WAEC Literature in English 2019 Theory — Question 28

Model answer

Points to develop: Statement of the theme; Description of the birches; Use of sight and sound images; Use as pastime; Impact on persona's experience. The poem is a poem on nature, particularly the birches, tall, slender tree with papery, peeling back, native to America. The trees are resilient and their resilience shows in the way they come back to their form after the wind storm. The quality of the birches typifies one's ability to overcome the pressures of life by being resilient. Birches are strong and resilient and don't break easily. They are able to tolerate the winter ice storm and they revive as soon as summer breaks, even though the ice 'cracks and crazes its enamel'. This manifests in the persona's description of birches. One is made to visualize the ice storms that bend the birches, the snow crusts that weigh them down, the crystal shells of ice that create an impression of 'heaps of broken glass' and the 'dome of heaven' having fallen. Its trunks 'arching in the woods' and being loaded off as timber. The birches 'trail their leaves on the ground'. Birches are used as pastime. The poet imagines 'some boy been them' by 'riding them down over and over again'. The poet alludes to his having been a swinger of birches: 'So was I once myself a swinger of birches.' The impact of the birches on the persona shows in words and phrases appealing to the senses of sight and sound. His 'face burns and tickles with cobwebs' and he also sees 'life as a pathless wood'. Lesson from birches helps the poet's persona to withstand life's vicissitudes. This is evident in the pain of an eye 'weeping/ from twig's having lashed across it open.' This lesson fortifies him against the tedium of life.