First-Person Fiction

This narrator wants to tell us this story because it has meaning and symbolism to his life. This tree is something that has been there since he was a child himself. Now in his eighties this tree is being threatened to be cut down by a younger neighbor. I feel he is tying the tree to himself as a person. I say this because when he goes to talk to the man about getting the tree sprayed with bug repellent the guy says something like since the bugs were already being seen they had already worked their way into the tree. He said it could still live because some trees can grow back bark faster than the bugs can eat it. If we tie this to himself he is old like the tree and is having something inside of him that could kill him, his bad heart. If he can keep himself calm as people eat at him and doesn’t raise his heart rate he will sure survive this bad heart, just like the tree. So he feels if he protects this tree that has been there since his childhood he is supposedly protecting himself too. This being said if he can keep that annoying neighbor away from that tree and not let his neighbor get him overwhelmed they will both survive.