Duffy Is a Poet Alert to Every Sound, Shape and Language.’ How Does Duffy Show Her Anger at What Humans Are Doing to the World in Atlas?

683 Words3 Pages
The poem ‘Atlas’ is written about a Titan who held up the world by Carol Ann Duffy. It shows his change in power from the beginning of the poem where he seems very strong but gradually weakens towards the end. I also believe that Duffy’s connotation is to give warning through this poem to her readers and raise awareness about the extreme fragility of the planet. The poem is full of ecological words like the species, mountains and rivers of the World, which are all grouped into separate semantic fields within the first two stanzas. In the first stanza she talks about creatures of the ocean ‘whale, dolphin, sea-lion, shark, seal, fish’, using a list to name them all. I think the use of listing is very effective because it sends all the names out at an even pace and puts emphasis on each word at a time. The single worded sentence ‘Hero.’ is used to end the first stanza which puts a mythological stance on the poem which is an opposing idea to the ecological theme of the poem. There is a lot of central opposition within this poem as well as the two opposing themes mentioned. The first three stanzas focus on the beauty of the Earth with the list of creatures, and the wonders the world holds; ‘Andes, Himalayas, Kilimanjaro’ and ‘Amazon, Ganges, Nile’, whereas the final stanza focuses on the destruction of the world that is upon Atlas’ back. Atlas is about to give himself up for the World after trying all he can to fight against the Gods but now he must be punished. The whole mood of the poem flips and the audience realise that all the wonders mentioned in the previous stanzas are in danger. ‘he bears where Earth is, nowhere, head bowed, a genuflection to the shouldered dead,’ is a line which shows the total metamorphosis and shift in tone from the beginning of the poem. As a reader we are able to see that despite all the passion and power Atlas put in, it wasn’t enough

More about Duffy Is a Poet Alert to Every Sound, Shape and Language.’ How Does Duffy Show Her Anger at What Humans Are Doing to the World in Atlas?

Open Document