The Strange People Summary

Close reading of “The Strange People” passage 1 The passage is a story of the speaker experiencing the results of a toxic relationship, in the form of a hunting metaphor. She is the ‘doe’ being hunted by the man, and as she is attracted to him by the ‘jacklight’, she slowly realizes that this is not a healthy relationship, but that she is the hunters ‘prey’. The passage selected shows telltale signs of an abusive relationship: the alliteration “safely shut” emphasizes how the speaker does not want to leave, be it out of love for the abuser, or out of fear. The act of “sharpening his knife” is a symbol of the acts carried out by the abuser in the relationship, and how she is just a ‘doe’ to this ‘hunter’. There is connotation in the words “like that”, emphasized by the commas placed before and after the phrase, implying that the abuser thinks of her as just an object for him to use, whether it be sexually or mentally. This is also in line with the overarching hunting metaphor throughout the poem. He is a hunter ‘sharpening his knife’ to dig into his prey, and when he “thinks to it, like that,” it is him being proud of his hunt, and is preparing for what to do next. ‘The garage’ mentioned at the beginning of …show more content…
A garage is not a comfortable place; there is no luxury to be had there, so it would make sense for a hunter to gut his prey in his garage, yet it also makes sense that an abuse victim would see the place as such; a dark, gloomy, place that is