MP 2: Poem 1

The Victims

When Mother divorced you, we were glad.  She took it and 

took it, in silence, all those years and then 

kicked you out, suddenly, and her 

kids loved it.  Then you were fired, and we 

grinned inside, the way people grinned when

Nixon’s helicopter lifted off the South 

Lawn for the last time. 

 We were tickled 

to think of your office taken away, 

your secretaries taken away, 

your lunches with three double bourbons,                                 

your pencils, your reams of paper.  

Would they take your 

suits back, too, those dark 

carcasses hung in your closet, and the black 

noses of your shoes with their large pores? 

She had taught us to take it, to hate you and take it

until we  pricked with her for your 

annihilation, Father.  Now I 

pass the bums in doorways, the white 

slugs of their bodies gleaming through slits in their 

suits of compressed silt, the stained                               

flippers of their hands, the underwater 

fire of their eyes, ships gone down with the

lanterns lit, and I wonder who took it and 

took it from them in silence until they had 

given it all away and had nothing left but this.

(Sharon Olds b.1942) pg 317-318 #258

In the poem The Victims by Sharon Olds, the narrator seems to be a child whom was present throughout the time of his or her parents going through a difficult divorce.  Olds uses symbolism and inserts the phrase "your secretaries taken away",   possibly inferring that the father in the poem who the children so much despise, had an affair to bring on such hatred and tear the family apart once and for all. I say once and for all because Old also writes, "She took it and took it, in silence, all those years and then she kicked you out, suddenly". This shows how the mother was not only putting up with turmoil for a short period of time, but for years. Another instance of symbolism is when Olds inserts the phrase, "your lunches with three double bourbons" also symbolizing that alcohol may have been an issue in the mother and father's decayed relationship.  The hatred of the children toward the father is shown in line 1, "  When mother divorced you, we were glad", therefore both of these reasons could be a large part of why the children have hard feelings against their father, and are glad that their mother divorced him.  Another term that Olds utilizes in The Victims is imagery.  Imagery is portrayed in this poem in lines 13-16, "Would they take your suits back, too, those dark carcasses hung in your closet, and the black shoes with their large pores?" This gives a feeling of a dark and almost morbid description to the father's business attire which suggests that the attire is linked to the father going to work as being a dark and bad place. This is indicating that the workplace of the father or events that happened there were most likely where the downfall of their mother and father's relationship was before the divorce. Another example of imagery is when Olds describes the "bums in the doorways" in lines 19-27.  The imagery creates a pathetic tone implying what the narrator's father has turned into. In my opinion, I feel as though this a child struggling through the difficulties of their parents getting divorced.  Since a child does not have an opinion to form on their own, because they do not actually understand the concept of divorce yet, their opinions are formed by the parent with the most influence in their life. I, myself have never been the child in the middle of a parental separation but I have had friends who have been, and in most cases, the younger the children tend to dislike one of their parents whom the other parent causes them to dislike more.  This is usually the case in the situations I have personally seen until a child grows older to form his or her own opinion. This is shown throughout the poem with the such strong hatred of the narrator toward his or her father.