Spelling by Margaret Atwood free essay sample

Chen Mrs. Mekhala MYP Year 5 Language Arts April 3, 2013 Poem Analysis on â€Å"Spelling† Margaret Atwood’s Spelling is a sophisticated and emotional poem. Like much of Atwood’s poetry, it has one central objective deeply rooted in her feminist beliefs. She aims firstly at the women in history by expressing the horrors of the low social status of women and how they were tortured in war; then she explains that education is what gives women the power to stand up for themselves and fight for freedom and convinces more people to start receiving education. She denies the ideas of â€Å"housewives† and â€Å"daughters† and explains it is what keeps the female gender weak throughout history. Atwood convinces the readers to abduct this old view of females and understand the importance of education. She does this through appalling sensual images, attitude shifts and connotations to the reader and describes a volcano eruption with clear sensory language, making this poem one of the most powerful poem in history. The shocking impression Atwood uses to portray the tormented women in history is given more strength by the remarkable range of poetic devices and sensual languages she uses, including metaphor, choice of diction and sensual appeals. These devices add power to the poem and its effect on the reader by producing and emphasizing the impression Atwood wanted: of a female in history burnt in the stalks with leather stuffed in her mouth because of wizardry, or a female prisoner of war tortured and killed with no ability to speak or fight for herself. Atwood collaborates a wide range of words to express her impression on feminist ideas. She opens with her daughter trying to learn how to spell. This child is most likely going to receive education, but she is too young and does not realize that. The poet then mentions â€Å"red, blue and hard yellow,† these are primary colors, which are colors that can recombine to any color that exists. Just as a few simple letters could also reintegrate to form all the words in English. Then, the poet mentions her daughter is learning â€Å"how to make spells. The word â€Å"Spells† used here mean words but also has a connotation of magic and sorcery. It represents her daughter’s imagination, combining letters together like experimenting or an adventure. In the next stanza, â€Å"daughters† has a different meaning from the most common known definition. Instead of meaning a girl in relation to her parents, it represents the common figure of a women at that time period, which is a housewife. â€Å"Mainline† is word often used for drug addicts when injecting drugs, this word symbolizes lust and hunger. It can strongly express the feeling of a woman who wants to receive education in a time period of sexism and prejudice. When the â€Å"ancestress† was burnt to death, the poet did not mean her ancestress, but all the females in history treated cruelly. This technique made this extremely easy to visualize, bringing the reader back in time to the darkest ages in history for women. This shocks the reader and subverts masculism and sexist ideologies applied by masculist writers. Atwood also applies metaphor in this poem. The poet takes us to a scene of a volcano eruption. In Atwood’s language, we feel the sophisticated dread and the strength of nature impact on our hearts. It describes how it feels when one cannot express her feelings with words, the language is so poor that it â€Å"falls away from hot bones, at the point were the rock breaks open and darkness flows out of it like blood, at the melting point of granite† This description can refer to the ancestress in the last stanza, burnt with her mouth sealed with leather. The word â€Å"witch† means they were performing wizardry, or something against social norms, which is the reason they are killed. This â€Å"witch† is compared to the poet’s daughter in the first stanza, experimenting with education. Atwood uses this to represent the women who tried to express their ideas, but were forced to be silenced forever. Although human bones, the strongest structure of the body, cannot withstand fire, it is still not the end. Just as it is not the end of a stone when it is melt to magma. After the suffering of high temperature, the stone will become more solid and tough. Just like human, without going through pain and confronting their weaknesses, there is no meaning or power. Atwood emphasizes her final point in this stanza: One must confront their weaknesses in order to let the body itself able to speak. The final main approach Atwood uses is the comparison of attitudes between the last and first stanza. It brings the reader back to the word learning process, but not with toys. â€Å"How do you learn to spell? † The answer is not longer plastic letters, or letters. but â€Å"Blood, sky the sun,† The blood that flows in women nature, the part of sky that women should have and the sun to shine on everyone. Learning to spell is not a game or adventure anymore, but the gain of education and power. This stanza is strongly supported by the phrase Atwood used in the previous stanzas â€Å"A word after a word after a word is power. † This phrase is powerful and leaves the reader realizing the true power of knowing to speak. Spelling is a poem of many layers and approaches but only one main objective, all rooted in the poet’s feminist beliefs. She uses strong sensual images created by metaphors, connotations and attitude shifts to achieve her main goals of expressing the importance of education to women in history. This poem, with its powerful statements and shocking imagery, is one of the most strongest feminist poem ever written.