the open, it seems like the wind eagerly greets them. The taller trees can now stand upright, freed from confinement. Their height makes them appear to break the moon into pieces, resembling crowns atop the tall oak trees. This imagery underscores the idea that trees stand between the ground and the sky, obstructing the view of the full moon from beneath them.

Theme/Message 

Theme

• The poem explores the theme of freedom and the liberation struggle, depicting the conflict between humanity and nature, with nature's desire for freedom at its core. 
• Additionally, it serves as a feminist piece, symbolizing women's quest for equality within a male-dominated society.

Message 

• Every being yearns for freedom and is ready to put up a struggle to achieve it. Both as a nature poem and as a feminist-oriented poem the poem represents a struggle for equality. 
• This is a poem with dual meanings – a literal meaning and a symbolic one. The poet is an activist and a feminist who wants to create awareness about the environment and women's empowerment. 
• The summary provides both the meanings. The first paragraph of each stanza provides the literal meaning while the subsequent paragraph provides the symbolic one.

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Literary Devices 

• Personification – (Giving characteristics of humans to animals or inanimate objects)
  The trees inside are moving out – trees have been personified
  no sun buries its feet in shadow – the sun has been personified
  small twigs stiff with exertion – the twigs have been personified
  The trees are stumbling forward – the trees have been personified
• Anaphora – When two consecutive lines begin with the same letter
  no insect hide
  no sun buries its feet in the shadow
• Kinaesthetic imagery – image of movement
  i) The trees inside are moving out
  ii) like newly discharged patients
  half-dazed, moving
  to the clinic doors
  iii) The trees are stumbling forward
  into the night. Winds rush to meet them.
• Visual imagery – creating visual pictures with words
  i) All night the roots work
  to disengage themselves from the cracks
  in the veranda floor
• Simile – a direct comparison using ‘as’ and ‘like’
  i) like newly discharged patients (trees are compared to patients)
  ii) The moon is broken like a mirror (the moon is compared to a broken mirror)
• Alliteration– (repetition of the same sound in proximity)
  Long letters – ‘l’ sound has been repeated
  Forest from – ‘f’ sound has been repeated
  Sky still -‘s’ sound has been repeated
  Leaves and lichen – ‘l’ sound has been repeated
• Metaphor – indirect comparison
  Trees – metaphorically represent suppressed women
  Forest – is an extended metaphor of the struggle of women in the patriarchal society
• Enjambment – a sentence continuing in the next line without punctuation
  i) the forest that was empty all these days
  where no bird could sit
  no insect hide
  no sun buries its feet in the shadow
  the forest that was empty all these nights
  will be full of trees by morning.
  ii) The leaves strain toward the glass
  small twigs stiff with exertion
  long-cramped boughs shuffling under the roof
  like newly discharged patients
  half-dazed,
  iii) All night the roots work
  to disengage themselves from the cracks
  in the veranda floor.
  iv) doors open to the veranda
  writing long letters
  in which I scarcely mention the departure
  of the forest from the house.

Difficult Words 

• to disengage themselves: to separate themselves
• veranda: the space outside the house
• strain: effort to move (in the poem, this means leaves trying to reach the light)
• twigs: small branches
• stiff: hard
• exertion: pressure
• cramped: shrunk
• bough: branch
• shuffling: moving back and forth
• half-dazed: partly asleep or shocked
• scarcely: hardly
• departure: leaving a place
• lichen: crusty patches on trees or ground formed by fungi and algae
• whispers: soft voices
• stumbling: walking unsteadily
• flash: shine brightly
• oak:. large, strong tree