We played dolls in that house where Father staggered with the
Thanksgiving knife, where Mother wept at
noon into her one ounce of
cottage cheese, praying for the strength not to
kill herself. We kneeled over the
rubber bodies, gave them baths
carefully, scrubbed their little
orange hands, wrapped them up tight,
said goodnight, never spoke of the
woman like a gaping wound
weeping on the stairs, the man like a stuck
buffalo, baffled, stunned, dragging
arrows in his hide. As if we had made a
pact of silence and safety, we kneeled and
dressed those tiny torsos with their elegant
belly-buttons and miniscule holes
high on the buttock to pee through, and all that
darkness in their open mouths, so that I
have not been able to forgive you for giving your
daughter away, letting her go at
eight as if you took Molly Ann or
Tiny Tears and held her head
under the water in the bathinette
until no bubbles rose, or threw her
dark rosy body on the fire that
burned in that house where you and I
barely survived, sister, where we
swore to be protectors.

I think I understand that this poem is about two sisters growing up in a house where father ill-treated mother. But I have two questions. Firstly, is there something dark, some suggestion of sexual abuse, in the description of the washing of the dolls - what is the significance of the 'darkness in their open mouths'? Secondly, explain the reference to 'giving your daughter away' - is this just something that happened which the poet feels she has to mention in the poem for completeness or is it a metaphor for something darker: and if so, why the violence of the images of drowning and burning the dolls?



Stephen

I see the father as a boozer, staggering with the Thanksgiving knife. The mother as too fat, having cottage cheese on the feast day. The girls vowing to treat their children with special care, as shown by how they treat their dolls. One of them gave her daughter up for adoption, which the other cannot forgive, comparing it to murder.

Is it a poem? Well, if you insist.

Again Stephen, using the dysfunctional family dynamic as a code of conduct, the girls might have experienced ANY thing. The code in some families is so tight that the children actively seek out other abusers as mates as an effort to validate their own learning experiences.


Les



Post Edited (10-01-04 14:01)

That Sharon Olds sure likes to home in on the pain in people’s lives!

A few points to add to Hugh’s apt summary.

I don’t read ‘The Pact’ as referring to any direct abuse, sexual or otherwise, of the children; but they suffered much from living in a household with dysfunctional parents who were always warring. A sustenance-averse mother, unable to cope and threatening suicide. A stumbling father confused and taunted by her verbal barbs, appearing ever ready to turn his physical strength to violence. The girls’ survival strategy was to withdraw. They adopted low profiles (‘kneeled’; and note the diminutive ‘bathinette’), avoided mentioning their parents’ fights, and devoted their attention to giving their dolls the care they were missing themselves. The name ‘Tiny Tears’ reflects their pain.

The dolls are remembered in minute detail, reflecting their importance in the young girls’ lives. Their faces were moulded with ‘open mouths’. The reference to ‘all that darkness in their open mouths’ could mean they appeared to be crying out, which the girls empathised with, or it could mean their rubber heads were hollow, so that the mouth apertures showed dark interiors which the girls associated with their own fears and nightmares. Poetic imagery has the power of carrying multiple meanings.

The same may be said about ‘swore to be protectors’. That could refer to looking after each other, or after their dolls, or it could be, as Hugh infers, a vow to treat their future children with special care. Poetically, it embraces all of those. Similarly the ‘pact’ of the title could refer to that swearing, or to the unspoken ‘pact of silence and safety’ referred to in line 14.

The stunted emotional development that can result from such a troubled upbringing is revealed in the poem’s abrupt switch of focus, beginning at line 19. The poem’s persona is ready precipitately to condemn her sister’s decision to give away her daughter, presumably for adoption. There’s no hint of mature sympathy for what must have been a wrenching decision; no consideration of whether it was in the best interests of the daughter - possibly to remove her from an abusive situation; no thought whether the sister had any satisfactory alternative. (Of course, this is a poem, not a social worker’s report, but we are entitled to assume that the omissions are a deliberate part of a carefully crafted characterisation). The persona’s emotions are stuck in the doll world in which she took refuge as a child. She references everything to that. She compares her sister’s decision, which she finds unforgivable, not to real murder or child abuse, but to the hypothetical, and to her unthinkable, atrocity of burning or playing at drowning one of the childhood dolls.

I presume that Hugh’s reluctance to call this a ‘poem’ has to do with the raggedness of the free verse, and the seeming arbitrariness of most of the line endings. On those faults I'd agree with him. On balance I think they are compensated by the power of the imagery, the similes and the subject matter.

Ian



Post Edited (10-03-04 18:30)