Essay Questions

Show how The Baron in the Trees is a story of acquiring freedom through escaping the life of being earthbound. How does Cosimo’s present the idea?

The Baron in the Trees is a story that follows Cosimo after he gets angry with his father and seeks to find his way through life leaving in the trees. Cosimo through this particular act is able to escape a life of being earthbound and finds freedom as he lives for himself. Cosimo brings out the power of imagination and the potential it has in changing and causing progress in the world. The story explores individualism through its particular focus on developing a connection between the mind and the world outside it.

Cosimo is an epitome and symbol of rebellion in Italo Calvino’s The Baron in the Trees. Is this assertion correct?

The story that the writer follows is based on the events that happen between Cosimo and his father that lead to his decision to not rely on his family or his father anymore. As a result of the boy’s anger, he decides to rebel at his father and climbs onto a tree. When his father tells him that he will have to come down to the ground at some point in his life, the boy decides to make sure that he never does this to prove him wrong. In this line, he lives his life entirely in the trees. Through Cosimo’s rebellion against his father, he discovers a completely new perspective to life.

Show how the theme of nature is emphasized in Italo Calvino’s The Baron in the Trees.

Nature as a theme is emphasized on by the writer throughout the work. After the young boy protagonist climbs onto the trees as part of his rebellion against his father, he spends his life entirely in the trees. This is one way in which nature is emphasized in the work. Also, the particular destruction of the environment and nature due to man’s love for an axe is also brought out. Love for nature and its beauty is brought out in this novel explicitly.