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Kim Cheng The City Planners Analysis

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“The Planners” and “The City Planners” both deal with the negative impact of progress in society due to the relentless pursuit for perfection. In “The City Planners”, Atwood focuses on the impact that planners are having on nature in their quest for perfection. Whereas, in “The Planners”, Kim Cheng takes a different approach, focusing mainly on the history and culture that is lost with the overdevelopment of the city. In “The Planners”, Kim Cheng expresses his frustration with the planners’ power and desire to develop until their vision of perfection is achieved. This is conveyed in the first line of the poem “They plan. They build.”. The poet repeatedly uses the plural pronoun “they” to separate the powerful and powerless in the poem. The …show more content…

They “build and will not stop”. This shows that the planners do not see history as a valuable addition to society or see the individuality it brings to a place. The extended dentist metaphor “all gaps are plugged with gleaming gold” portrays the planners’ idea of beauty, the “gleaming gold” being a conventional yet soulless vision of beauty. It is said that the planners “erase the flaws, the blemishes of the past”. The poet criticises the planners’ attempt to rewrite history and mentions the destruction of the past in this process. The planners disregard the past as they build until “history is new again” without caring about what is lost. In “The City Planners”, Atwood is angered by the city’s deprivation of individuality. The poet’s feelings about the city are introduced at the start of the poem with the line “what offends us”. This conveys Atwood’s view on the progression that is occurring within the city. She uses the plural pronoun “us” to show the separation between the people living in the suburbs and the planners. Atwood also uses the word “us” as a rhetorical device which associates the reader with her opinion, in an effort to persuade them to recognise the point she is stating and agree with

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