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Comment on how the passage illustrates the theme of power and powerlessness
Throughout the passage, Atwood uses the motif of water and ocean to represent the power dynamic of the world she has built. The ones who hold the power, Telemachus, Odysseus, the Gods, all use water as a medium to enact their will. Telemachus’ birth was not just a birth, it was a “nine-month voyage” to be celebrated, as was the great tale of Odysseus who travelled the many seas with great feats. At the same time, Atwood uses the metaphor of water to show how helpless those without power can be. The same power of the ocean just spat the maid out, “beached at the same time he was”. They were simply spat out, discarded and sub-human, with words such as spawned and appeared describing their inherent inhumanity.
Atwood also uses a combination of anaphora and juxtaposition to directly compare Telemachus and the maids. ”Infants when he was an infant, wailing just as he wailed,” a repetition of the same words to emphasise the point that they apply to directly both the maids and Telemachus. At the same time, the enjambment of lines such as “wailing just” and “as he wailed” makes the reading more uncomfortable, expressing the idea that though they are identical in almost every way, the wail of a prince is still not equal to the wail of a servant girl.
Atwood uses this mechanism to comment on an important aspect of our modern society: all children are born the same and equal, but it is society’s ideals that create imbalance. The environment around Telemachus, not Telemachus himself, is what caused his wail to be any different from the others, and when he grows up being told he is entitled to a kingdom and the lives of those within it, he thus believes so, evident by Penelope’s description in Chapter 15, that “[Telemachus] was starting to look at [her] in an odd way, holding [her] responsible for the fact that his inheritance was being literally gobbled up.”
The excessive use of pronouns in this passage also creates the effect of dehumanising everyone involved. The maids, as always are referred to as a collective, but Telemachus is also never referred to by name, rather as a mysterious “he”. This lack of definitive character portrays Telemachus as someone who is much more sinister than otherwise, an amalgamation and representation of the power imbalance in their world, causing him to be the antagonist in this poem. The repetitive use of short quick phrases and many verbs also gives the reader a sense that the maids are objects built for doing things with, further commenting on the humanity of this conglomeration of broken, unwanted children.