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Question: Poem analysis of the Moment by Margaret Atwood!?
Hey guys,so I have to analyze this poem for an assignment for lit!.
The moment when, after many years
of hard work and a long voyage
you stand in the centre of your room,
house, half-acre, square mile, island, country,
knowing at last how you got there,
and say, I own this,
is the same moment when the trees unloose
their soft arms from around you,
the birds take back their language,
the cliffs fissure and collapse,
the air moves back from you like a wave
and you can't breathe!.
No, they whisper!. You own nothing!.
You were a visitor, time after time
climbing the hill, planting the flag, proclaiming!.
We never belonged to you!.
You never found us!.
It was always the other way round!.
So I was thinking that the first stanza, is about the moment when you finally achieve the goal that you have been working for your whole life!.
The second stanza, is like getting an understanding of the moment!. also, by putting it in perspective by comparing it with things that have ALWAYS been there!. For example, "the birds take back their language"!. Birds have always had their voices,but you never realized it, let alone appreciated it, because you were too busy or simply too ignorant!. Does that make any sense!?
Finally, the third stanza is questioning your achievement!. You will never be able to own nature!.
please help! comments, suggestions, or input would be amazing! thank you in advance (:Www@QuestionHome@Com
Best Answer - Chosen by Asker:
Yeah, I think you have it !.!.!. and maybe it's also the idea that meaning in life arises only from striving !.!.!.
as long as you're striving --trying, struggling, pouring into the universe -- then you're part of the universe!.
When you stand back and say "okay, now the job's done; i've completed it; I own it" -- then you start to lose everything !.!.!. you become divorced from the world !.!.!.
It's like !.!.!. you're part of the world while you're struggling;
you start to die !.!.!. you divorce yourself from the world when you want to sit back and simply own your accomplishments !.!.!.
So !.!.!. life is a process of constant discovery !.!.!.and once you've decided you no longer have to explore, you no longer have to discover !.!.!. then you've lost everything!.
(You can compare this to !.!.!. I dunno !.!.!. Tennyson's "Ulysses" and the key moment in Goethe's "Faust," if you're the type of person who does that type of thing!. Or Woody Allen's statement about relationships: "A relationship is like a shark; if it doesn't keep moving forward, it dies!." Or whatever!.)
Oh, one other thing, this point makes sense for a poet !.!.!. a person who is involved in the daily work of exploring the world with her language and imagination !.!.!. so she very much would feel that if at some moment you stop and say "there, I've now figured out the world" -- at that moment, everything would crumble!.
It's what all those second-generation romantics dissed Wordsworth for!.Www@QuestionHome@Com