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Holiday by Margaret Atwood Essay examples

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Holiday by Margaret Atwood 'Holiday' by Margaret Atwood has a simple and familiar subject but the real meaning behind the simple story is hard hitting and in many ways it is a warning. She talks of a holiday and story shows how she is at a barbeque with her family in the countryside. However she interweaves a bleak image of our future within this straightforward story. It starts of with Atwood describing her daughter eating sausages. She uses the words ''barbarism'' and creates an image of '' burst meat dripping down her chin'' these words create a very primitive and uncivilized image. She describes them standing beneath a large leafed tree with nature as their only protection. This scene …show more content…

We humans are too placid. ''like a breath, a footstep'' shows that the danger is creeping up slowly and softly but is without doubt there. She uses a juxtaposition in the next line saying, ''with its calm eye of fire'' calm and fire are 2 opposites as fire is never meant to be calm. She says that ''fire'' or danger is coming but very peacefully. The calm 'nothing' carries with it an explosive danger, which we are ignorant to. She then comes back to present and describes the scene around her. She continues to depict her daughter eating and looking for berries. However the line ''grace plumps the berries, two or three hot and squashed in her fist'' seems to be a metaphor. I think that Atwood is saying simply that her daughter finds a Few dusty berries and then squashes them in her hand. However its profound meaning seems to be that grace or blessing from god has made the berries round and juicy, they slowly became dusty and now man destroys it so frivolously. It is a metaphor showing nature and how man treats it presently, without much care. She also says ''the blades of grass are still with us'', as she remembers that we still have grass and expresses gratitude. The last stanza is clearly a warning where she says that so far we have destroyed nature carelessly and for fun, but we have already

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