Journal 30: Image of Grief

Nature is an excellent medium for expression of emotions. For example, a happy mood can be represented by golden rays of sunlight shinning down on green grassland and flowers. An angry mood can be represented by an exploding volcano, a raging tsunami, or other devastating natural catastrophe. The expression of grief can have a lot of different take though because there are many kinds of grief. There is a a sullen, frustrating kind of grief which can be portrayed by the pouring rain in London in a dark night. The other kind of extreme grief with sadness and depression combined can be portrayed by a dying bird or even a dead bird. It can also be portrayed by the chill of a graveyard. The cross of snow is a symbol when he cross s symbol for grief and even the heat cannot take away the grief that the author, Longfellow, has for his dead wife because his wife is very important to him and her death was very meaningful, significant, and depressing. By the poem we can tell that the author was in agony because of the way he described the death of her wife as a "martyrdom". However, his description is different from grief that other people might think. When we think of grief, the natural phenomena we think of is usually something dark, like nightfall, twilight, rain, cloudy, or shadow, but snow is very bright.