Summer Injustice Sharon Olds Analysis

"The longest day of the year" is when a man reached his braking point (26). This man looking down from the roof of a building, standing on the "parapet", able to see all the people rushing round the city (27). In the poem "Summer Solstice" by Sharon Olds the narrator is standing in the distance watching a man attempt to commit suicide. While the police try to stop him form ending his life. Suicide is an issue that is plaguing our society. Many people see suicide as a way to get away from their problems. A superficial reader of the poem "Summer Solstice" by Sharon Olds, might assume the poem is about a man ready to commit suicide, but actually the poem represents the end of one life emerging into a new beginning.

The readers of the poem do not know why the man is going to commit suicide, but he wants his life to end. People that try commit suicide often assume that the world has turned its back on them. This poem is contrary to this assumption by saying " the huge machinery of the

For the man nothing changed until " they all lit cigarettes" (27). At that moment the man's old life, the life that caused so much grief to him, ended. He was able to see that just committing suicide is not the answer. In that moment he is not different than any of the people on that roof. A new beginning for the man. Many people that attempt to commit suicide are not able to experience the moment of the man's rebirth on the roof. If more could see that they are not alone, like the man in the poem did, then this could impede the number of people that commit suicide. The solidarity of all the people on the roof is captured with the author's description of the way the cigarette buds look like "the tiny campfires we lit at the beginning of the world" (27). The acceptance for the man is able to give him this new beginning. A beginning in which he is not alone but surrounded by