Siren Song

In "Siren Song" by Margaret Atwood, Atwood uses an allusion to represent a female stereotype. Atwood alludes to the sirens, the characters in "The Odyssey" by Homer. Sirens are part bird part woman type creatures who lure sailors in with their beautiful song which ends us killing the men.
Atwood uses a siren in her poem to show a woman who is pleading to escape from the female stereotype. In the poem she uses "will you get me out of this bird suit?", as a metaphor of wanting to escape from the female stereotype. The speaker even refers to the other sirens as "two feathery maniacs" which shows she doesn't want to be depicted as "picturesque and mythical". She goes on showing she doesn't like the situation she is in. She states that "This song is a cry for help" which shows her unhappiness in this stereotype.
As she says "this song is a cry for help" which brings men into the picture. The siren goes on to say "only you, only you can" to show a plea for help. The male character who she is referring to is shown as some one who could save her. At the same time this taps into the male stereotype of ego and pride. It shows that the man has to go and try to save the beautiful woman.
In all I think the woman truly wants to be saved from the stereotype that men have placed down upon her. She says it is a "boring song" or a futile attempt for help. Yet "it works every time", which shows that the men will always try to come save her but they don't realize she can save herself.

From The Frontier Of Writing

In "From The Frontier of Writing" by Seamus Heaney, Heaney uses an extended metaphor to compare writing to getting through a military checkpoint. With in the first three stanza Heaney paints a good comparison of writing to a checkpoint. He mentions "troops inspect its make and number", this suggests they are either judging his writing or his background. It may also say that they don't see the speaker as a person, but as a number. He goes onto state "you catch sight of more on a hill beyond", this shows that no matter what there will always be someone judging you. In stanza three he mentions that "everything is pure interrogation", they seem to need to ask the speaker many questions before they let him go on.

In Stanzas four through six we see more judgement. He uses words such as "emptier", "spent", "quiver in the self" and "obedient" to show an emptiness or a trauma of being judged. In the fifth stanza he firsts mentions the "frontier of writing" and he says "where it happens again" showing that it's a cycle and he has moved on to a "Sargent" who will judge even further. Finally we see "the marksman training down out of the sun upon you like a hawk" which shows there is someone always over your shoulder ready to judge you.

In the last two stanzas he has finally made it through. He uses "the black current of a tarmac road" which gives the image of a wide open stretch of road allowing to go on freely. In the last line the Heaney uses the word "polished" and when something is polished it will reflect things. I think this image shows a writers reflection.

Punishment

In "Punishment" by Seamus Heaney, Heaney uses imagery to give us a brutal image of a young girl who had been tortured and killed. In the poem the speaker gives us a image of a young girl who has been murdered for adultery. The speaker shows some compassion for the young girl through the diction used in the second half of the poem.

We get the idea that the young girl has been serverely punished due to the words Heaney uses through out the poem. For example he uses words like tug, shakes. drowned, noose, and undernourished to name a few. These words show the brutality of how the woman was tortured and killed. He goes on to mention many body parts such as neck, nipples, ribs, head, face, brains, muscles, and bones. This gives us an idea that the body of the girl is extremely mutilated. This girl has been tortured to a drastically gory extent.

The speaker goes on in this poem in the second half and shows pity and compassion for this girl. He mentions love twice in this poem he also says "little adulteress". Uses it in such a way that he doesn't seem to be blaming her for adultery but, encouraging the love that she had. He also refers to her as "my poor scapegoat". I think he is saying that what had happened to her was not necessary and that she was just blamed for what she did. At the end of the poem he uses "intimate revenge", which is a more compassionate way of saying she was tortured.

So in all I think Heaney paints a very vivid picture of what had happened to this poor girl. Yet there is a lot of compassion shown with much reflection.