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Fern Hill

1) Fern Hill by Dylan Thomas describes the carefree childhood of a young boy who lives life day to day without worries. 2) The boy believes that he can stop time and is the "prince of the apple towns," controlling nature. 3) However, the repetition of images of the sun and moon represent the passing of time and the ending of each day, even in the boy's imaginary world where time seems frozen.

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528 views3 pages

Fern Hill

1) Fern Hill by Dylan Thomas describes the carefree childhood of a young boy who lives life day to day without worries. 2) The boy believes that he can stop time and is the "prince of the apple towns," controlling nature. 3) However, the repetition of images of the sun and moon represent the passing of time and the ending of each day, even in the boy's imaginary world where time seems frozen.

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© © All Rights Reserved
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Marcus Williams Jr.

Mr. Munoz
AP English
19 September, 2014
Fern Hill, Imagery
Fern Hill, by Dylan Thomas displays the eventful childhood of a young boy, a young boy
who lived a life day by day, without a worry in the world. As society grows as individuals, they
tend to forget what it feels like to just love life and love for today and wait for the future. Make
each second count, because that day that we may be waiting for, may never come and then days
were wasted. Fern Hill displays the boy's nonexistence of time as he goes about his day
nonchalantly. Dylan Thomas conveys the idea of a world frozen in time, through his
manipulation of poetic, or lyrical structure, and carefully using the literary device imagery.
The narrator is a young boy who lived life carefree and lived for today. "About the lilting
house and happy as the grass was green.(2) The symbolic meaning of the grass being green tells
the reader that the narrator was young. With the house lilting and him being as happy as the grass
being green, states the obvious fact of how happy he is to be living. The second line of stanza
one gives the reader a visual of the setting where the young boy may be. Time let me hail and
climb.(4) A personification of time, explains the seconds he keys pass without a care in the
world, not thinking about what has yet to come. The young boy believes that he may be young
forever as if time has stopped long enough for him to have all the fun he wants. "I was the prince
of the apple towns"(6) gives the young boy a state of royalty. At a young age he feels as if he is
on top of the world and has power over nature, controlling leaves and trees.

Throughout Fern Hill, the writer regrets to the image of the sun and the moon repetitively. With
time, comes the Sun and the Moon. "...the sun long it was running..."(19) conveys a setting that
days are endless. "The sun born over and over"(39) contributes to Thomas' theme of the youth
and their imagination of time being untouchable and frozen. When Thomas then makes
references to the moon, he practically opposes the idea of endless days and frozen time. In line
25 "All the moon long I heard" and in line 48 "the moon that is always rising" focuses on the
images of the night and the visual of darkness. Darkness is a representation of depression, a
depression of not being the probe of the apple towns and enjoying his time playing outside as he
watches the lit sky at the bottom of the hill. When darkness appears so does time. Even in the
imaginary world the young boy lives in, every day has its ending.
The Garden of Eden is represented by the farm. "... It was all shining; it was Adam and
maiden, (30) So it may have been after the birth of that simple light in the first, spinning place.
(33) This image corresponds to Apple boughs and Apple towns. Adam and Eve were a
representation of eating the fruit of evil. At night, the darkness was evil and unwanted. Thomas
says maiden to avoid connotations of Eve. The light began to come again almost so bright that
life felt as if Jesus, the simple light, was born again. This is a sense of imagery and symbolism to
Christian beliefs of paradise on earth. Golden in the heydays of his eyes... (5) I was green and
carefree" (10) and "the children green and golden"(44) create the visual of the beginning, youth,
and displays the decaying of time, death. Green gives the image of spring and youth. In the end
even springs has an ending as the flowers begin to wilt and leaves begin to crumble. In line 46
Thomas says "Nothing I cared... that time would take me...Time held me green and dying... He
uses personification to convey that although time does pass, it is a treasure to the young narrator,

the boy, who lives in a world where time is nonexistent but soon discovers that time waits for no
one. The sun will rise and the sun will set every day.
As the days passed on by the young boy once realized that time keeps moving forward
whether you want it to or not. The use of imagery used by Dylan Thomas helps the reader
compare the way the narrator thinks in terms of the way Earth acts around us. His comparison of
the youth and grass gave a good interpretation of no matter how young that blade of grass may
be, one day itll decay and die. Life is a blast as a child; sometimes we dont realize how
precious each second is to humanity. Time is something that cannot be retrieved, or promised.

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