The next stanza makes the impact of this primordial scene clearer. She says ‘’this could be where we end up’’ and says that we could end up like our ancient ancestors. The rest of the stanza creates a very austere and depressing image of how humankind may end up- Without trees or rain, without shelter or animals for food. She says that language, will only consist of 2 words ‘’hunger’ and ‘none’ as humans will be struggling to live and their will be no food left for us.
Why do we end up like this? This is answered in the next stanza where she says ‘there is too much dust in the stratosphere’. The bleak future is going to be a result of our own actions. We humans are continuously destroying nature, unknowingly causing our own death.
She warns us of the troubled times ahead through the next stanza, the warning is very subtle, not harsh. She says that ‘’here comes something, we can all feel it’’ showing that we know something is coming but are not worried about our future. 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 gone too far and’ no further’’ will we go. She is pleading to us to stop destroying the environment and wake up realise what’s happened and what may happen if we continue like this.
Very simply Margaret Atwood Is describing a barbeque with her family on holiday but profoundly the poem is about our survival on the planet. I think that she has very suavely put forward her message to us. We humans are selfish and only care about ourselves forgetting the consequences of our actions. We have used our superiority to exploit nature and in the end it will destroy us as well. Everyday millions of trees are cut down, rivers polluted at the hands of us yet nothing is done to stop it. There have been so many stories like this poem telling us how our future might not be what we expect it to be yet, no one has responded to them and we continue to kill animals, waste resources as if we own them and drastically cut down large amounts of trees. It is already been said that in a years time there will be no oil left for us as we would have used it all up. Global warming is solely our fault. The increased use of CFC’s in air conditioners, refrigerators, deodorants and other electrical appliances has increased the earth’s temperature greatly and caused many holes in the ozone layer. Animals are killed in plentiful and now we have large amounts of endangered species. Soon as she says there will be no animals left for us to feed on, no trees or water.
With so many factors against us there is no chance of survival for humankind on this planet.
Margaret Atwood conveys her story very subtly warning us of what we may become and urges us to stop what we are doing and sit up and take notice of how it will affect us in the long term.