Analysis

• 1 "Death of a Naturalist"


  -the author is maturing and growing up

  -he's growing up from a child who loved frogs to becoming an adult who is disgusted by them

  -shows his love for nature died

  -implies that once you become an adult you don't see everything as perfect and beautiful
• 2 "Sweltered in the punishing sun. Bubbles gargled delicately"


  -adjective "punishing " subverbs the normal idea of the sun being positive, could also shows that the sun is against him

  -shows he's fascinated by the mud and flax

  -furthermore something he finds fascinating adults would be grossed out by it and they wouldn't take much notice in it
• 3 "Wove a strong gauze of sound around the smell" 


  -context: the sound is caused by flies

  -people don't like the buzzing of flies at all while he loves them

  -it's his favourite thing and would never get tired of it

  -he loves watching animals

  -shows he loves something everyone finds annoying and useless, this suggest he can see the beauty in things others don't see

  -combined image of sound, touch, smell implies it's a rich memory
• 4 "The daddy frog was called a bullfrog. And how he croaked and mammy frog"


  -context: his teacher telling him how frogs are made but she doesn't tell him the truth

  -shows that he's being sheltered from the truth and is keeping his innocence

  -"mammy" and "daddy" are words a child would use, meaning the author is slipping back into his childhood self
• 5 "I sickened, turned, and ran"


  -shows he's now disgusted by the frogs and their nature

  -this further implies the disgust of seeing how the world really is

  -suggest he doesn't see the world as perfect anymore

  -verb "sickened" shows the power change, volta change
• 6 "That if I dipped my hand the spawn would clutch it"


  -shows he wouldn't put his hand in to get the spawn now but at the start he would have

  -shows the power change, that the frogs are now chasing him because he stole their eggs

  -verb "clutch" shows desparation