The Victims by Sharon Olds

In this poem, the main message is a commentary on our society where divorce is prevalent and how difficult it is for the people affected by the divorce to deal with it. In the beginning of the poem, the speaker appears to be a young child telling his/her experience with the divorce. The speaker is angry towards the father, "when mother divorced you, we were glad" (1). The "we" represents the family members who endured the same hardships the speaker did. The line "she took it and/ took it, in silence, all those years" (1-2) references to an act of abuse whether it be physical or verbal or even total silence. The poem later comments on the father's job which leaves the reader to believe that the father was possibly a workaholic and was never home to spend time with his family. The family is so bitter towards the father that when he was fired, "we grinned inside" (4-5). When the father was fired, Olds uses a simile to Nixon. Nixon, the father of the country at the time, and the father of the poem, both head of a nation and head of a household both had to leave due to the failure of fulfilling their duties. Another aspect that contributed to the father being a workaholic is the mention of his suits in line 11. The speaker only remembers her father's identity as being tied into the suits. It also means that it would be end to the years of silence. The mother of the family is basically out to destroy the father's image. She turns the children against him, "She had taught us to take it, to hate you and take it until we pricked with her for your annihilation" (15-17). There is also a shift from past tense to present tense in the poem. In the present tense the speaker compares her father to the bums on the street as the bums are nothing and no one cares for them. The bums are also a metaphor that the father lost "everything". The line "ships gone down" (22) also is a reference to the father. The poem begins with the speaker giving off the sense that he/she is extremely hurt by the father's actions or lack of. The poem however takes a twist and ends with the speaker wondering who really was the victim. I felt sympathy towards the father by the end of the poem, because his life is completely ruined. The bums, I believe are what instilled that feeling of sympathy towards him in me. I myself believe in second chance and I feel that here in this situation he deserves one. I also feel sympathy towards the children or are being raised by the mother. The mother is acting childish in this situation and brainwashing the children into hating their father.
I chose this poem, through the process of once again flipping to a random page and choosing from the poems presented to me on that page. Adieu, Farewell, Earth's Bliss was ruled out for it was too long. What gramma said about her grandpa was a cute poem but not very fun to analyze. That left me with The Victims. I actually liked this poem and how well it related to society today. In a divorce, everyone is a victim. It also comments how the divorce affects everyone for the rest of their lives. I liked how Old's, through her writing, got the reader to feel sympathetic not only towards the speaker but also towards the father whom the mother tries so hard to destroy his image.

To an Athlete Dying Young by A. E. Housman

The speaker of this poem is a resident of the town in which the athlete resided. The message of the story is that the only way a person can capture glory and make it last is to die young. It has an even greater affect on people if the person achieves greatness before they die young. This allows the person to live forever in the minds of the people remembering him. They remember him at his highest level of standing. He also receives more sympathy over the fact that he died when he was young and never got to experience everything in life. Housman suggests to the reader that the later years of life are boring and wearisome. In the line "Smart lad, to slip betimes away/ From fields where glory does not stay" (9-10) he praises the young athlete for dying before his glory faded. Eternal life in people's minds seems to be given to those that die at a relatively young age. Housman uses rhyme in his poem to make the poem more likeable to the reader. Many of the lines in the poem appear to be in some form of iambic pentameter as well. This is seen in the first stanza. Alliteration is seen in line one "the time you won your town the race", "road all runners" (5), "townsman of a stiller town" (8), "silence sounds" (15), "runners whom renown outran" (19), and "fleet foot" (22). "Silence sounds" is also an oxymoron. Finally, synecdoche is seen in the line "Fleet foot on the sill of shade" where the foot represents the entire body.
In the process of choosing a poem to write about, I decided to just flip to a page. This round of flipping, I had the choice of either To an Athlete Dying Young or Bredon Hill also by A. E. Housman. I chose the athlete one because I liked the rhyming pattern better then the other poem's. It was more pleasing to the ear along with being more pleasing to the eye. I also like how the poem's message pointed out a true statement about society. It is genuinely true that people who die young receive more praise and attention after their death then those who die old.

On Reading Poems to a Senior Class at South High by D. C. Berry

With this poem, the readers discovers so much before the poem itself it is even read just by simply knowing the title. The title here sets a foundation to what the reader should expect when reading the poem. One knows that the speaker is an outsider who coming to speak to the senior class and has no connection with the school. The reader also knows that the speaker is well-known for his speaking and very practiced in what he does based off the fact that he/she was invited to come. One also gets the sense that the speaker is not looking forward to speaking to the Senior class and feels that he/she is too mature for them. All of this is confirmed in the first stanza. He starts off with the line "Before/ I opened my mouth" (1-2) where he seems to have prepared himself for the stereotypical bored and indifferent faces of the seniors. He also refers to them as "frozen fish" highlighting the students unhappiness of being there. The third stanza of the poem, which is also the largest stanza hides the primary irony of the poem. In the line "and then I heard the sounds/ of fish in an aquarium" (10-11) it appears that the speaker is attempting to eliminate the students which comments on the fact that he is insecure reading in front of them. He feels that by having anything to do with the class, he feels he will be held back. He attempts to find delight in the poems he is reading to ignore this "tried to drown them with my words" (13-14). Unexpectedly however, the class "opened up" to what he was saying. The students simply want to be at the same place he is at while reading the poem. But because of the speaker's attitude towards them he does not see it that way. He feels that they are only doing this out of force, not because they want to. A transition occurs within the poem in stanza four, where the speaker and the students unite into a "we". They go through the experience of the poems together. Alliteration is seen here with the words "thirty tails" and "whacking words". The speaker shed his views of the students and because of this, he ventures into their world. He learned something in the art in which he supposedly mastered from people who he originally thought were ignorant. Even after the bell rang, and the students returned to their classes, he was left in awe and continued to be affected by the experience. This poem began with a terribly pessimistic outlook that ironically evolved into something completely unexpected.
I chose this poem because I liked the change in attitudes the author incorporated into it. The poem basically started out with a very experienced speaker called to read poems to his notion of ignorant high school students turns into a lesson where he learns that there is still room for him to learn things and this knowledge comes in many forms. I also liked how he used the title to set the foundation of the poem. His creative usage of other things, such as the fish reference instead of the students, also impressed me.

A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man

A theme that was apparent within the novel was the theme of flight. I discovered through some research on this novel that Stephen Dedalus's very name involves the idea of flight. A figure from Greek Mythology was named Daedalus. Daedalus was known for the designing of the Labyrinth of Crete for King Minos. Daedalus was imprisoned along with his son Icarus by Minos, however Daedalus created wings out of feathers, twine, and wax for means of escape. Daedalus escapes successfully, but his son dies from flying too close to the sun. In the novel, Stephen can be seen in both Daedulus and Icarus. Throughout the novel, the theme of balance is also apparent. Stephen learns that he must balance his desire to escape Ireland's political and religious restrictions while staying true to himself. He endures many ups and downs trying to find this balance. He starts out at following his family's opinion of religion and politics. He then goes to one extreme where he commits sin knowing that it is against the church. He soon follows with the other extreme of pure dedication to the church. He soon sees that both ways of living are unhealthy. After spending sometime at the University he realizes that it is his time to leave and go into exile to develop his ideas of being an artist. The birds that appear to Stephen in the third section of Chapter five signal that it is finally time for him, now a fully developed artist, to take flight himself.



I actually enjoyed this novel in the beginning. However as the novel progressed and the words continued to get more and more wordier, that enjoyment slowly disappeared. I liked the beginning because I enjoy reading stream of consciousness type writing when it is in simple terms. An example of this is Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. It is a whole lot easier to just let go and read the novel. Once the words lose their simpleness, which in this case was as he matured and discovered listening to his individual thoughts, it really just became a different, complicated novel. When reading, it took me forever to get past one page because I would have to keep re reading and re reading everything to understand what Stephen was saying. I also did not like the mature, grown up Stephen's character. He was seemed to be thinking only about himself and appeared to be a little obnoxious with his opinions on religion and Ireland as a whole. All in all I would rate this book a six. The beginning was great; the end and the character of Stephen Deadalus, not so much.

"26 April: I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race.
27 April: Old father, old artificer, stand me now and ever in good stead"

The quote above if from the very end of the novel where Stephen decides to become an artist for the rest of his life. He strives to be an artist whose individual consciousness will be the foundation of all of his work. He wants to create a voice for his community. Stephen's mission is reinforced by the words "old father" and which represents Ireland's past. His role in art is emphasized with the words "old artificer". Stephen hopes that through his art, he will be able to benefit himself along with his community whom is now getting a voice. I chose this quote because I really liked the language James Joyce incorporated. There are so many other words he could have used to write this, but they would not sound as "nice" or flow as smoothly as the words he chose here. I also liked the vast contrast between this page versus the first page of the novel. It made me laugh to think about how the novel started off with "moo cows" and bed wetting and then ended with such deep thoughts.

Siren Song by Margaret Atwood

The poem Siren Song by Margaret Atwood is a poem about beautiful woman who sing a beautiful song that entices men to come save them which ultimately leads to their death from crashing their boats into the jagged, rough rock around the island where they end up drowning to death. The poem starts out with the lines "This is the one song everyone/ would like to learn: the song/ that is irresistible" (1-3). This comments on society of how a lot of woman desire to be beautiful and use their beauty to attract men. Every female at some point in their life dreams of being rescued by a cute male or even to have power over that male. In the beginning of the poem, the reader gets the sense that it is someone who has witnessed the acts of the sirens and the male rescuers is speaking. However it ends up that the speaker of the poem is a Siren herself. This shift is seen in line ten of the poem. She tells the tale of her life as a Siren and appears to be bored with what she does. The story she tells in the poem leaves the reader at the end feeling sympathetic towards the life of a siren. The poem is like the siren's song itself. It entices the reader to give the siren sympathy. However when one sits back and thinks about this (like I just did myself) one sees that really, the siren does not deserve any sympathy. Day after day she leads men on with her song, which always ends up leading to their death. It has been proven through history that it is man's nature to save a woman in trouble and by the man doing so he typically suffers for it. Atwood comments on the stereotypes that women are helpless, weak, and passive. And yet, at the same time dangerous when it comes to men and trapping them into commitment. But Atwood writes the poem from the women's point of view and that in reality it is the men that are the cause of their own death for always wanting to be the hero and save the woman. The siren's in this song also give off the aura of being somewhat fake. "The bird suit" makes me think of a mascot costume, where the person wearing it has to be something that they are not. The siren's are trapped in this suit of beauty where after being bored and tired of the power they have over men, they want to escape. It is a lose-lose situation for both parties. The poem also leaves the reader questioning the lines "...This song/ is a cry for help: Help me!" (20-21). Does the siren want to be rescued from her fate of being trapped as the person she is or is it a trick, where like the men, she is just leading the reader on? Atwood uses more of a psychological approach to get the attention of the reader instead of a lot of literary devices. In the poem, there is a lot of repetition of the words "the song" where it is seen in almost every stanza.
I have always enjoyed reading Margaret Atwood's novels. Like the novels, I also thouroughly enjoyed reading this poem. I love the way she creatively writes her things. She does it differently then other authors and has her own unique style. I also liked the message of this poem because it could be looked at from two different perspectives. Sorry if my thoughts are all over the place in this one. I just kept thinking of new things to say and found it very difficult to organize all of it.