Love Me Not Blog Post #2

Getting Out by Cleopatra Mathis

SIMILE: a figure of speech that makes an explicit comparison between two unlike things, using words such as like, as, than, or resembles
3. Should inmates be interpreted as imprisonment or confinement to a mental hospital? Explain your choice.
4. Explain the shift in tone from line 14 to line 15. What emotions do these people feel for each other now? How do you know?

 This poem is basically about a man and a woman going through a divorce and finally separating. I know they are going through a divorce because in line 20, there is thought of "the lawyer's bewilderment when he cried, the last day" (Mathis 896). This poem about divorce is very sad and depressing to me. There is a simile in the very first line, "That year we hardly slept, walking like inmates who beat the walls" (Mathis 896). I take this as confinement in a mental hospital because the both of them are banging on the walls. Also, as cliche as it sounds, love does make you crazy. Neither one of them wants to give in to the other, so slowly they are turning into people they never thought they could be. The tone shift from line 14 to 15 is kind of like the both of them forgiving the other in a weird way. In line 14, they are "heaving words like furniture" (Mathis 896). This means that they are fighting and saying cruel things back and forth at each other. Then, in line 15, the "last unshredded picture" (Mathis 896) eludes to the fact that there is still that connection the both of them have with each other. Yes, they did split up and now live on different sides of the world, but they still will always have that time together and the memories and lessons they learned while being with each other.