Turtles Hatching Essay Example for Free

Turtles Hatching Essay English Essay In the poems ‘Turtles Hatching’ and ‘The Pairing Of The Terns’, Mark O’Connor explores the idea of the circle of life and compares nature to human beings to show how much more evolved nature is then humans are and also the experiences that we go through. O’Connor’s use of visual imagery in ‘Turtles Hatching’ not only tells us, but shows us about the life cycle of the turtles. When the baby turtles are trying to get to the water the seagulls and crabs try and catch them so that they can eat them, which leaves only a few that make it to the water. Slipping in, as it left, the shadow, a thousand times larger, of a parent come shoreward to lay; two ends of the earthbound process linked in the uncomprehending meeting of kin’. This quote tells us, that when a baby turtle has hatched and made its way to the water to begin its life in the ocean, a mother turtle has come to shore to lay her eggs. ‘I gathered a living brother, hiked it over the rock-flats, (fighting on in my hand). Through this use of personal pronouns, O’Connor helps us to connect with the environment he is describing. In this way, O’Connor enables the reader to feel for the turtles. In O’Connor’s poem, ‘The Pairing Of The Terns’, he links the terns to humans. ‘Human lovers know it only in dreams, the wild mating flight of the terns’. This quote tells us that human couples can only dream about what the terns feel when they are flying. When the terns fly they stay motionless in half gales then suddenly they plunge down and across the sky, their strong wings beating into thick vortices of the air. As much as humans wish they could feel free like the terns do when they fly, we humans can only dream about it. ‘locked in pairs by invisible steel’. In this quote, O’Connor explains to us that no matter which way the terns move, they will always be together because they are so in sync with each other. Humans can never have the same love that the terns have, and O’Connor hopes to evoke in the reader a feeling of wonder and desire. O’Connor deliberately compares nature to human beings because it shows how different they are and that humans can only dream about what it feels like to be a part of something more evolved. The experiences that humans go through help to change the way they view the life of nature.