Tone Of Anorexic By Eavan Boland

At first glance, the poem Anorexic written by Eavan Boland, may seem to be just a piece of literary work but with further exploration you can begin to understand the author's genuine message. Through her use of barbarous language, Boland exposes how tough it can be to be a confident and independant women through society's standards. The speaker feels vulnerable and uncomfortable with the world around her resulting in a state of destruction to the source of her problems.
The poem starts with a tone of violence and straight from the first stanza, Boland reveals to her audience that her body does not exert any element of beauty to her. She does not feel worthy of what and who she is. She loses herself in the image that society has created. Being such a distorted view, it is nearly impossible to live up to but yet women try over and over again to achieve it. Bolands mentions her body in comparison to a “witch” and with further thought, witches are usually perceived as ugly, unholy …show more content…
Boland does this to display the idea of separation from her true self which is her mind and the individual who is deeply and uncontrollably suffering from the disorder which is her body. Just as other people suffering from mental and physical disorders, she has two sides of her, one overriding the other. It seems like the two personas develop their own individual thought process switching back and forth. The speaker can no longer control her own set of mind and unwillingly allows her body to speak for itself. In the beginning of her fight, it was the women who tortured the body but now it is the body who tortures the her. The poem emphasizes the process of “burning” and “torching” the body to demonstrate the position of control it has completely gained over the women. The body is now the one in control and the mind does whatever it is told to do