Poetry of the Decade - Eat Me, Chainsaw, Material Flashcards
(39 cards)
E.M - Structure?
Tercets and an ABA rhyme scheme, symbolic of control
E.M - ‘The bigger the better’
plosive alliteration - suggest aggression and demonstrate that the man emphasises his control through a filter of praise
E.M - ‘they said EAT ME. And I ate, did // what I was told.’
Caesura, monosyllabism and enjambment - asserts her submission to her partner’s control (passivity)
E.M - ‘hips judder like a juggernaut’
Links her to something powerful and destructive, she is empowered by his desire for her
E.M - ‘to watch me swell like a forbidden fruit’
Simile - links her to the garden of Eden and the destructive nature of temptation, powerful but also objectified (does that give her power over him?)
E.M - ‘beached whale’, ‘a tidal wave of flesh’
Metaphor - suggests that she is out of place/helpless. But also affirms her power received by the male gaze, linked to language of destruction
E.M - ‘too fat to…’ ‘too fat to…’ ‘too fat to…’
Anaphora - highlights her helplessness and objectification at the hands of her controlling partner, partner may symbolise the male gaze/misogyny
What is a ‘juggernaut’?
a literal or metaphorical force regarded as merciless, destructive, and unstoppable
E.M - ‘I allowed’, ‘I rolled’, ‘he drowned’
active verbs - speaker gains the power over the man, subverts misogynistic dynamic of control through his desire for her
E.M - ‘his eyes bulging with greed’
Attention is brought back to his desire for her (linked to the sin of greed), killed by the male gaze and his desire for excess, his objectification gave her power
E.M - ‘how could I not roll over on top.’
Reversal of temptation, a deliberate action to take his life motivated by her temptation - both have dangerous desires
E.M - ‘nothing else in the house left to eat’
His desire foor her to eat is his own undoing and leads to his cannibalisation (alluded to)
C.V.T.P.G - Extended metaphors
Chainsaw - masculinity/man-made destruction
Pampas Grass - femininity/the natural world
C.V.T.P.G - ‘all winter unplugged. grinding its teeth’
Masculinity is repressed/hidden, left to fester. Teeth link to aggression and anger
C.V.T.P.G -‘weightless wreckage of wasps and flies’
Alliteration draws attention to the ideas of destruction
C.V.T.P.G - ‘dropped’, ‘clipped’, ‘gunned the trigger’
dynamic verbs, link to the dangerous and harmful nature of masculinity/man-made power
C.V.T.P.G - ‘flesh’, ‘bones’, ‘kick back’, ‘rear up’
Primal/bestial imagery suggest the violence of the man-made/masculine, depicted as destructive and irrational
C.V.T.P.G - ‘ludicrous feathers and plumes’, ‘warmth and light’, ‘sunning itself’
Pampas Grass, and so nature/femininity, is depicted as delicate. Light imagery relates it to a sense of hope, delicacy and positivity
C.V.T.P.G -‘twelve foot spears’
It is armed against this sudden violence, femininity/nature are not as defenceless as they initially seem
C.V.T.P.G - ‘Overkill.’
Emphatic minor sentence serves as a soft volta. The chainsaw is mocked for its excessive destruction and unnecessary violence
C.V.T.P.G - ‘chainsaw seethed’, ‘seamless urge to persist was as far as it got.’
Restrained and repressed aggression, the desire will never have a definitive, permanent victory. Nature/femininity persists and prevails
C.V.T.P.G - ‘the blade became choked with soil or fouled with weeds’
Dynamic verbs are now attributed to natural power, demonstrates a subversion in how man-made/masculine power is eventually overcome
C.V.T.P.G - ‘like cutting at water or air with a knife’
Simile - demonstrates the futility of man-made power, it will never prevail without resistance
C.V.T.P.G - ‘riding high in its saddle, wearing a new crown. Corn in Egypt.’
Biblical allusion - demonstrates the triumph and abundance of nature/femininity in the face of aggression
