An analysis of Gieve Patel's On Killing a Tree

             

     On Killing a Tree - A representation of man’s cruelty to Nature.

     Patel’s “On Killing a Tree” is a poem which presents a graphic picture of the total annihilation of a tree. In the poem the tree symbolizes Nature. Modern man out of his indiscriminate greed and selfishness roots out nature and its very spirit. Man’s greed is not quenched by the mere physical process of killing a tree.Man realizes that it is not easy to kill a tree because it has grown slowly consuming the earth and absorbing water, air and sunrise for years. The mere act of hacking and chopping is not sufficient to kill a tree. The tree overcomes man’s onslaught by branching off small stems close to the ground and resumes life and grose again to its former size.

     Knowing a tree’s power to come to life again, man decides to pull out the root of the tree. Like a butcher, he makes several cuts in the tree and cuts it down. He then cuts it into several convenient pieces. Still his greed is not quenched. Man is determined not to allow Nature a second life. He makes a deep cavity on the earth and roots out the tree which uses anchored safety inside the earth. The earth has so far protected and fed the tree like a mother. But, the cruel man uproots this safety.After pulling the tree down, the man further subjects it to various processes of rendering it fit for commercial purposes. He further tortures the tree by scorching and choking it in sun and air. He also subjects the tree to various methods such as browning and hardening. With this, the total killing of the tree is complete. Man is ensured that the tree has no second life. “And then it is done” says the speaker triumphantly.

     The poet describes mans cruelty to nature with bitter irony and detachment. But his own sympathy is with Nature. The poem is a telling commentary on one of the major environmental issues that encounters modern man.

     The theme in Gieve Patel’s ecocritical poem On Killing a Tree is the notion of a clash between two different attitudes, saving and cutting a tree. The focus for this is environmental degradation. The poem is very short. But it slashes out scar in our minds. The ravages of modern industrial society are represented by the woodcutter. We think like of the cannibalizing its own guts and soon to destroy the living trees and home lives of our mother earth It was such a human story. A similar process is going on in the countries in the world which are being mined for profit. Patel launches into a tirade against the practice in his On Killing a Tree but in a tone of total irony.

     Cutting of trees is not simply cutting the branches or cutting its stem. Here it is given a ceremonial entity. The branches and leaves will grow again. We need to cut out the root and dry it in the sun so that it is destroyed. Patel endorses that it will take too much time to kill a tree. The sarcastic tone is clear in view that cutting of trees need the same cruelty of a murderer.

    Woodcutter or simply the professional murderer of a tree may hack: cut or chop with repeated and regular blows: and chop, but still this alone will not do the job. The tree does not seem to feel any kind of pain because the bleeding bark seemed to heal all the time. The trunk of the tree from close to the ground will produced curled green twigs that will rise from the miniature bows.

    In contrast to this practice of ripping natural substances out of the ground, making them into something unnatural, and then returning the waste products to the earth in an indigestible form—all in the name of economic progress and profit— Patel presents the very different attitude that we have toward the earth. At first the difference puzzles Patel. He asks us how it can be that a cutting a tree has remained productive for over a thousand years, but human civilization is pending destruction after only a period. The difference, as Patel later learns, is that cutting a tree is no childish job- rather a heartless process of infanticide. Patel endorses us to respect the earth as a living being and seek with humility to maintain the ecological balance that the earth needs. We should acknowledge that we do not own the earth but try to be responsible guests.