Previous
Mood
Definition of Oxymoron
An oxymoron is a figure of speech in which two contradictory terms or ideas are intentionally paired in order to make a point—particularly to reveal a deeper or hidden truth... read full definition
An oxymoron is a figure of speech in which two contradictory terms or ideas are intentionally paired in order to make a point—particularly to reveal... read full definition
An oxymoron is a figure of speech in which two contradictory terms or ideas are intentionally paired in order to... read full definition
Part 1: Roots—Nicholas Hoel
Explanation and Analysis—Love-Hate Relationship:
Frank Hoel Jr., one of Nick's ancestors, has mixed feelings about the chestnut tree on the family's land. During the history of the Hoel family in "Roots," the narrator describes those feelings in an oxymoron:
Frank Jr. suffers nothing from imagination. He can’t even hear himself think: It’s very possible that I hate this tree. It’s very possible that I love it more than I loved my father. The thoughts can mean nothing to a man with no real independent desire, born under the thing he is chained to and fated to die under it, too. He thinks: This thing has no business here. It’s no good to anyone unless we chop it down. Then there are months when, through the viewfinder, the spreading crown seems to his surprised eye like the template for meaning itself.
Frank Sr. was "liquif[ied] with a mortar shell" while fighting in World War I, leaving his son with the responsibility of photographing the tree. Frank Jr. feels bitter toward the tree and toward his father for leaving him with such a tedious burden. But he also loves the tree, as it is the last memory of Frank Sr. This results in an oxymoron: at once he can both "hate the tree" and "love it more than I loved my father."
This first oxymoron leads into another. Frank Jr. thinks that they should chop down the tree, but at the same time it is "a template for meaning itself." The second oxymoron is more complex than the first. Here, Powers suggests that trees teach something about the fundamental meaning of life and that chopping them down is the opposite of that meaning. Frank's mixed feelings end up anticipating one of the book's main themes, that trees are meaningful, and not just for chopping down.
Related Themes:
Part 3: Crown
Explanation and Analysis—Forever in Motion:
At the very beginning of "Crown," an unnamed man lies on his back and looks at the trees above him and the stars beyond. He observes how the trees appear stationary but knows that in fact the trees, and the entire Earth, move at dizzying velocities through the cosmos. He considers the consequences of this oxymoron, that the trees are both stationary and "forever in motion":
A man in the boreal north lies on his back on the cold ground at dawn. His head extends from his one-man tent, facing upward. Five thin cylinders of white spruce register the breeze above him. Gravity is nothing. The evergreen tips sketch and scribble on the morning sky. He’s never really thought about the many miles a tree travels, in smallest cursive increments, each hour of every day. Forever in motion, these stationary things.
The narrator is referring to the trees moving through space as the Earth rotates around its axis and revolves around the sun. The stars appear to move through the sky, but in fact that motion comes from the Earth. The Earth moves much faster around the Sun at 66,000 mph, while the entire solar system moves around the center of the Milky Way at some 450,000 mph, and the entire Milky Way speeds toward the Andromeda Galaxy at over 200,000 mph. Altogether, "the many miles a tree travels, in smallest cursive increments, each hour of every day" total many hundreds of thousands of miles across the vast universe. This image emphasizes to extreme effect that trees may appear stationary, but in fact they are on the same rapid, uncontrollable cosmic trajectory as the whole Earth.
Related Themes:
