death of a naturalist

• 'all year the flax-dam festered in the heat'


  represents the cyclical nature of life, happens all the time all year
• 'punishing sun'


  typically the sun brings life, this is juxtaposing
• 'gargled delicately'


  oxymoronic, element of beauty in the life cycle
• 'wove a strong gauze of sound around the smell'


  turning a pest into a saviour, showing how he finds beauty in everything
• 'there were dragonflies, spotted butterflies'


  stereotypical images of springtime beauty pushed aside
• 'warm thick slobber of frogspawn'


  loves the things that most find disgusting, every element of nature is loved
• 'daddy frog' 'mammy frog'


  childish vocabulary
• 'fields were rank'


  vocab change, he no longer finds it beautiful
• 'ducked through hedges'


  feels like they are attacking him, semantic field of fear
• 'coarse croaking'


  sounds aren't delicate anymore
• 'loose necks pulsed like sails'


  connotations of life, but now viewed negatively
• 'i sickened, turned and ran'


  fearful of what he previously loved