Poem 258-The Victims

A.) Sharon Olds poem "The Victims" is a personal account by a child that is now an adult and is reminiscing and venting on her childhood. I am going to refer to the speaker as her though it is not stated that the speaker and the poet are one and the same. The speaker is one of a couple of children who witnessed a bad relationship between their parents and were glad when their mother finally kicked their father out. The poem begins in the past tense discussing "when Mother divorced you" and how the kids were relieved and happy. The poem then changes to present tense as the child transitions to speaking as an adult and the mood somewhat changes to one of disappointment and loss from the previous spite. There is no real order to the poem which represents how the speaker is angry and resentful and just wants to get her words out and finally reach closure on her feelings. The sentences are all run-on and the speaker somewhat rambles to get her thoughts and memories out. There are odd breaks in the sentences indicating the speaker's emotional response to having to write out these suppressed feelings that she has obviously held with her for quite some time. The father in the poem seems to have been abusive in some way though it is not clear whether it was physical, verbal, or through neglect. I interpreted that the father was neglectful of his family, always choosing work over them, and possibly had affairs judging by the line, "your secretaries taken away,"(Olds 8). As an adult, the speaker seems more matter-of-fact and cold toward her father, basically feeling that he got what he deserved and now that so much time has passed there really is not much of a chance of ever reconciling their relationship. The mood of the second half is much more somber, accepting, and final symbolizing how the speaker has come to terms with the essential loss of any chance of a relationship with her father and her acceptance of the fact that he was selfish and only punished himself in the end. The switch from past to present tense adds to the finality of the situation and the overall fact that the speaker is done with concerning herself over her father. It is clear through the partially rushed sentences and many memories that the speaker wants to move past this disappointment and just look forward now. The structure adds to the somber mood of acceptance and need to express her repressed feelings.

B.) This poem utilizes a couple of literary devices including allusion, repition, and word choice that add to its meaning. The poet references Nixon's Watergate scandal in the lines, "Then you were fired, and we/ grinned inside, the way people grinned when/ Nixon's helicopter lifted off the South/ Lawn for the las time"(3-6). The father in the poem was compared to Nixon in that the father was the head of the household and Nixon was the head of the country and both failed to meet the standards of the people who relied on them. Both the father and Nixon were let-downs and the people around them both were happy to see them leave. The repitition in the lines "She took it and/ took it, in silence, all those years...(1-2) symbolize just how strained and emotionally taxing on the children the relationship between the parents was. This is repeated again later in the poem when the speaker is discussing how she sees bums on the street and wonders "who took it and took it from them in silence until they had/ given it all away..."(23-24) reminding the reader that she does not forget just how hurt she was by her father's behavior. The speaker mentions a list of things that were taken away when her father was fired such as the secretaries and the luncheons indicating just how much joy the children got out of seeing their father lose everything. The speaker seems very pleased to see these material possessions that were chosen over her and her family taken away from her father. She clearly feels that her father truly lost 'everything' when he lost his family but he was too selfish to see that and only really felt the pain when he lost his material goods. "Would they take your/ suits back, too, those dark/ carcasses hung in your closet"(11-13). This line particularly stuck out to me because the reference to dark carcasses in the closet evoked the connotation of skeletons in the closet which adds to my feeling that the father had affairs while on the job. The comparison of the bums which she calls "slugs" to her father emphasizes the extreme feelings of dislike and lack of respect for him. Although the second part of the poem is more sad than angry, it is not sadness directed toward the father but sadness directed at the fact that things had to turn out the way they did.

C.) I really liked this poem because I found it to be one of the most powerful that I have read so far. It is easy to put oneself in the speaker's shoes because she makes it so personal and specific that you feel like you are a part of her life. It is also easy to understand her emotions especially in today's society where divorce is so common and relationships are often times very strained and lack communication. This poem displayed just how badly a child can be affected by seeing this kind of neglectful relationship throughout their childhood and how pent up emotions can cause a great deal of psychological stress. The random pauses greatly assisted in representing what an emotional trauma the speaker has carried with her since childhood. The speaker clearly has bottled up her feelings toward her father and is finally releasing these pent up emotions so as to move on and reach closure on her loss of relationship.