Preview

What Is The Mood Of The Poem Margaret Atwood

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
183 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
What Is The Mood Of The Poem Margaret Atwood
Margaret Atwood uses symbolism and tone to show the destruction that civilization has brought to the lives of natives and to nature itself. Throughout the poem you can tell that Margret is upset about how Indian tribes were hunted down and forced to leave their homes. In this poem Margaret Atwood uses symbolism to represent the animal’s reasons for being in the poem. In the beginning in says “In that country the animals have the faces of people:” The word animals used in this line represents the Indians in there native lands. With the line following up as “the ceremonial cats possessing the streets.” From this line it establishes the ones in power known as the English settlers. Further down in the poem it talks about bulls getting killed

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Allegory is yet another technique used to depict the concept of power and powerlessness within the poem. The giraffe is an allegory for women in society. The poet illustrates the giraffe as constantly confined in captivity; this is similar to that of housewives’ confinement to their homes. As they do not have any freedom nor any independence, both the housewives and the giraffe are seen as powerless. As a result, readers gain a broader perspective into the social powerlessness of women as drawn through the giraffe.…

    • 604 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In addition to the influence of the children’s perspective on the reader’s interpretation of the adults’ roles in the novel, the reader also makes inferences and conclusions about the adults based on their actions. Consider the various failures of the adult characters in this novel: moral failures, the failure to parent well, and the failure to negotiate life successfully, to name just a few. You may choose to analyze only one character and his or her failures, or write a comparative analysis of several characters, but in any case, build an essay in which you posit reasons for the failures of adults to protect children and to offer hope to the next…

    • 113 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    1. The animal imagery in the following excerpt is particularly strong. Based on this imagery, what do you think is the significance of the title of this…

    • 1239 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    In this excerpt, from A White Heron, by Sarah Orne Jewett, a number of literary techniques were used. All of them contributing to the excerpt's excellent flow. This essay will focus on three literary techniques Jewett used "" imagery, tone, and symbolism.…

    • 586 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    In ?Gretel in Darkness,? Louise Gluck utilizes a first person narration. The poem is composed of dark imagery and uses symbols representing death. ?This is the world we wanted. All who would have seen us dead. Are dead.? The title ?Gretel in Darkness? portrays the main character, which is probably the speaker, to be engulfed by darkness. The tone of the poem is full of urgency, bitterness, and violence. ?I hear the witch's cry ? Her tongue shrivels into gas....? is an image that illustrates the anguish of death. Gretel has killed something or someone for her brother. ?To leave, as though it never happened. But I killed for you.? She did not accomplish the task for her sake, but rather for the sake of her brother and in the end her brother abandons her. ?Am I alone? Spies Hiss in the stillness, Hansel we are there still, and it is real, real.? By the end of the poem, Gretel is all alone. ?That black forest, and the fire in earnest,? is an image that portrays how she feels. The black forest is a metaphor connecting Gretel to her inner thoughts. She has done something immoral and now she is regretting her actions. Like a black forest, she is alone, engulf by darkness and thoughts of bitterness. Gretel?s gender is unknown, nonetheless, we can assume she is a female. It is more likely for a girl to desire comfort or to held by some one. Nights I turn to you to hold me but you are not there. Gretel is not familiar to have such feelings. She has always been secured; she was raised without ever being hungry or the need to work to the point where she is lacking sleep. ?And memory of women, in our father's hut We sleep, are never hungry. Why do I not forget? My father bars the door, bars harm From this house, and it is…

    • 322 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Margaret Atwood's "Siren Song" is a lyric that consists of nine three-lined stanzas that neither possess any recognizable rhyme scheme nor rhythm. The speaker of this poem is a mythical creature, a Siren, who addresses us, the audience, when she speaks of the victims whom she lured through the enticing song she sings. The overall tone of this poem is sarcastic and quite sinister.…

    • 646 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    A subtle but recognizable visual representation of the theme ‘subduing of a culture lost’ is on a section of the novel where there’s a photo of a young horse being ‘choked down’ a method of subduing wild horses as part of the breaking in process. Numerous references throughout the book to the tethering and subduing of wild animals are metaphorical for the perspective of the European invaders of Australia to its indigenous culture and people. One of them was the seeking of the bull as being allegorical for the elimination of Aboriginal culture which was brought into focus with a graphic sequence along the bottom of the page 64. In the boy’s hallucination, the bull’s hump becomes the aboriginal child. That visual representation along with the woman’s quote ‘some…

    • 1198 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Walcott introduces the poem with a great deal of imagery and symbolism shown in lines 1-13. “Out of the turmoil” he describes a “young negro”, as an emblem, with a straw hat and overalls on what seems to be a farm. He describes a crowd awaiting their president. In line four he mentions a mule and in line seven he describes a forty acres wide field. This “40 acres and a mule” concept refers to the short-lived policy, during the last stages of the American Civil War in 1865, of providing land and a mule to black former slaves who had become free as a result of the advancement of the Union armies into the territory previously controlled by the Confederacy. He continues by adding menacing characters like the crows, owls, and the scarecrow. The young Negro ignores their “rage” and “predictable omens”.…

    • 494 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Throughout the poem, animal imagery is used to show the atmosphere and the mood. For example “Where shadows prowled the alleys.” The word prowled makes us think of a predatory animal and shows the atmosphere to be quite sinister and dark.…

    • 766 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Also know that symbolism are not just about animals in this novel, the settings are a huge factor in symbolism too. Like the pool by the river is the place where this story began and where it…

    • 509 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The poem ‘Siren Song’ may be believed to indicate an alluring woman who has no morals. This could be alluded to, as the term ‘siren’ might be highlighting a feigning and insincere female trying to manipulate a man. On one hand, the poem could be interpreted as one, which subtly complains about women in general, as Atwood claims that the song ‘forces men to leap’. Through generalizing ‘men’, the poet naturally separates the two genders in order to convey that no one man is individual, similarly to women. In contrast to this idea, the likelihood of Margaret Atwood writing so negatively about her own gender is slim. Additionally, another perspective of the poem could be taken where Atwood hints at her need for revenge on men and how they are shallow and unchangeable. The undistinguishable characters within the poem insinuates that there is more than one time in which the ‘siren song’ could be sung and how monotonous it can be. ‘It works every time’ could convey the idea that many women experience the monotony of men. Also, due to it being the last sentence, it seems that the song regularly ends negatively, much like her possible view of relationships as they work for a while and then they end suddenly.…

    • 534 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    When one lives life without love, in an atmosphere of resentment they often become depressed. In Jane’s case it mostly revolves around this home in which she cannot leave. Jane is seldom allowed to speak, let alone speak her mind, she is treated like a second class citizen and because of this she is entrapped in her own mind as well as this house she “has no possibility” of leaving as she puts it in line one. The author begins to reveal these emotions through the weather surrounding Jane; the storm surrounding the house for example is symbolically surrounding Jane’s heart. In the second sentence Bronte begins to describe an outdoor scene in which she mentions a “leafless shrubbery”, a plant that is obviously hibernating for winter and has thus receded into itself much like the way the real Jane has been trapped inside her own head. When imagined a leafless shrubbery is quite dead looking and can only be really determined dead or alive by what the season is and as such as long as Jane remains in this home so associated with winter she will continue to be hibernating and emotionally dead. In the fourth line the weather is described as quite bleak and desolate, “the cold winter winds had brought with it clouds so somberand rain so penetrating that further outdoor exercise was now out of the question.” (Line 4-6) Such a description evokes powerful imagery when associated as symbolic of Jane's emotional state. The cold winter winds are the home in…

    • 1602 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Diction In Spring

    • 680 Words
    • 3 Pages

    In line one she starts off by saying “Mother tried to take her life”, in this quote she refers to her mom as Mother which is a very cold and distant way to refer to one’s mom (Honum 1). She also in the first four lines uses very short sentences that give the tone of someone who is acting distant. This cold and distance syntax is what gives this stanza it winter theme. In the next stanza it goes to spring which symbolizes rebirth and moving forward. The diction used in lines 7-8 are the best example of this, because they say “Birds flew from the woods fingertips” here the word choice of woods meaning something dark and scary, as well as the fact that the birds are escaping from the woods represents getting through a horrible set back in life(Honum). The next stanza uses words like fruit, grass, and daisies which are all things associated with summer. She also uses a much longer sentence. Fall comes last and it talks about how quick things come and go like summer. “Unless it doesn’t stop, like moonlight which has no pace to speak of falling through the cedar limbs, falling through the rock”, this means that like moonlight not all things last forever that everything will eventually slip away(Honum…

    • 680 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Siren Song

    • 504 Words
    • 2 Pages

    In the poem, Margaret Atwood alludes to Greek mythology. The sirens were monsters that sured sailors to their death by singing mesmerizing songs. Sailors knew about the sirens and tried to fight the power of the sirens' song, but they were unable to overcome the temptations. The sirens promised to tell the sailors a secret and asked them to help get “out of this bird suit” because they did not “enjoy singing this trio”. When the sailors got close enough, the sirens either ate them or simply killed them. The allusion to the sirens of Greek mythology demonstrates that temptation can end with horrible consequences.…

    • 504 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    When You Are Old Tone

    • 646 Words
    • 3 Pages

    In the poem the speaker’s relationship with the woman has two sides. One emotion that the speaker reveals is that of undying love. He speaks of a time when the woman is “old and grew” (Line 1) and how his love will still be felt in the book she will read. The diction and imagery in the poem reveal much of how the speaker views the woman and his feelings for her. Using imagery like “shadows deep” (Line 4) the speaker expresses his admiration for her beauty. The speaker also uses diction such as “pilgrim soul” (Line 7) to describe the woman’s inner beauty that he also admired so much. The tone in these sections of the poem reflects the…

    • 646 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays