The City Planners By Margaret Atwood Flashcards
Form
Stanzas in decreasing length (mirrors the rigidity/ planned nature of the suburb
The decrease connotes the gradual collaps of both the government and the environment
Spiraling of insanity
Tone
Critical
Disappointed
Message
Critic of humans trying to impose order on nature and destroying the environment
Critical of the rigidity of the suburbs and how it mirrors the lack of uniqueness of society trying to make everyone uniform
Lexical fields
Rigidity and madness - contrast which reflects the element of madness to all the uniformity
‘Cruising these residential Sunday
Streets in dry August sunlight:
What offends us is
The sanities:’
Begins very calm and serene
SIBILANCE: mirrors the hissing of the offence - hints at the critique further on and contrasts the calmness
Minor tonal change: from calm to worry and anger
‘The houses in pedantic rows, the planted
Sanitary trees, assert
Levelness of surface like a rebuke
To the dent in our car door.’
“Pedantic” insinuates a mad rigidity - obeying the rules
“Sanitary” has a clinical artificial cleaness to it - nature has lost it’s uniqueness and personality - humans trying to control it and turn it uniform but are really destroying it.
“Assert” imposing uniformity and rigidity - nature shouldn’t be controlled and imposed on - natural state is messy
“Rebuke” mean and hostile - we are being told off for not obeying the uniformity (creates pressure to be perfect)
“No shouting here, or
Shatter of glass; nothing more abrupt
Than the rational whine of a power mower
Cutting a straight swatch in the discouraged grass.”
“Shouting, shatter, dent” words that defy uniformity - frowned upon and rebuked
PERSONIFICATION OF THE POWER MOWER: (cant whine) even the noise if controlled and is only acceptable because it supports the neatness of the grass
“Discouraged grass” PERSONIFICATION: sign of defiance, the grass doesnt want to be controlled, it is always controlled and discouraged to grow (oppressive)
“But though the driveways neatly
Sidestep hysteria
By being even, the roofs all display
The same slant of avoidance to the hot sky
Certain things:”
“Sidestep hysteria” there is a slight madness in the perfection - yet the perfection is all in order to avoid the insanity (pressure for perfection)
“The smell of spilt oil a faint
Sickness lingering in the garages,
A splash of paint on a brick surprising as a bruise,
A plastic hose poised in a vicious
Coil; even the too fixed stare of the wide windows”
Mundane, innocent things that have imperfections are made sinister - their messiness is considered a sickness and poison
METAPHOR of the plastic hose - represents artificial values -there is a sinister and ‘vicious’ nature of the rigidity of artificial values placed by society (like the hose) - discourages uniqueness
“Too fixed stae” PERSONAIFICATION: always being observed and pressured to be perfect and uniform (sinister)
“Give momentary access to
The landscape behind or under
The future cracks in the plaster”
The windows show an apocalyptic future of the climate crisis that is caused by the human need to control nature and create uniformity
“Behind or under” suggests it is hidden - no one is realizing the real issue at hand
“Future cracks in the plaster” the problems we are creating in the artificial control of the environment - nature will always react to an attempt at oppression
“When the houses, capsized, will slide
Obliquely into the clay seas, gradual as glaciers
That right now nobody notices.”
“Slide” spiral into caos
“Glaciers” nod to the climate crisis that causes glaciers to melt and disappear - a judgement of the inaction by the government
“Nobody notices” ciritcising the negligance and ignorance people have towards the decay of the environment
METAPHOR: the houses capsizing represent the decay of the environment and the failure of government policies.
“That is where the city planners
With the insane faces of political conspirators
Are scattered over unsurveyed
Territories, concealed from each other,
Each in his own private blizzard;”
First line mention of the title brings attention - generates guilt
Describes the city planners as dictatorial - creates an element of their hiding the truth from the public about what is happening to the envuronment
Words that suggest ignorance - shows that the government policies just dont want to see the problem and di what benefits them
“Private blizzard” metaphor: represents their ignorance to their issue - they only focus on what concerns them.
“Guessing directions, they sketch
Transitory lines rigid as wooden borders
On a wall in the white vanishing air”
“Transitory” “sketch” their order wont last long - their strive for perfections lacks organisation
The lines they impose wont last yet they try making it as rigid as possible - strive for uniformity snd rigidity which is reflected in how they structure suburbs - nature begins lacking uniqueness
The planners stand for inaction
“Tracing the panic of suburb
Order in a bland madness of snows.”
“Tracing” connotes softness - contrast to the rigidity and represents the lack of continuity to their rigid standards and actions - nature cannot be contained and put into a specific form
Panic madness : words of insanity - neatness
Contrast: snow and glaciers are words that oppose the august sunlight - coldness and evil element to the uniformity, lifelessness given to nature by making it clinicslly neat
