Poem Outline - Chapter 8 - "Siren Song" by Margaret Atwood

In "Siren Song" by Margaret Atwood, a siren speaks in first person to a passing man, asking if he wishes to learn her song and therefore killing him in the end.


The use of a siren from Greek mythology calls to mind how a woman can lure a man to her using a seemingly helpless facade and by making him feel that he can help her.

• "I don't enjoy it here / squatting on this island" (13-14)

The siren calls out to the man saying that she does not like her island. The idea of "squatting" sounds uncomfortable, extending her dislike of the island into a physical discomfort as well as a mental one. This image can allude to how a woman may try to make a man feel as if she is uncomfortable in her current situation and that she wants a change in her life.

• "This song / is a cry for help: Help me! / Only you, only you can, / you are unique / at last" (21-25)

The siren explains to the man that she sings so that she can be helped to escape. The use for the command "Help me!" emphasizes how serious she is about this endeavor. She instructs the man to help her and then continues to make him feel that he is needed by saying that he is the only one who can save her. When the siren tells the man "you are unique" it is in response to him learning the song and telling him he is the only one who knows it and also that he is the only one who can save her. Adding "at last" makes it seem as if the man was trying to become unique and finally succeeded on his quest.


The diction in the poem points to how sirens are portrayed in mythology.

• "looking picturesque and mythical" (15)

The siren describes herself as "looking picturesque and mythical". Picturesque relates to her beauty, for sirens are described as beautiful young maidens who sing to lure in men. The idea that she describes herself as "mythical" points to the idea that she knows that she is partially fictitious and lives in the mind of those who see her.

• "fatal and valuable" (18)

The trio of sirens is described as "fatal and valuable". The part about them being fatal exposes their dark side: the fact that they kill those who are lured in by their song. It should be noted that "anyone who has heard [the song] is dead" (9). This ties in with the mention of  men leaping "overboard [...] even though they see beached skulls", for the men cannot control themselves around the song of the siren (5-6). This is shown in The Odyssey and many other Greek stories. Describing her and the other two sirens as valuable places importance on them all. It gives them the quality of needing respect.

The poem itself can be interpreted as the song that the siren sings to the man.

• "This is the one song everyone / would like to learn" (1-2)

The siren starts the poem saying this line. There are two explanations to this. The "this" could be referring to the title, as if the siren knows that the poem is titled "Siren Song" and points to this as a base for the poem. "This" could also be referring directly to the poem as if to say that the poem that she is telling to the reader is the song of the siren. This can be explained by the end of the poem.

• "Alas / it is a boring song / but it works every time" (25-27)

This ending seems to support the idea that the poem itself is the titular "Siren Song". The siren says "but it works every time", suggesting that the man who she was just speaking to was killed by her and the two other sirens just like the others. She seems genuinely full of pity towards the man she kills and those she has killed before, expressed through her use of "alas" at the start of the sentence. She finds the song "boring" because she has sung it so many times and repeated it to so many man over the years.

Poem Outline - Chapter 7 - "Sorting Laundry" by Elisavietta Ritchie

In "Sorting Laundry" by Elisavietta Ritchie, a woman is folding laundry while thinking about her relationship, using each piece to talk about another aspect of the relationship.


The metaphors and similes in the poem express the relationship of the speaker and her partner and the uncertainty starts to build.

• "Folding clothes, / I think of folding you / into my life" (1-3)

The speaker compares folding clothes with starting a relationship. Folding means not only folding on top of one another like with clothes but it also means to mix gently with another ingredient. When she says "folding you / into my life" the you is her partner, and she is speaking about having to learn to mix her life with her partners.

• "Our king-sized sheets / like tablecloths / for the banquets of giants" (4-5)

The idea that the sheets are "king-sized" represents the fact that a relationship is something bigger than just one person, it needs two people. In this simile, if the sheets are tablecloths, the bed would be the table. The giants would be looking down at them, which could represent judgement. This starts a motif of using the bed as a symbol.

• "Myriad uncoupled socks / which went paired into the foam / like those creatures from the ark" (22-24)

The idea that the socks "went paired into the foam" but came out "uncoupled" represents how relationships break up when there are tough times. "Myriad" emphasizes just how many relationships have this outcome. Comparing the socks to "creatures from the ark" seems contradictory since the animals were able to stay together, but the socks became separated.



The symbolism digs into the deeper feelings of the relationship.

• "Pillowcases, despite so many / washings, seams still / holding our dreams" (7-9)

The pillowcases represent the hardiness of the relationship. They hold up "despite so many / washings" and the seams have not broken. The pillows hold "dreams", which relates to the act of dreaming and the goals of a relationship. This is another example of the bed motif.

• "Well-washed dollars, legal tender / for all debts public and private, / intact despite agitation" (34-36)

The dollars represent relationships in general. The idea that they are "legal tender" explains that they are all viable for success. Relationships are both "public and private" like money is. The idea that the money is still "intact despite agitation" even after being "well-washed" displays that relationships can get through rough patches sometimes and even after many instances of rough patches they can still be strong.

• "The strangely tailored shirt / left by a former lover" (41-42)

The shirt represents the unsure feelings that the speaker holds towards her partner. She isn't sure exactly where the shirt came from, which is unsettling. The fact that the shirt is "strangely tailored" also adds to its obscurity in the speaker's eyes.




The overstatement at the end of the poem wraps up the idea of how devastated the speaker would be if she was left by her partner.

• "If you were to leave me [...] / a mountain of unsorted wash / could not fill / the empty side of the bed" (43-51)

The poem's length, which is quite long, supports this overstatement. The speaker seems to be folding many pieces of clothing, many of them belonging to her partner, so if those were gone there would not be enough clothes. The "empty side of the bed" is not only the literal bedside being empty, but it also acts as the empty space that her partner leaving would cause in her life.

Poem Outline - Chapter 3 - "Pathedy of Manners" by Ellen Kay

In "Pathedy of Manners" by Ellen Kay, a woman is viewed by the narrator as this woman's her life goes by, telling of the choices that she makes and how her life turns out because of them.

The word choice in the poem tries to be something it isn't, like the woman in the story, and therefore seems unfitting or unsettling in their contexts.

• "She learned the cultured jargon" (5)

"Cultured jargon" is a set of words with two possible meanings. Cultured is an adjective that means refined, but it can also refer to something with an artificial nature. Jargon is a term that means the language of a group, - in this case the upper class - but it can also mean unintelligible, meaningless talk. Therefore, "cultured jargon" can either mean "enlightened and refined speech" or "artificial and unintelligent speech". The first definition of this set of words refers to how most people view the upper class and the way they talk about life, growing up in comfortable homes without poverty. The second definition of this set of words refers to how the woman, who is intelligent, has to dumb herself down to fit in with those who speak the language of the rich.

• "They had an ideal marriage, and ideal / But lonely children in an ideal house" (15-16)

The use of the word "ideal" reveals that the woman's situation seems like it would be just that, "ideal", but in her eyes it is not. The repetition of the word "ideal" makes the word become dull and meaningless after so many uses, when other adjectives could have done the same or even a better job of describing the elements in her life. This sentence seems almost like the chatter of those who are watching her life and wanting to be her, talking to each other about this woman and her "ideal marriage" and her "ideal / ... children" and her "ideal house". The one unhappy word here is "lonely", which is slipped in as an almost afterthought in the list before talking about her "children". The use of the word lonely shows isolation and sadness, breaking the vision of an "ideal" life.

There are words in the poem that appear more than once and bear significance to different parts of the poem.

• "At twenty she was brilliant and adored... sought for every dance" (1-2). "A hundred people call, though not one friend, / ... She will walk / Alone in brilliant circles to the end" (25-28).

The word "brilliant" is used only two times in the whole poem: once at the beginning and once at the end. Both lines happen to start with the letter "a" as well. However, these two sentences show the change between the woman at twenty years old and the woman at forty-three years old. Brilliant is first used to describe the woman herself. She was "adored", regarded highly and admired by many, and people wanted to be around her. They all wanted her so badly, they even "sought" her out specifically. Brilliant is later used to describe the metaphorical circles that the woman will walk "to the end", or until she dies. She is no longer adored like she was twenty-three years ago, for she is now alone with "not one friend". She has gone from being on top in school to being on top in real life, but with the change of how people saw her. The circles are the memories of her hopes and dreams, what she wanted to accomplish, that which she feels she no longer can.

• "Those bred / To antique crystal and authentic pearls" (5-6). "A bright young man whose pearl cufflinks were real" (14).

Pearls are mentioned in the poem as a symbol of the upper class and their lineage. Both times, the credibility of the pearls are stated outright, for they are told to be "authentic pearls" and then the woman's husband was a "man whose pearl cufflinks were real". Validating the pearls emphasizes that they are of real value, and the fact that the woman's husband has real pearls has come to be seen as a symbol of the fact that he is part of the upper class and has wealth.

The woman's life started to take a turn for the worse as she let others interfere, and word-choice is also able to expose this.

• "And when she might have thought, conversed instead" (8).

Instead of using her mind and thinking about life, the woman started to slip into the world of socialites. She begins to spend her time learning rituals of the upper class, no longer leaving time to engage her mind in thought.

• "She shuns conviction, choosing to infer / Tenets of every mind except her own" (23-24).

This woman who once had such a wonderful mind full of intelligence now doesn't trust herself enough to use it anymore. Instead of taking in a fixed structure of an idea, a "conviction", the woman would rather have an inference from someone else. She trusts others more than her own mind. "Tenets" is a word that means an opinion, especially one held as true to members of a group. Saying that the woman would rather get the opinions, of other members of the upper class shows that she wants to assimilate to be like them, and no longer wishes to have her own opinions. The woman had changed the way she spoke earlier on when she "learned the cultured jargon" but now she has changed the way she thinks to no longer reflect her own opinions (5). Both the words "jargon" and "tenet" refer in their definitions to being something for a specific group, such as the upper class. The fact that these types of words keep being used show how the woman is blending into the group and not watching the world around her, only focusing on becoming like those she sees around her most.

Poem Outline - Chapter 2 - "Mirror" by Sylvia Plath

In "Mirror" by Sylvia Plath, the personification of reflective surfaces gives an original look at  places and people through the perspective of mirrors that see the world around them and how they affect people overtime.

The use of a mirror as the narrator of the poem allows for a non-judgmental viewpoint.

• "I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions" (1).

A mirrors surface is silver and reflective, showing whatever is put in front of it exactly as it is. A mirror cannot change these things that it sees, it just shows them as they are. Mirrors cannot judge, they cannot be prejudiced towards what it sees.

• "Whatever I see I swallow immediately / Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike. / I am not cruel, only truthful" (2-4).  

Mirrors "swallow" the images around them to reflect their surroundings. They do so because that's what they were made to do, so they cannot choose what to see based on "love or dislike". They cannot be mean because of this, and they can only reflect what is actually there, the truth.

The diction in the poem is dark and morbid.

• "She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands" (14).

The line is telling of how, when the woman stares into the lake, she starts to cry and bats away the image on the water's surface.  The juxtaposition of "rewards" and "tears" is unusual and unsettling, for rewards are supposed to be happy and given to someone when they have done well. The woman is unhappy with what she sees, but the lake sees her "tears" and "agitation of hands" as a reward to the lake for showing her the truth.

• "In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman / Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish" (17-18).

The lake has seen this woman age over time, for she was once a "young girl". Over time, the girl has grown into a woman and her young self is "drowned", for she will never be that young again. "Day after day" sounds monotonous due to it's alliteration and emphasizes the fact that the woman comes by each day to see her reflection, yet never gets desired results. To the woman, her reflection is like that of a "terrible fish", for as she cranes her head over the water, the reflection looks as if it is not bowing towards the water, but rising up to stare back at her.

The syntax and diction of the poem make it seem slow and calming, yet also deep and dark.

• There are many periods in the poem, more than there are commas. Many of the lines stop at the ends.

The periods seem to leave the ends of sentences hanging, even though they are supposed to stop them. They are like cliffhangers at the ends of sentences, because the sentence that came before them seem to need more support to make total sense.

• The lines are long and, even with stops, draw themselves out with their words.

"Over and over" in line 9 and "day after day" in line 18 drag out the poem. The use of "each morning" makes the poem feel like it takes place over many days.

Poem Outline - Chapter 1 - "The Eagle" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

"The Eagle" is a majestic and dynamic poem that describes the life and flight of an eagle in an outlook that is fresh and intense.

Alliteration is used the most in the first stanza of the poem.

• "He clasps the crag with crooked hands;" (1).

The alliteration of the words "clasps" "crag" and "crooked" all have a hard "c" sound, which feels edgy and points to the hard, tough life of the eagle.

• "lonely lands" (2). 

The use of the "l" sound ties the words together to create a greater sense of how alone the eagle in in his solitary life.

The structure and rhyme used in the poem both bring the stanzas of the poem together and yet separate it into two parts as well.

• "hands" (1), "lands" (2), "stands" (3); "crawls" (4), "walls" (5), "falls" (6)

The rhyme scheme makes each stanza stick out and seem separate. The first three lines are meant to be together and so are the second three. Yet, the first and second stanza are connected by way of talking about the "azure world", the water around the eagle, and then "the wrinkled sea", also the water around the eagle.

• " He clasps the crag with crooked hands;" (1), "The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;" (4)

The first line of each stanza ends with a semicolon. This semicolon separates this sentence from the rest of the stanza, for the other two lines end in a comma and then a period. However, the sentences with semicolons set up the idea of each stanza. The first line is centered around the eagle and how he is standing and the fourth line is talking about his surroundings.

The imagery used in the poem makes the poem lively and unique.

• "close to the sun lonely lands" (2), "azure world" (3), "wrinkled sea" (4)

The descriptive words used in these quotes help to describe the world that the eagle lives in. A lonely place, desolate, and dry, due to the closeness of the sun. Yet there is the sea surrounding him, with a rich color of blue and waves like wrinkles.

• "and like a thunderbolt he falls" (6)

Just like a thunderbolt, a flying eagle is agile, quick, and sharp; it plummets towards the ground at great speeds. However, the word "fall" seems graceful and elegant, juxtaposing with the idea of a flashy, jolting thunderbolt.