Poetry Blog #2

2. TPCASTT one poem and discover what it really says to you. Write about the poem and its theme, especially about how the poem’s message sheds light on the universal human condition/experience.

In the Secular Night

Honestly, I’m not picking this poem because I analyzed it for the oral commentary. I have to say that even as I prepared for the oral commentary, I felt intimately close with this poem. I guess it’s because the poem presents a universal human experience (seriously, it does; I’m not just saying it for the post). In the poem, the speaker struggles with her loneliness and feeling of seclusion. Her emotional turmoil is caused by mainly two things: her separation from people, and her separation from God (or something spiritual). Throughout the poem, readers witness the speaker “amble” around her house and eat “baby lima beans” and just ponder in solitude. Well, even towards the end of the poem, the speaker is nowhere near an escape from her depressing condition. In fact, she even acknowledges that if she does not find redemption or resolve, she will go insane. Well, up to this point, any reader can relate to the speaker. We all feel alone at one point in our lives, and this feeling of loneliness and seclusion is so effectively addressed in the poem. This is one issue that I can really agree on with Atwood—we really are alone, and many times we are so helpless; we can’t find an escape. Well, the way this poem speaks to me is like this: loneliness is inevitable in life, and there’s nothing we, as people, can do to quench our thirst for something beyond the superficial; but, such need can be satisfied if we look to the realm of the spiritual. I don’t think Atwood is recommending anyone to go to a Church or start believing in God, but I do believe that she acknowledges our need, as people, for something in the realm of the metaphysical; beyond this physical world that we live in at the moment. In fact, the poem ends with an imagery of the outside world in chaos; with “sirens” and a dead person, the world is not in peace. With such horrible imagery of a cruel and cold world ignorant of the speaker’s condition, the only way for the speaker to overcome her loneliness is to search for something spiritual. Since she wandered around in her “secular” world, or night, from the beginning, and that’s when she felt all alone, she has not experienced the un-secular. Who knows? Maybe once she enters a world of spirituality, she will be cured of her loneliness.