The Victims Poem Summary

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The Victims by Sharon Olds centers the question of who the real victims of divorce are. On the surface, it may appear a certain way, but upon further inspection, the answers may be something very different. The Victims can be split into two parts according to tone and tense. The first half of the poem is from the “child’s” point of view, and the second half, in the “adults” view.
The first half of the poem (lines 1-17) is in the past tense and it appears as if the speaker is a young child sharing her personal divorce experience. This poem is written in free verse and is composed of all enjambed lines, which occur until the end of the “stanza” where the thoughts seems to conclude. The run-on sentences gives the impression that the speaker
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Upon maturing, the speaker may have realized how horrid her thoughts and attitudes toward her father really were, and may now feel penitent and sympathetic toward her father. The word “I” (line 17) is used for the first time as opposed to “we”. The “we” in the first half of the poem stood for the idea of the mother and the children being a team fighting against the father. As the child grew up, matured, and possibly moved away from their mother, they began to form their own thoughts and identity apart from their mother. The speaker begins to see things differently and loses the cold bitterness they once held towards their …show more content…
The child is the most obvious victim, being a helpless and innocent bystander to the divorce. The mother, though she was extremely bitter and sought to destroy the father’s image, is a victim because she had to deal with her husband’s abuse whatever it was (absence, alcoholism, infidelity). The biggest, though less apparent, victim of the divorce would be the father, who lost everything. The father was a victim of his own mistakes, and as a result of his faults, loses everything he has– his family, his job, and his respect. The father is the most unfortunate of all the victims losing everything he had and missing out on the opportunity to watch his children grow

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