Journey to the Interior –
Margaret Atwood
Sound
Effects
Read the poem aloud.
Comment on the Sound Effects, verbal music. It’s rhyme. Rhythm and
melody. Assonance, alliteration. onomatopoeia. etc. (Blending repetition
patterns. slow/fast movement, harsh, discordant, sibilance, sotto,
allegro, Rhapsodic, lyrical, elegiac, upbeat, blue,
staccato, dirge, ode, Melody. tone. mood. atmosphere. voice.
This is a subtle, many
layered poem with nuances that may be contradictory and therefore wide open to
multiple interpretations. The dream like (surreal) mood is created by a
pensive, reflective musing tone, at times morbid or melancholic. Written
in post-modern style with multiple allusions and disparate images, it
communicates in lateral thinking rather than logical sequential
processes. The free verse with few euphonic or melodious words evokes
sombre responses. The intimate conversational voice of the persona
seductively engages the responder inclusively with involvement and
identification .
II
Subject Matter
The poet (persona) is
embarking on an imaginary or inner journey and compares it to that of an
explorer broaching new undiscovered, unchartered and unmapped territory. (A
Heart of Darkness) It is the inner mind, minus its public face or mask
interiorising, re-evaluating, analysing the purpose and direction of life
While the similarities
of a voyage of discovery are more tangible and concrete, the differences
suggest intangible or metaphysical aspects of the interior life.
III
Themes
The inner life is
complex and if delved into too deeply can be confronting, demoralising and
depressing, leading to madness, even self harm.
Life can be absurd,
meaningless, directionless, even futile.
Sensory perceptions and
rational thought processes are not always reliable to gain true self-insight
rather a holistic emotional and lateral thinking are needed.
Language can be
inadequate or an obstacle to express the depth of our feelings.
IV.
TECHNIQUE
Structure: linear, circular, episodic, flash backs,
climatic. Images: (visual, auditory,
o1factory, tactile, ,gustatory) figures of speech: similes,
metaphors, personification, analogy, synecdoche, contrast, antithesis, unity,
irony, Allusions, etc
Clearly two stanzas, one
of similarities juxtaposed with the differences between a physical Journey and
an introspective one. There is an element of Déjà vu in the “a
fallen log I’m sure I passed yesterday”.
Images : Hills - deceptive - an
optical illusion – mirage?
Swamps,
poor country - suggestion of a deprived upbringing?
Cliff –
deceptively smooth from a distance.
Squares (of
maps) circles – globes – “walking in circles”
Tangle
of branches, brambles, sodden log, all nuisance –
impediments
Light
and dark - bi-polar experiences of life.
Maps,
charts, compasses - No reliable answers in dogma or formulae
Shoe
among brambles under chair – careless or neglect?
Lucent
white mushrooms - trance- hallucinatory?
Paring knife - dual function of: sustenance
or death – affirmation or denial of life.
Sentence crossing my path – futility of language no communication.
Sun – archetype of law,
reason regularity. Not in modern absurd world.
V.
LANGUAGE:
Approach: Subjective/Objective, Attitude or Tone, Audience, Style:
diction, word play, puns, connotative/denotative, emotive
(coloured biased,) /demotive, (technical, dispassionate) clichés,
proverbial, idiomatic, expressive, flat, Jargon, euphemisms,
pejorative, oxymoron. Gender biases. Register:
formal, stiff, dignified or Colloquial; relaxed, conversational,
inclusive, friendly or Slang; colourful, intimate, Rhetorical
devices; Questions, exclamations, cumulation,
crescendo, inversion, bathos, repetition, 3 cornered
phrases.
As the subject is
ruminative, the approach is intensely subjective, private, personal and
intimate as indicated by the language, especially first and second person
pronouns.
The
possessive, “your shoe” is inclusive and universal seducing us
to identify and accept the situation as similar to our own.
The informal register,
colloquial language and lack of proverbs, axioms or rhetoric combine to create
a relaxed appealing introspective mood.
The major repetition the
demonstrative adjective, “that” (six times) which not only
identifies but distinguishes.
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