Margaret Atwood 3

In class, we had read over the poem "Morning in the Burned House". The Harmartia that is expressed through this poem is the fact that people become too overwhelmed when they lose something.


people in our world today in most parts are obsessed over consuming many things. Money is the major problem. In our society, all we care about is to strive for success and happiness. In order to do that, we all live up to the American Dream. However, to achieve that american dream requires endless effort and arrogance. Yet many people tend to fall even with all the hard work put through all their life, and encounter this 'loss' (loss of time, life, and chances) which makes a lot of us to become overwhelmed and result as doing something stupid as suiciding.


It seems as though within this poem, Atwood is trying to say that being so caught up with the American Dream can only lead you into destruction. I personally think that within this poem, i was able to feel what the speaker was feeling throughout the poem. It seemed as though for me, that the speaker was realizing something after she had gone through the process of losing her family, house, and possessions. So the connection between how i took in this poem and the use of harmartia seemed to enhace the understanding of the message that Atwood was trying to present.