A simple PPT to assist in the analysis of Charlotte Mew's 'The Trees are Down' for IGCSE Literature.

1. THE TREES ARE
DOWN
Charlotte Mew

2. Charlotte Mew (1869 –1928)
◦ English poet, whose work spans the cusp
between Victorian poetry and Modernism
◦ Born in London, one of 7 children of an architect
◦ Father died in 1898, not leaving sufficient money to care for his
family
◦ 2 siblings suffered from mental illness (institutionalized)
◦ 3 siblings died in childhood
◦ Mother was left with only Charlotte and her sister, Anne

3. ◦Charlotte was described as “chastely lesbian”, although
no evidence of any relationships exists
◦She was a tiny woman, who wore her hair very short,
and always carried a black umbrella
◦Charlotte and Anne made a pact never to marry for fear
of passing on insanity to their children
◦Later, their home was condemned and they were forced
to move.

4. ◦In 1926 Anne was diagnosed with cancer
and Charlotte took on duties of nursing her
sister nearly full time. Anne died the
following year.
◦Charlotte gradually sank into despair.
Becoming delusional, she entered a nursing
home in 1928 for treatment, but ended up
committing suicide there later the same
year, by drinking Lysol.

5. Style & Influences
The traumatic issues Mew grappled with during her
childhood—death, mental illness, loneliness, and
disillusionment—became themes in her poetry and
stories.
She published both stories and poetry from her early
twenties.

6. What’s the poem about?
◦ Charlotte Mew writes here of arboricide (the killing of trees)
◦ It opens with a quotation from Revelation 7.2-3 ("and he cried with a loud voice: Hurt not
the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees"). "He" in the quotation is the "angel ascending
from the east, having the seal of the living God."
◦ Charlotte Mew wrote the poem in reaction to the felling of plane trees in Euston Square
Gardens in the early 1920's.

7. Many cultures revere trees
◦ Trees are significant in many of the world's mythologies and religions, and have been
given deep and sacred meanings throughout the ages. Human beings, observing the
growth and death of trees, and the annual death and revival of their foliage, have often
seen them as powerful symbols of growth, death and rebirth. Evergreen trees, which
largely stay green throughout these cycles, are sometimes considered symbols of the
eternal, immortality or fertility. The image of the Tree of life or world tree occurs in
many mythologies.
◦ Sacred or symbolic trees include the Banyan and the Peepal (Ficus religiosa) trees in
Hinduism, the Yule Tree in Germanic mythology, the Tree of Knowledge of Judaism and
Christianity, the Bodhi tree in Buddhism and Saglagar tree in Mongolian Tengriism. In
folk religion and folklore, trees are often said to be the homes of tree spirits.
◦ From ancient Norse, Baltic and Celtic mythologies, to the Nigerian, Indian and Mongolian
cosmological thought, extending far east in the ancient Shinto faith of Japan and the
special habits of the 19 tribes of the forest peoples of Malaysia, sacred groves provide
relief and shelter from the mundane aspects of life and are considered living temples. A
place of meeting where ancient rituals are performed, it is also a place of refuge for many
in times of danger.

8. Subject & Tone
Subject
◦ the poet wrote the poem in reaction to the feelings of the plane trees in Euston Square
Garden being cut down in the early 1920s
◦ Humans cruelty and cold heartedness towards the trees being cut down and how the
trees’ lives meant nothing to them
Tone
◦ Lament for the feeling of “the great plane trees” being cut down
◦ Sadness is shown through the phrase “fine grey rain”, suggests a subtlety in sadness
◦ A sense of desolation and loss as the trees was her direction in life and how it have been
there with her through the variation of nature, ‘sun’, ‘rains’, ‘wind’ etc

9. The Trees Are Down
- and he cried with a loud voice:
Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees -
(Revelation)
*The Book of Revelation is the only apocalyptic document in the New
Testament

10. They are cutting down the great plane-trees at the end of the garden.
For days there has been the grate of the saw, the swish of
the branches as they fall,
The crash of the trunks, the rustle of trodden leaves,
With the 'Whoops' and the 'Whoas', the loud common talk,
the loud common laughs of the men, above it all.

11. I remember one evening of a long past Spring
Turning in at a gate, getting out of a cart, and finding a large
dead rat in the mud of the drive.
I remember thinking: alive or dead, a rat was a god-forsaken thing,
But at least, in May, that even a rat should be alive.

12. The week's work here is as good as done. There is just one bough
On the roped bole, in the fine grey rain,
Green and high
And lonely against the sky.
(Down now! -)
And but for that,
If an old dead rat
Did once, for a moment, unmake the Spring, I might never have
thought of him again.

13. It is not for a moment the Spring is unmade to-day;
These were great trees, it was in them from root to stem:
When the men with the 'Whoops' and the 'Whoas' have carted
the whole of the whispering loveliness away
Half the Spring, for me, will have gone with them.

14. It is going now, and my heart has been struck with the
hearts of the planes;
Half my life it has beat with these, in the sun, in the rains,
In the March wind, the May breeze,
In the great gales that came over to them across the roofs from the great seas.
There was only a quiet rain when they were dying;
They must have heard the sparrows flying,
And the small creeping creatures in the earth where they were lying -
But I, all day, I heard an angel crying:
'Hurt not the trees.'

15. Style
◦ The register of the poem is very conversational. Why do you think the
author created the poem in this way?
◦ The length of the lines varies greatly in the poem. This has sometimes
been referred to as being symbolic representations of trees – Long, lanky
and bold. The third line is particularly important, as it is short and begins
with the word ‘branches’. Does this visual representation of subject matter
aid in your overall understanding of the text? Explain in detail using
reference to the poem.

16. Style & Symbolism
“The Trees Are Down,” with its epigraph from the Book of Revelation, depicts British poet
Charlotte Mew’s own ideas of valour, and it might even foreshadow her own end.
With her lanky-lined poem, daring in its combination of near-prosiness with the chant of
childlike rhyme, Mew is the foremother of our current style of lyrical narration, or narrative
lyric.
I personally love this poem because of the “swish” and the “crash” and the “rustle” of the
felling and because of the shocking (and everlasting) image of the rat. Mew is utterly
conversational but completely rhythmical when she says, “I remember thinking: alive or dead,
rat was a god-forsaken thing, / But at least, in May, that even a rat should be alive.”
She allows us to enter her consciousness, to share with her the horror at the destruction of
“great plane trees at the end of the gardens,” and she is even bold enough to invite us to
the angel of Revelation at the end. Her poem is protean (versatile /changeable) and alive—
treelike in its look and in its long-limbed construction.

17. What is the significance of…
“If an old dead rat/ Did once, for a moment, unmake the Spring, I might never have thought of
his again.”
The opening and closing references to the Book of Revelation in the Bible?
“Spring” and “May”…”Spring is unmade to-day;” and “Half the Spring, for me, will have gone with
them”
“fine grey rain, /Green and high”

18. Analysis
There is a clear sense of desolation and loss in this poem, a lament for the felling of ‘the great
plane-trees’. The trees have survived the variations of nature – ‘sun’, ‘rains’, ‘wind’, ‘breeze’ and
‘gales’ but are brought down by men whose ‘Whoops’, ‘Whoas’ and ‘loud common talk’ seem to
show their lack of care, creating a strong contrast with the narrative voice.
The men are also separate from the connectedness of the natural world, with the narrator
showing links between the ‘rat’, the trees, the weather conditions, ‘the sparrows’ and ‘the small
creeping creatures’. The narrator is also connected sympathetically and suggests a spiritual
dimension with the ‘angel’ of the penultimate line and the initial quotation from
Revelation, one of the books of the Bible.

19. Analysis
◦ The poem contains a number of onomatopoeic and rhyme effects
while it uses form quite freely, with short lines and very long lines
(several are so long they have to be split for printing, to which Mew
objected). It is worth considering how these techniques maintain the
connections between ideas in the poem.

20. Ideas from the poem
◦ the poem portrays not only the trees being chopped down but also the poet herself,
Mew’s life, how she was ‘cut down’ by the deaths of her siblings around her, first
her mother then her sister, which lead her to end her own life with her own hands
whereas the trees’ life were ended by mankind as “they are cutting down the great
plane trees at the end of the gardens”
◦ Mew connected the link between the trees and the rat by comparing their lives
together, saying that even a disgusting and “a god-forsaken thing” like a rat has its
chance to live, so why aren’t the trees allowed to live and had to be ‘killed’ by humans
◦ Later on, Mew also included animal like “sparrows” and the “small creeping creatures
near the end of the poem, emphasizing the importance of the trees and how it’s being
‘killed’ by humans without mercy as he “common laughs of the men” were heard

21. Speaker/Point of View
First person narrative
◦ Suggest that she had some sort of connection with the trees in relation of her own life
and them, which again contributes to the idea of the trees being a metaphor of how
the deaths of her siblings has affected her own life
◦ She’s lament that the trees are being cut down and yet the humans showed mercy no
in doing such things, without realising the importance of the trees to not only human
beings, but also Mew herself
◦ the poet herself had a strong connection with the trees as “[her] heart has been
struck with the hearts of the planes”, suggesting she does have feelings with the trees
being gone now and how Spring “have gone with them”

22. Form/Structure
•The sentences in the poem seems unorganized, unevenly structured
 literally refers to the image of the place after the trees were cut
down as it feels uneven, unpleasant, by just looking at it
 Metaphorically refers to her life, after she lost her siblings, her life
shattered all over the place as she struggles to get herself back on
track and live a normal and even life
• Longer sentence were continued on to the next line and yet the poet
chose not to continue writing the sentence on the same line, she started
the next sentence instead e.g.
“Did once, for a moment, unmake the Spring, I might never
have thought of him again.”
 perhaps to focus on the subject of the sentence
 in this case, the focus is on the rat, and how the poet could not get
over the death of the “god-forsaken thing”

23. Imagery
◦ “Swish of the branches”, “Crash of the trunks” and “The rustle of trodden leaves”
gives an extended imagery of the plane trees to the readers as it is also counted as
Onomatopoeia, allow us to picture the trees with horrified sounds of it being cut
down
◦ “dead rat” is used as imagery perhaps to portray the idea of even though the rat is
an animal, it still deserve to be ‘alive’, just like the trees, they should have a chance to
live their life
◦ “Spring” gives a beautiful sight to the readers as it is when the leaves are growing
back on the trees and the flowers are starting to bloom, yet the poet said its Spring
time when the trees are being cut down, which suggests how humanity shows no
mercy in ruining the beautiful sight with their own hands

24. Personal Response
◦ Poet is portraying her feelings about the plane trees being cut down and how she
heard the angel trying to save them but failed
◦ The plane trees could be emotionally attached to her and perhaps are seen to
represent her siblings who have left her one by one, just like how the trees are being
cut down, as “there is just one bough” which suggests this is only one tree that has
been cut down, and there are more to go later on
◦ It is obvious that the poet could not get over the fact that the plane trees have been
cut down and the place is now “lonely against the sky” as “[her] heart has been
struck with the hearts of the planes” which also explains how she could not get over
the death of her siblings and therefore fell into great depression and decided to end
her own life with her own hands, just like how the humans had ended the trees’
‘lives’ without showing any sympathy at all

25. Relevance to today?
◦ Today there is a growing concern that as humans we are abusing our
natural environment. Tree felling is sometimes a contentious topic.
◦ Mew personifies trees and believes that they hold symbolic value for us as
human beings.
◦ Charlotte Mew believed that trees did not deserve to take the fall,
regardless of the reason. To what extent do you agree with her?
◦ These days we grow trees for the specific purpose of cutting them down –
e.g. Christmas tree farms, paper factories.
Do you think that these reasons are valid?

26. Essay Question
◦How are the trees used to convey the poet's thoughts
and feelings in The Trees are Down by Charlotte
Mew?

27. Check out more resources here…
◦ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YeHSjHc6-7k
◦ https://prezi.com/4uxgbrzkx8e8/the-trees-are-down/
◦ http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED367352.pdf