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An Analysis Of Margaret Atwood's Variations On The Word Sleep

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Who in this mortal world does not fear death? May it be one’s own death or the death of their loved one, this subject invokes a certain heaviness in one’s heart. In most cases, the latter is something much more excruciating to the human soul, since losing someone lets one feel it in life, whereas one feels nothing at all after death. This situation is prevalent in “Variations on the Word Sleep”, a poem by Margaret Atwood. In this poem, the speaker craves to be with the audience even in their sleep and is willing to go through lengths to do so, such as bringing them back to life. Here, Atwood uses symbolism and the speaker’s desperation to convey that the hardships of losing a loved one to death. In “Variations on the Word Sleep”, the structure and grammar of the poem is askew. For example, for a few times, phrases are repeated with a punctuation added, or there is a punctuation missing. The first example is seen when it says, “I would like to watch you sleeping” (Atwood 1-2), and it contrasts the line, “I would like to watch you, / sleeping” (3-4). It is the same set of words, but the insertion of the comma changes the meaning of the sentence. In the first, it means that the speaker simply wishes to watch the other person sleeping, while in the second, the speaker is actually sleeping as they watch the other. This shows that they wish to join the other in slumber, wishing to not be away with the other since they are willing to join the other even when they are not awake.

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