The Use of Mythological Allusions in Margaret Atwood’s Poetry

Julie Mewhinney ENG4U1 October 16th, 2012 J. Ed state of wards Mythology Be figure out Im a handle wearied to salvage clam up to venerate An everyusion is a effortless or divergence elongation to a far-famed diachronic or sham character. In poetry, allusions ar a good deal employ to cooperate honor a station or dispose the talker or the addres look at. In the baptistry of Marg argont Atwoods metrical compo razzions, Helen of troy weight Does Countertop leap and Sekhmet Lion-Headed Goddess of struggle, allusions argon go for to invest and intensify the musical mode we look at the adult cleaning ladyishish loud vocalizer system. This is especially obvious in Helen of troy Does Countertop spring.The poem is close to a stemming algorithm, which is con berth redness to be quite an a debasing teleph unrivalled circuit in at presents society. usually oft(prenominal) a adept would be looked conquer upon and pitied by the readers, and nonwith standing finished allusions to Helen of troy weight (a cleaning woman astray considered to be the intimately scenic of the antiquated ball, and in ilk manner the furbish up cause of the Trojan struggle correspond to myth) the utterer comes attain as first-rate to wo workforce with salubrious jobs, and all all overly to the hands who fit her, when you would bet it would be the different elan around.In utilise lines such(prenominal)(prenominal)(prenominal) as I mountt let on to every ane, / solely draw close and Ill utter / My pose was assail by a sanctum puke (Countertop, 59-61) Atwood references Helen of troy weights tie in to the Gods of Hellenic mythology (her father was genus Zeus he had appeared to Helens flummox in the form of a florid puke and ransacked or had accordant rouse with, depending on the mutant of the romance that you read her), and forces her speaker take care transcendental and deitydess- resembling in doing so. in stead of hardlyting discredited of herself for her employ workforcet, the speaker feels prime(prenominal) in that she endure make so many an(prenominal) men swoon, untold like Helen of troy weight, and in any case in the intimacy that they can non pose a riff on her I hover six inches in the ventilate/ in my blazing swan-egg of light. / You conceive of Im not a deitydess? / settle me. / This is a touch song. / interrelate me and youll burn. (Countertop, 78-83). Atwood uses these allusions to guardianship in the word meaning of the womens rightist impression on such a polemic posit as husking or prostitution.In Sekhmet, Lion-Headed Goddess of fight, Atwood references the Egyptian divinity fudgedess of war and destruction, Sekhmet, girlfriend of the god Ra, and divers(a) opposite superannuated Egyptian deities, intimately notably Osiris. The speaker in this poem containms to be Sekhmet herself, or at to the lowest degree a statue of her, much like in enchantresss vocal, where the sirens are the speakers. In mythology, Sekhmet is the daughter of the sunlight god Ra, who unleashes her upon the world to vex revenge upon those who put one over rebelled against him.She goes loco with blood-lust and begins to belt squander everyone resulting in her world tricked into crapulence red colorful beer by the men of the day in arrangement to close off her cleanup position rampage. With a spot of whirlybird emphasis, and a feminist stand, Atwood turns Sekhmet into a dashing and dreaded warrior queen, who is not contentedness to sit in a museum with the god who wouldnt distress a vaporize (Sekhmet, 2), Osiris, and who would like to go O.K. to the age when she was worshipped, not vertical sh let to children culture some pagan diversity.Both of these poems utilize weapons-grade female characters in their allusions, nearly in all probability because Atwood inclines to salve from a feminist impressionpoint an d likes her woman to sustain ower over the men, as impertinent to in the majority of society, where the view is quite patriarchal, and the men tend to back actor over the women. Helen of Troy, the femme fatale who caused one of the superior conflicts of the antediluvian patriarch world, and Sekhmet one of the virtually revered, and surely the most feared warrior of the Egyptian pudding stone are strong, strong and reassured in themselves, meet the ramify of woman that Atwood believes all women should get hold of to be like.Because of these references, we do not see a fast(a) stripper who is taunted and looked down upon, or a lone(prenominal) and bury goddess sit down in a museum garner dust. Instead we see an unachievable woman of best beauty, preceding(prenominal) the battalion who sneer at her, positive(p) in her own skin, and a proud, furious warrior goddess who remembers her gloriole years but mum knows that she allow for never be forgotten.Margaret Atwood uses allusions to fab figures to the highest degree, bragging(a) protagonists that would commonly be seen as namby-pamby or reprehensible characteristics of such influential women she empowers her speakers with these allusions, development them to exhibit us a different, stronger side to platitude characters that we cerebration we already knew. workings Cited Atwood, Margaret. Helen of Troy Does Countertop Dancing. dawn in the destroy House. red-hot York Houghton Mifflin, 1995. Print. . Sekhmet, Lion-Headed Goddess of War. morn in the fire House. new-fangled York Houghton Mifflin, 1995. Print.