CRITICAL APPRECIATION OF OUR CASUARINA TREE

CRITICAL APPRECIATION OF OUR CASUARINA TREE

Toru Dutt’s ‘Our Casuarina Tree’ is included in The Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindusthan. It is the last poem in the collection. In its form and the content the poem ‘Our Casuarina Tree’ reminds us of Keats’ odes. The lyric deals with themes of nostalgia, longing, imagination and transcendence. The word ‘our’ adds a personal touch to the poem. The word implies that the tree was not just an ordinary tree for the poet. It was a part of her life and memory, an integral aspect of her childhood that she shared with her brother and sister. The poem brings out her nostalgic recollection of the past. The graden which repeatedly recurs in her letters constituted an important aspect of her poetic psyche. The tree thus emerges not only as a symbol of her bygone days of childhood but it also subtly hints at the poet’s intense craving for permanence and eternity.

The six stanza poem brings out the warmth of her relationship with the tree it stood with its colossal form supporting a creeper growing around it. Whereas the first stanza gives an objective description of the tree, “the second relates the tree to the poet’s own impressions of it at different times; the third links up the tree with her memories of her lost brother and sister; the fourth humanizes the tree, for its lament is a human recordation of pain and regret; the last stanza wills as it were the immortally of the tree” (Iyengar)

The tree served as a link between the past and the present for her. Removed far away from her homeland the memory of the tree gave the poet solace and comfort. Like Wordsworth seeking solace from his recollection of childhood and boyhood years spent in close communion with nature, the casuarina tree too soothed the poet’s intense craving for her homeland tormenting her heart. The poet’s intense nostalgia for the tree too reminds us of Wordsworth’s longing for the ‘sylvan Wye, in ‘The Tinters Abbey’. The casuarina tree thus continued to haunt Toru Dutt in a similar way. It remained deep within her consciousness even when she was far away from her homeland and it comforted her when she pined for her bygone days with a fond heart.....................................................

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