Preview

You Fit Into Me

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
896 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
You Fit Into Me
You Fit Into Me

Margaret Atwood writes in a vivid, witty and often sharply discomfiting style in all of her literary works. To call her a feminist author is in a way selling her short as her work, while often centered on issues of gender, has also focused on Canadian national identity, Canada's relations with the United States and Europe, human rights issues, environmental issues, and the Canadian wilderness. The poem that I chose to analyze is a very short poem consisting of only four lines titled "You Fit Into Me." It was originally published in Margaret Atwood's anthology Power Politics, but the book I read it in is called, To Hell With Love, which is a collection of poems dealing with heartache and healing after a break-up. As one reads "You Fit Into Me," more and more meaning emerges. Just as a picture is said to be worth a thousand words, a few good lines of verse can pack as much emotional content as a whole paragraph of ordinary prose.

I was 21 years old and had just ended a tumultuous five year relationship with my high school sweetheart the first time I had read the poem. My best friend had given me the book To Hell With Love for Valentine's Day that year so as to alleviate the stress of it being my first Valentine's Day alone since I was 16. After reading the poem, I was taken aback by its length. It was the first time I had ever read a poem that short that actually made sense to me. When a poem only uses a few dozen words, each word becomes extremely important and as soon as I read the poem, every single word was important to me.

The first stanza, "You fit into me/ Like a hook into an eye" (1-2), was like a symbol of the beginning of my relationship. It stood out to me because I am an avid sewer and had instantly thought of an eye hook enclosure. It fits together so perfectly, so smoothly, exactly like we did at first. The second stanza, "fish hook / open eye" (3-4), was even more powerful because that was

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    You Fit Into Me Analysis

    • 458 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Love is one of the most compelling and universal emotions felt by the human race. Although this feeling is common, it can be interpreted differently by us all. “I Carry Your Heart” and “You Fit Into Me” by E.E. Cummings and Margaret Atwood respectively show the various ways in which people can understand and express infatuation and passion. The title of the poem, “I Carry Your Heart”, the references the fact that love is perpetually felt. Like other emotions that may be fleeting, when love is real it is constant. In the poem, Cummings discusses this concept in the first stanza which reads,”i carry your heart with me (i carry it in my heart) i am never without it (anywhere i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done by only me is your doing, my darling).” When one is in love, they see the object of their affection as the apotheosis of everything. Cummings writes in the second stanza, “i fear no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) i want no world (for beautiful you are my world, my…

    • 458 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The part that surprises me about the poem was how fast things changed. One moment I think about a lovely couple in young love and them it just changes at the end with twist of “growling…Hell’s Angels.” One moment I thought it was going to be a happy poem about this couple and then a train with a “black window” and head lights on in the day. I start think that something was different about this poem once the author introduced the train.…

    • 130 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Duffy Essay

    • 876 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Carol Ann Duffy seems to ask political/feminist questions in the following poems and believes women to be partly responsible for mass production, industrialisation and technology. The women in Duffy’s poems are seen as obsessive (The Diet, Work) and not in control (the woman who shopped). All three poems seem to combine aspects of femininity into one character such as gluttony, self-harm/losing oneself and seek to change themselves in some way. It seems Duffy has a major conflict with herself and the female population in general. Everyone seems to want to be the next top model or superstar. These cravings and affections are the downfall of women these days. They are unable to control themselves of anything going on in the media or the papers and relentlessly dive in to get involved. The main problem with women is that they struggle to realise their identity and try to conform to a certain audience to gain that identity. It seems Duffy has a major distaste for market capitalism and its effect on women. Duffy is almost blaming women for global capitalism as much as they are the victims of it.…

    • 876 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    South University Online. (2011). ENG1002: Composition/literature: Week 2: Feminist literary criticism and kincaid’s girl. Retrieved from myeclassonline.com…

    • 1270 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Atwood begins her speech with an anecdote and quotes this famous nursery rhyme to gain a personal connection with her audience and to introduce the subject of her speech – women in literature. Atwood established herself as a controversial writer, bringing her radical views such as feminism to the centre of political discussion. Throughout the speech Atwood explores the changing role of women in society through their portrayal in literature and how these roles have changed through time.…

    • 936 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    A Feminist's View

    • 768 Words
    • 4 Pages

    A feminist criticism is an approach to literature that seeks to correct or supplement what may be regarded as a predominantly male-dominated critical perspective with a feminist consciousness (Meyer 1658). The excerpt from A Secret Sorrow and “A Sorrowful Woman” are great from a feminist point of view. Both of these stories are about marriage and family, but their points of view are different. How would a feminist critic view the characters willingness to want a family or willingness to be separated from her family? How would a feminist critic analyze the time period of the two stories? What would a feminist critic say about the male leads? You are about to find out!…

    • 768 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Margaret Atwood is once of Canada’s best known literary composers. She is best known for her ability as an author of novels such as Alias Grace, Bodily Harm, Hairball, Rape Fantasies, and the highly acclaimed The Handmaid’s Tale, which was later made into a movie. These works establish her as a feminist writer, raising issues of women in literature, the difficulties associated with being female and the role of women in society.…

    • 1866 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Feminism has always been an incredibly relevant issue in all societies and is still no exception in today’s day and age. One of the most highly acclaimed writers of today that tackles the plaguing issue of feminism and the unfortunate belittling of women is Margaret Atwood. Among her many successful novels, poems, and other works, her masterpiece of a novel The Handmaid’s Tale emphasizes the dangers of downplaying women and their roles in society. Set in a future dystopian society, Atwood’s novel is best understood and interpreted from a critical feminist viewpoint; if the reader adapts this perspective, the novel comes to life and its message to protect women’s rights is unmistakable.…

    • 2436 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    I had to read the poem several times and listen to before I really understood the different elements that were in it. At least it took some time to really figure the elements that fit good to this poem. There really could be more but I think that the ones that I chose…

    • 588 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    I Love Poem Analysis

    • 584 Words
    • 3 Pages

    It is often that we find ourselves so deeply attracted to someone or something that we decide to call it love. Love is an emotion felt by all people to some degree. We love things, animals, people; each of us has experienced love in some form. What do we do when the thing we love is no longer ours? We shut the world out, act like we don’t care, yet, these are all just faces we wear to hide the pain. While there are many ways to combat heartbreak, Lang Leav does a remarkable job connecting to the reader through her poems. She can relate to the reader, they understand what she writes about, she helps them get through breakups and puts words to our emotions.…

    • 584 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The two poems are written by a twentieth century poet called Carol Ann Duffy. In her poems women are presented in various ways. For example, the women in her poems ‘Salome’ and ‘Havisham’ are both quite deranged together with disturbed characteristics as they view love and relationships in two different ways – anger and bitterness. Duffy is known to write about traumatising scenes from childhood, adolescence, and adult life through love, memory and language; as shown in these two poems. Like comparing any two pieces of literature they both equally have their similarities and differences. These two poems were written around the same time, and one peculiar thing about the poems that Duffy wrote is the fact that she produced poems about women who were unimportant and inferior to famous pieces of writings like Salome in the first two books in the New Testament of the Bible as Herodias’ daughter and Herold Antipas’ step-daughter, and Havisham in one of Charles Dickens’ novels as Miss Havisham – ‘Great Expectations’. The women in Duffy’s poems are the same women as in those famous novels, however, they have a voice of their own – the poems show what these women have to say for themselves. Love has played a big role in the two women’s lives; it had scarred them and is one of the main reasons for their actions mentioned throughout the poems. Nevertheless, how they accept the consequences of love are completely unalike, yet one similarity is that they both respond to it as hatred.…

    • 1007 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Hills Like White Elephants

    • 1023 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Feminist are troubled with literature under representing women. In the early 20th century, women were seen as inferior to men in society, and feminist want to step out and…

    • 1023 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Best Essays

    American feminist authors have had a major impact on every woman in contemporary society. This writing will cover some of the most essential authors- namely Kate Chopin, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Zora Neale Hurston, Tillie Olsen, Susan Glaspell, and Alice Walker- and how their works influenced the world of today. Outside of these authors specific contributions, however, there must be addressed the most general and obvious of observations, which stands as the premier example of their influence: that we are reading and writing about them today. These women have been published countless times in as many forms, and are widely believed to be some of the best American writers of all time. Indeed, the anthology that is associated…

    • 2558 Words
    • 11 Pages
    Best Essays
  • Good Essays

    In Literature, poems can often be very difficult for one to comprehend and interpret the author’s perspective. Many people grew only being exposed to the basic “Roses are red, violets are blue” form of poetic expression, so anything that fails to employ simple rhythmic phrases can be somewhat aloof to some people. Poetry is one of the most artistic forms of literature because it influences the author to express big thoughts and imaginations in somewhat of an abbreviated writing style, in contrast to essays, short stories, etc. A Subaltern’s Love Song by John Betjeman is an example of poetry that takes the reader on a journey of music and a love story.…

    • 644 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Throughout her novel, Margaret Atwood conjures up a terrifying image of a society that has completely reversed all its ideologies and principles and named it The Republic of Gliead. In this society Ofrred's sole purpose in life is to reproduce for the elite, and failure to comply will result in expulsion to the colonies. The colonies are places separated from society where infertile women are sent. The new society of Atwood is set in the debris of a shattered America. In Gilead, women are completely dominated by men and their position in society is completely determined by the status of their husband and their fertility. Atwood depicts women as powerless beings in a society completely unfamiliar to anything we would understand. In her novel, the author offers more than just a critique of feminism as the issue of feminism is imbued into her work.…

    • 1128 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays