The_Victims

The Victims In The Victims, by Sharon Olds, the author reveals the dark side of a society where divorce is prevalent, some family members find it hard to cope with. In the first half of “The Victims”, it sounds like a young child is telling the experience regarding her parents’ divorce. The speaker expresses anger toward the father. “When mother divorced you, we were glad.” (Line 1) The “we” is probably several children and their mother. It appears they all experienced an unpleasant life with their father. The mother “took it and took it, in silence” (Lines 1 and 2) and the children were also told to endure the abuse. What was it that the mother had to take' From the reading it appears there was some type of abuse. The abuse could have been physical but was most likely verbal and then again it could have been total silence. The father could have been a workaholic and never spent any time with them. This type of neglect really hurts as there is no togetherness or closeness. The bitterness toward the father was cold, so much so, that when he was fired, “we grinned inside.” (Lines 4 and 5) The speaker wanted speaker, father, mother, poem, silence, away, years, wanted, victims, type, took, tense, telling, take, suits, sharon, olds, maybe, line, feeling, been, abuse, toward, time, taken, several, really, present, nothing, nixon’s, lines, life, hurt, hard, half, first