1
The Victims
by Sharon Olds
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. Poetry Explication
Introduce the reader to the poem: include title and author of poem and •
.include a brief summary of the content
Discuss the beginning of the poem (first stanza or first segment before the •
poem seems to change theme or mood). What’s a specific technique you
?notice? What’s a specific diction choice that affects the meaning
?Discuss the middle of the poem. Techniques? Diction choice •
?Discuss the end of the poem. Techniques? Diction choice •
Summarize briefly on the significance of the poem. Look back on the title of •
.the poem to see if it reflects anything important about theme or meaning
Aim for 250-300 wordsSharon Olds’ poem “The Victims” tells a child’s view of a parents’ •
divorce. The poem is
divided into two main sections: the first part in the past tense showing the speaker as
a child and the last section in the present tense with the speaker as an adult trying to
,make sense of past events. The first section creates a negative tone toward the father
who is painted as a villain by “Mother,” who “took it” from him “in silence” until she
finally “kicked [him] out.” Instead of having any sympathy for him, the children were
taught “to hate you and take it” and the children seem to have followed this direction
very well. While the poem never says specifically what Father did to justify his family’s
hatred, the speaker hints he could have had an affair (“your secretaries”) or could have
been an alcoholic (“your lunches with three double bourbons”), but clearly he misused
his power and his kids “grinned” at his disaster like they did when President Nixon
resigned. Line 17, with its strong diction (“annihilation”), caesura, switch to present
tense and first person, shows the switch to the second section which is stranger and
more abstract. This section, with long metaphor (comparing “bums in doorways” to
,some kind of strange underwater creatures) and alliteration of the creepy “s” sound
shows the speaker wondering about the other victim of the situation; maybe it was her
.father and those like him who actually lost out, victimized by their own bad behavior
Whatever it is, the first person “I,” now away from her mother’s bitterness, ends the
.poem seeing how many people were “The Victims” of this bad situation
”Poem Explication: “The Victims
words 972
2
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. The 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.
Literary Analysis:
A great deal of Sharon Olds’ poetry is a daughter’s response to an
abusive and uncaring father from the point of view of both a child
and an adult. Though some would label Sharon Olds as a
confessional poet and others claim she is simply egotistical and
confessing nothing, the fact still stands that in her works Olds
traces her relationship with her father from beginning to end, from
abuse, to expulsion of the abuser, to her father’s death. The
Victims is an excellent example of one of Olds’ typical family
snapshots that captures how the dysfunctional family reacted to the
end of misrule by the father.
In The Victims Olds takes the point of view of the recollecting adult,
showing no empathy for her father, but celebrating his ousting from
the household and successive loss of job.
The word “it” in the first two lines carries ambiguous weight,
suggesting abuse and mistreatment, but remaining nonspecific. This generic description makes the poem more universal
and less selfishly personal, but also minimizes the impact of her
struggles.
This description and reference to abuse makes one wonder if Olds
simply is mistaking contrived reverence and coy exhibitionism for
honesty, trying to get attention to make up for the fact that she was
never loved enough.
Olds’ simplistic language paints a very good, though slightly vague,
picture of the father figure: a businessman with a drinking problem
who abused his family.
Risky line breaks appear again, but Olds succeeds in pulling off this
choppiness because of her mix of bluntness (how glad she was
when her father left) and balanced emotional structuring (there is
still a wonderfully human conflict of feelings between despair and
glee).
Olds’ imaginative metaphors can be seen in comparing a cruel
father to a bum—a man who gives so much abuse away to his
family will eventually have nothing left, making him as worthless as
a homeless beggar.
The end of the poem adopts a somewhat nautical theme (i.e.
flippers, underwater, ships sinking), capturing a feeling of
drowning; such a sensation could symbolize the weight of the
situation on Olds as well as the way her father drowned in his own
destructive nature.