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Sallie Johnson
Mrs. Boyd, 3B
MYP English 9
March 5, 2014
Jean Cocteau once said, The poet doesnt invent. He listens. By saying this quote,
Cocteau meant that whatever a poet writes, whether it is fiction or not, their thoughts are
influenced by what is around them, or their milieu. Every poets work is influenced by the world
around them, whether they realize it or not, and these experiences can be expressed through the
poetry techniques. Eavan Boland is an example of a poet who expresses her thoughts on current
events through her poetry and literary devices. Eavan Boland employs various literary techniques
like symbolism, imagery, and allusions in order to bring new meanings to her poems Anorexic
and Domestic Violence.
One of the major techniques Boland uses in her poetry is symbolism. In her poem Anorexic,
she uses difference phrases and words to make the reader think about different images or ides.
For example, Boland uses phrases like "the 'forked dark' and 'python needs' to conjure up
frightening images of snakes and devils and people falling into bottomless pits" (Anorexic).
Also, another example of how symbolism is used in the poem Anorexic, is how "Like women
who suffer from anorexia, the Irish woman has a distorted image of herself, an image fed to her
by male poets who depend on women 'as motifs in their poetry (Hart, Joyce). In the poem
Domestic Violence, there are also several different examples of symbolism that relate to the
milieu of the story, which is the conflict between Ireland and Great Britain. For example, Boland
mentions a kitchen light that is too weak to stop the encroachment of darkness, and symbolizes
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the fact that nothing can stop the speaker from breaking out of her self-described ignorance in
order to understand what is happening outside of their home (Aubrey, Bryan).
The two poems written by Boland both have very distinct and diverse uses of imagery. For
example, the language used in the poem Domestic Violence shows a contrast between an
idyllic and a nightmare setting, used to describe the violence going on at the time (Domestic
Violence). This poem provides a very strong relationship between ignorance and awareness, and
imagery is used to support this dichotomy. Quick changes of opinion are present in the speaker
of this poem, and an example of this is in section 2, stanza 2 creates a picture of an ancient,
familiar Ireland that has long endured and is loved by the speaker, but this is followed in the
third stanza by images of death and sorrow as transmitted by news reports on television
(Domestic Violence). The poem Anorexic also uses imagery in order to help the reader
emphasize with the speaker, who aligns the sexual parts of a womans body (hips, breasts, and
lips) with descriptive words that are both erotic (heat and sweat) and distasteful (fat and greed)
(Hill, Pamela Steel). Finally, there is imagery involved in the poem Anorexic when the speaker
talks about how she is totally alienated from her body. She not only has objectified her body,
she now refers to herself as she.

The poems created by Eavan Boland also hold strong allusions. The entire poem of
Domestic Violence is a reference to when Ireland was dominated by England, its larger
neighbor across the Irish Sea (Domestic Violence). This struggle was a big deal a few years
before Eavan Boland wrote this poem, and the speaker of the poem takes the persona of someone
who would watch nightly news stories on television about the succession of bombings,
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shootings, assassinations, and funerals that began in 1969 and intensified during the 1970s
(Aubrey, Bryan). Bolands poem entitled Anorexia also holds an allusion of the ideal Irish
poet. In Ireland, there is a powerful tradition of the male poet, and that the women is the
passive object of poetry, who arent supposed to write poems, but are supposed to be in
them (Hart, Joyce). There are also several allusions wrapped around the reference to a python in
this poem. This reference could be to the snake in the Garden of Eden (the tempter), or to the
phallic symbol of snake in general (mans sexual needs) (Hart). However, there are others who
believe that the python could be a reference to the mythical Greek god Apollo who was the god
who made men aware of their guilt and the god of poetry, and also happened to slay a python
(Hart).
Boland writes about information regarding the meanings and milieu of her poems that is
brought alive through different poetry techniques like symbolism, allusions, and imagery. Her
poem Domestic Violence uses literary techniques to explain the violence occurring between
Ireland and Great Britain. The poem entitled Anorexic uses literary devices like symbolism
and allusions in order to add ambiguous meanings to the poem through different references
surrounding the idea of a python. Overall, Bolands poems have important references in them
that add new layers to the meanings, or milieus, of the poems.


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Works Cited

"Anorexic." Poetry for Students. Ed. Jennifer Smith and Elizabeth Thomason. Vol. 12. Detroit:
Gale Group, 2001. 1-15. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 27 Feb. 2014.
Aubrey, Bryan. "Domestic Violence." Poetry for Students. Ed. Sara Constantakis. Vol. 39.
Detroit: Gale, 2012. 19-35. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 25 Feb. 2014.
"Domestic Violence." Poetry for Students. Ed. Sara Constantakis. Vol. 39. Detroit: Gale, 2012.
19-35. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 26 Feb. 2014.
Hart, Joyce. "Anorexic." Poetry for Students. Ed. Jennifer Smith and Elizabeth Thomason. Vol.
12. Detroit: Gale Group, 2001. 1-15. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 25 Feb. 2014.
Hill, Pamela Steed. "Anorexic." Poetry for Students. Ed. Jennifer Smith and Elizabeth
Thomason. Vol. 12. Detroit: Gale Group, 2001. 1-15. Gale Virtual Reference Library.
Web. 21 Feb. 2014.