Morning In The Burned House Summary

In “Morning in the Burned House,” Margaret Atwood suggests that when recalling the past there is a tendency for a person to desire dwelling in the past instead of living in the present, therefore there must be a destructive force in order to reinforce reality and continue progress. The author of the poem carefully chose the title as it reveals a lot about the entire meaning of the poem. Atwood used words such as morning, burned, and house in the title. Morning might be a connotation of a new beginning or a symbol of hope, but it is the opposite of its homonym, “mourning,” which is usually attached to grief or sorrow. House is the last word of the title which represents a special place of the past. Also, as mentioned in the first stanza, lines …show more content…
Loneliness slowly attacks the speaker at the end of stanza six which the speaker contrasts a bright and songless day which may represent optimism, but the difficulty to move on. Atwood uses a lot of words that are related to fire. As suggested in the previous paragraphs, the fire might be a destructive force that ensured the continuation of progress and it is a metaphor representing time. When something is burned by fire, it will most likely turn into ashes. Similarly, when an event happens every second of it counts and you will never be able to go back to that specific moment no matter how hard you try. Most of the memories people hold are the best moments of their lives. As people recall their past they usually remember the best version of those moments, but once a person realizes that you can never return to that particular moment may result in an unparalleled amount of pain especially when the present contains tremendous amount of differences than the …show more content…
The last two stanzas uses imagery to show the speaker being engulfed by fire. The speaker being engulfed by fire is very young as suggested by the clothes the speaker is wearing. The extended metaphor of the fire which represents the continued change that occurs in the life of the speaker. The fire consumed the very young speaker which suggests something has been loss in order to give way for the new. The speaker is being “Incandescent” meaning the speaker is producing light as a result of being heated. Not all destructions are bad, sometimes an end is required in order to give way for something