Boland

Boland addresses issues facing women that have, by tradition, ignored their troubles. Still dealing with the poem, The Shadow Doll, Boland relates the poem about herself, using the pronoun “I” to make the poem sound more immediate and direct. She wonders if she is becoming the lifeless shadow doll trapped under a dome of glass, “never feeling satin rise and fall with vows.” I think this is a excellent image, where it hints numbness and the entrapment of marriage has on Boland once she makes her vows. “The Famine Road” also illustrates images of Eavan’s struggles, bringing both a public issue and privet issue together. In this poem, a daring juxtaposition is made between, the poet’s predicament, infertility and, the Blight of the famine. Both the Irish and the woman are dismissed. The woman’s life can be deemed as “going nowhere” just like the Irish building the famine road. There is not one day in our world, that goes by, without the loss of another child or helpless victim to the senseless and irrational violence. Iraq is a primary example of today but back then it was the Northern violence. Often these violent acts are dealt with vehement speaking and songs, condemning the violence. Yet Boland takes a new approach, expressing herself in a quiet way, as if it was a lullaby in “Child of our Time”. She employs images of language to convey her message of a keen sense of loss. She tells, “tales to distract, ledgends to protect/ Later an idiom for you to keep”. She wants to give way to a new way of communicating, resulting from this death. The image of language, of speech, takes further urgency to call all for this new way of communication. in the final stanza. “Find for your sake whose life our idle talk has cost, a new language.” There is broad range of striking, vivid images to be found in all