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Reading Atwood's poem "Ava Gardner Reincarnated as a Magnolia," we see a tragic flaw in human nature of judging one another. This message has enhanced me in my thinking about "looking beyond the surface." Years of education taught me that judging is wrong. If a high school student knows this, I assume most of the population over age of fifteen will know the same. Nevertheless, we all do it. We unconsciously or consciously judge one another by other's appearance. The poem clearly shows that the result of this "uncontrollable" act can be traumatic. It is common for people to complain, because they are unsatisfied with their looks, or they think others are unsatisfied with their looks. Ironically, in this poem the speaker's hamartia is her beautiful looks. Who knew beautiful women have something to complain about! Yet, this aspect of her is the root of her self-destructive mindset. While, it is legitimate to point fingers at the society for condemning and judging an individual based on looks/gender, the speaker must also take responsibility for relying on others for source of identity.

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Marsh Languages

After TPCASTTing the poem, "Marsh Languages" by Margaret Atwood, it is evident that the theme of human use of language causing the degeneration of human culture surfaces throughout the entire poem. The tone of the speaker is extremely tense and gloomy. This is the result of the use of diction in the poem. Words like “dark”, “silenced”, “falling”, “cave”, “bone”, “core” dying”, “ceased to exist”, “forgotten”, “no more longing”, “eaten”, etc, make it impossible for the readers to feel the seriousness of the message. The poem enlightened what is happening to my world and the world around me. In the past and still now, I thought words are just words. Even though I knew that words can really hurt, I thought that was just the way it was; words are there for various purposes: to praise someone, to hurt someone, to communicate. Reading the poem, “Marsh Languages” it made me realize that it is not the way it is; humans are exploiting what is beautiful and sublime. It doesn’t have to be the way it is now. Today, we use language to hurt people, to prove a selfish point, and to degrade one another. It has come to a point where language is merely a tool (a weapon) to satisfy oneself; such "marsh languages" breakdown each other, thus creating regression within our society.