Contradiction In Maggie Smith's Good Bones

The world as we know it may seem a little shaky at the moment, and poetic author, Maggie Smith, outlines her mistakes and hopes for society in her writing, “Good Bones”. Smith’s dialect leads to many cases where contradiction arises, adding emphasis to her current views and future aspirations about the world. In everyday life, it seems that “For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird. / For every loved child, a child broken, bagged, / sunk in a lake…” (Smith 8-10). The contradiction between the positive and negative sides of the examples relate to all global actions, pointing out that every good thing has a dark side. Smith uses this figurative device to show the struggle she is going through to lay out the real world and what comes with …show more content…
Smith is appointing to the harsh reality of the world today, and the gruesome acts that occur on every back street across the map. Both visual entertainment, such as movies and TV shows, and music are just a few things that hide the actuality of our planet, and it is easy to relate why the author is struggling on how to break to her children that the world is a scary place, yet there still is a favorable prospect. Smith alludes to the real estate market stating “…Any decent realtor, / walking you through a real shithole, chirps on / about good bones: This place can be beautiful…” (Smith 14-16). At this point, the author makes a turn in her writing, to a more optimistic standpoint, voicing to her children that the world is like a fixer-upper, it is dilapidated, beat-up, and neglected, however, you have to look past all the debris and see the “good bones” and foundation of the structure. Instead of judging at first glance, look at what can be made out of the situation. There is opportunity to get something at little to know cost and have the chance to make it into something