Sunday, April 3, 2011

you fit into me Margaret Atwood

My mom is a big sewer. When I was little all my St. John's skirts she sewed by hand. It's weird to talk about that but that how I saw the first two lines of the poem. "you fit into me/ like a hook into an eye". There are pictures down below that would maybe help a reader understand what it looks like. The most common hook and eye would be at the very bottom, ladies would probably see this to button a bra.  Atwood uses symbols to describe the speaker's relationship. She uses a common hook and eye, like what you would find on a dress, to illustrate compatibility. Two human beings fit together like a hook and eye, peanut butter and jelly, macaroni and cheese, a fat kid and cake- there are many others.  But then there is an enjambment, and then an explanation: this is not the hook and eye first imagined, it is painful. The lines "a fish hook/ An open eye"show how this would be a helpless relationship where the partners injured one another. The first line makes me think positively upon the situation, but then ends hopelessly. The couple has manajed to not fit together anymore but actually hurt one another.

See full size image

1 comment:

  1. You are one of two bloggers who have pointed out the dual meaning of the hook and eye. Good work!

    ReplyDelete