Practical Criticism: "You fit into me"

In this entry I will be analyzing a poem called "You fit into me", by the Canadian writer Margaret Atwood. For this analysis, I will use a New Criticism point of view, this means, I will focus in the poem, leaving apart its context and writer. To organize the analysis, I will answer different questions about the poem (Taken from Course Companion Book, IB)

A Human Eye.

   
    You fit into me


    You fit into me
    like a hook into an eye
    A fish hook
    An open eye.


1.- What is the relationship between the title and the rest of the poem?
The title tells us about someone or something that fits the persona, while the poem describes how does it fit, and the real meaning of the title. 


2.- What words, if any, need to be defined?
-Hook-and-eye: A clothes fastener consisting of a small blunt metal hunk that is inserted in a corresponding loop or eyelet.

A Hook-and-Eye.

3.- What relations do you see among any words in the poem?
The author relates a hook (or fish hook) with an eye. This two words change their meaning as you read the poem.


4.- What are the various connotative meaning of the words in the poem? Do you see various shades of meaning help establish relationships or patterns in the text?
In this poem, the author plays with the various conceptions of "hook" and "eye". She relates both as the thing used to attach clothes, but then she changes their meaning to a fish hook and a human eye.

A Fish Hook.

 5.- What symbols, images or figures of speech are used? What is the relationship between them?
The poem itself is a big irony. It creates us an image of an eye-and-hook in the first to lines, to make us surprisingly realize that it means the opposite in the verses 3 and 4. 


6.- What elements of rhyme, meter or pattern can you discuss?
There is no rhyme, the amount of syllables in each verse is different and there are no patterns. In other words, this poem has Free Verses.


7.- What is the tone of the poem?
Remorse and fury.


8.- From what point of view is the content of the poem being told?
From a person who had a love relation with someone, but now he/she is alone. Also, we can infer that there was a violent or ugly end in their relation.


9.- What tensions, ambiguities or paradoxes arise within the poem?
There is an ambiguity with the word Hook and eye. First, we imagine two persons caught by love, like a hook and an eye (clothing conception), but then, the real meaning is the pain that a fish hook causes in a human eye (referring to a bad relationship between those two persons)


10.- What do you believe the chief paradox or irony is in the text?
To express the suffering, fury and anger of a person that was in love but now he/she is alone. It also shows the remorse of this person against his/her old date.


11.- How do all of the elements of the poem support and develop the primary paradox or irony?
They all contribute to express the emotions of the persona. The irony is based in the different ideas that the reader has when he reads the poem, specially for the hook-and-eye term.

The real meaning!

Finally, it's important to note how this poem expresses a lot of emotions through an irony. Instead of just telling you what happened, this poem gives us the information in an artistic way.