THE ANALYSIS of THE VICTORY by ANNE STEVENSON

Arranged to fulfill the final assignment of lecture Poetry

Lecturer : Rini Susanti Wulandari

By :

Khairani Dian Anisa

2201413025

407-408

SEMARANG STATE UNIVERSITY

2015
 The Victory

Anne Stevenson

I thought you were my victory

though you cut me like a knife

when I brought you out of my body

into your life.

Tiny antagonist, gory,

blue as a bruise. The stains

of your cloud of glory

bled from my veins.

How can you dare, blind thing,

blank insect eyes?

You barb the air. You sting

with bladed cries.

Snail! Scary knots of desires!

Hungry snarl! Small son.

Why do I have to love you?

How have you won?

1. Connotation and denotation in the poem :
Connotations :
Victory : Victory here means something that the writer proud of. In this poem,
the victory is the writer’s child. The writer is a mother. At first, she considered
that her child was her victory because she was proud of her child, but then she
changed her mind.

Cut me like a knife : It means that the child did something that made the
writer’s heart got hurt.

Brought you out of my body : It means that the writer gave birth to her child.
From this line we could conclude that the writer is a mother.

Tiny antagonist : It suggests the process of how the writer was born her child.
She has to push this little creature hard to come out and see the world.

The stains of your cloud of glory : It means that the child inherited some things
from his mother.

Blind thing : It means that the writer considered that her child was something
that couldn’t do anything. This connotation has the same meaning with “blank
insect eyes”.

You sting with bladed cries : It means that when the child cried his voice was
so loud and he cried whenever he wanted to cry, so his crying bothered his
mother and it was unpleasant thing for her. This meaning is same with “you
barb the air”.

Snail : It means something slow, disgusting, and slimy. The writer considered
her child like snail.
 Hungry snarl : It means that when her child was hungry, he told his mother by
crying. His crying was something annoying for his mother.

Won : It means that no matter what her child has done, she always loves him.

Denotation :

Thought : to believe something or have an opinion or idea

Gory : involving violence and blood

2. Imagery :
Thought : mental picture
Cut : visual imagery and kinesthetic imagery
Knife : visual imagery
Brought out : visual imagery and kinesthetic imagery
Body : visual imagery
Tiny : visual imagery
Antagonist : organic imagery
Gory : visual imagery
Blue : visual imagery
Bruise : visual imagery
The stains: visual imagery
Bled : visual imagery
Dare : organic imagery
Blind : visual imagery
Insect eyes : visual imagery
Sting : visual imagery and kinesthetic imagery
Cries : visual imagery, auditory imagery and kinesthetic imagery
Snail : visual imagery
Scary : organic imagery
 Knots : visual imagery
Desires: oraganic imagery
Hungry: organic imagery
Snarl : visual imagery and auditory imagery
Small son : visual imagery
Love : organic imagery

3. Figurative Language
I thought you were my victory : metaphor
This poem was written by a mother. She had a child that she used to think that
her child was something that she was proud of. However, her child did
something bad that changed her mind about him.

Cut me like a knife : simile

It suggests that her child had done something bad to her that it made her heart
got hurt as if she were gotten hurt with a knife.

Tiny antagonist : metaphor

It is in the second stanza. In this stanza, the writer described about the process
of being born her baby. Being born is not a piece of cake, it described how she
pushed hard her baby who seemed did not want to see the world.

Blue as a bruise : simile

It suggests that the writer did a huge effort to be born her child. She felt terrible
pain when she was born her child.

The stains of your cloud of glory bled from my veins : metaphor

It means that her child inherited some things from her. Those things could be
something good or bad, yet the writter just mentioned the good one.
Blind thing : metaphor
The writter considered her child as something that couldn’t do anything/a weak
thing as if he were a blind man. This phrase has the same meaning with blank
insect eyes.

You sting with bladed cries : metaphor

It means that when the child was crying, he cried so loud that probably
bothered his mother. It suggests that his mother did not like to hear his child’s
crying.

Snail : metaphor
It suggests that the writter compared her child with a snail, which is slow and
slimy.
4. Musical Devices

I thought you were my victory

though you cut me like a knife

when I brought you out of my body

into your life.

Tiny antagonist, gory,

blue as a bruise. The stains

of your cloud of glory

bled from my veins.

How can you dare, blind thing,

blank insect eyes?

You barb the air. You sting

with bladed cries.

Snail! Scary knots of desires!

Hungry snarl! Small son.

Why do I have to love you?

How have you won?

Notes :
Alliteration : orange
Assonance : dark green
Consonance : yellow
Combination of alliteration and assonance : blue (shading)
Combination of alliteration and consonance : pink (shading)
Rhyme :

I thought you were my victory

though you cut me like a knife

when I brought you out of my body

into your life.

Tiny antagonist, gory,

blue as a bruise. The stains

of your cloud of glory

bled from my veins.

How can you dare, blind thing,

blank insect eyes?

You barb the air. You sting

with bladed cries.

Snail! Scary knots of desires!

Hungry snarl! Small son.

Why do I have to love you?

How have you won?

Notes :
Masculine Rhyme : purple (shading)
Feminine Rhyme : brown (shading)
Approximate Rhyme : grey (shading)
Internal Rhyme : light green (shading)
End Rhyme : red (shading)
5. Rhythm and Meter

I thought you were my vic tor y iambic trimeter

though you cut me like a knife trochaic trimeter

when I brought you out of my bo dy trochaic pentameter

in to your life. trochaic dimeter

Ti ny an tag o nist, gor y, dactylic trimeter

blue as a bruise. The stains iambic trimeter

of your cloud of glor y anapestic iambic dimeter

bled from my veins. trochaic dimeter

How can you dare, blind thing, trochaic trimeter

blank in sect eyes? dactylic monometer

You barb the air. You sting iambic trimeter

with bladed cries. iambic monometer

Snail! Sca ry knots of desires! iambic dimeter

Hun gry snarl! Small son. iambic trochaic dimeter

Why do I have to love you? trochaic trimeter

How have you won? trochaic dimeter

6. Tone and meaning
The tone of this poem is angry or disappointed. In this poem, we can
find some words that describe the writer’s feeling toward her child, like the
first line and the second line of this poem. They show that her expectation of
her child was very different with the reality. Another example is the third
stanza that shows the writer was annoyed with her child’s behavior. In this
poem, the writer also used animals to descibe her child, like insect and snail. It
shows how angry she was with her child. However, in the last two lines of this
poem the writer told us that she loved her child no matter what her child had
done.
This poem is one of my favorites because it tells about a mother’s love
to her child. In the first stanza, we may know that the writer was a mother by
reading the third and the fourth line. In the first stanza, it seems that the writer
put a big expectation to her child. She considered that her child would be
something that she was proud of. The second stanza described about the
process of being born her child. “Tiny antagonist, gory, blue as a bruise”
describes how she did huge effort to be born her child. “The stains of your
cloud of glory bled from my veins” suggests that some things was inherited
from the writer to her child. Physically, stain could be interpreted as the
placenta that connect a foetus with its mother.
The third stanza describes that the writer drew an analogy between her
child and insect. It is interesting for me to read the first and the second line of
this stanza. It suggests that the writer considered her child like something blind
that needed help to do anything. Otherwise, these two lines suggest that her
child could see everything even when he was a foetus. He demanded many
things although it couldn’t see the world yet. The two last lines in the third
stanza describe how her child annoyed her. He annoyed her mother by crying
so loud whenever he wanted something or felt something. The last stanza is so
interesting. The first stanza describes how the writer compared her child with
snail, which is slow, disgusting, and slimy. It shows that the writer seemed to
describe the characteristic of her child. In the second stanza, we find “hungry
snarl”, snarl is often associated with dog. It shows that the writer did annoyed
with what her child has done. Nevertheless, the last two lines of this stanza
show that despite all those annoying behavior, she did loved her child. In
addition, it shows that she loved her child genuinely as her child gave her
nothing, not even thanks in return. It is such a touching poem that tell us how
huge our mother’s love for us.