A Complete Turnaround

A detailed Summary of A Complete Turnaround

Sharon Old's poem, "The Victims," deals with an underlying theme of abuse. Old's illustrates this theme through the tone of the poem, which is achieved by imagistic language, rhyme and rhythm. In this poem the speaker is illustrated through two points of view, first as a child then as an adult reflecting back on a troublesome childhood experience. As the speaker's point of view changes so does the use of poetic devices.

The poem opens with the speaker remembering the behaviors of an abusive father when she was a child. The tone at this point was one of disgust, hatred, spite, and taking joy in her father's failures. This was due to the fact that she was taught to feel this way by her mother. As a child she was not aware of this. It was not until adulthood that she realized her feeling of resentment towards her father were evoked by her mother. The speaker, herself, was not the victim of her father's abusive behavior nonetheless she still hated him because that's the only way she knew how to feel. These feelings are shown through the imagistic language used to reveal the acts of revenge on the father. When the mother finally divorced the father, "her kids loved it" (3-4). When the father was f

The speaker's change of attitude was also evident through the change of rhyme and rhythm as the poem progresses. Olds chose to use repetition of words to emphasize her point. The phase "took it and took it" is repeated three times in the poem (2, 15, 23) and is used to emphasize lose and revenge evoked on the father. With the shift in line 17, the pattern diminishes. In line 23, the phrase was used sympathetically to describe the troubled life of the bums and was not used as spiteful words. The rhythm during the last ten lines of the poem also takes a dramatic change. The first sixteen lines are filled with uses of punctuation. This put many pauses and stops in the middle of, and in between lines, preventing the poem from flowing. Lines 1, 4, and 7 all contain a period in the middle of the line. Line 14 ends with a question mark causing the reader to stop and think about what the speaker is thinking about. The unevenness of the first part of the

poem reflects the speaker's dissent and hatred of her father. She was expressing her anger, and when one is angered they tend to speak abruptly and choppy. As the speaker's attitude towards her father changes, so does the punctuation in the poem. From line seventeen until the end of the poem there are no stops. There is only one period and that occurs in line 26. The poem definitely proceeds at a smoother pace. It shows that the speaker is calmer, and more relaxed. Her words flow together. Her feelings of rage and resentment to her father have subsided and feelings of sympathy and remorse have taken over.

slits, suits, compressed, and silk in lines 18-20. The harsh tone of the first half of the poem is now replaced by softer, soothing, "S" sounds.

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Approximate Word count = 1170
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English