Blog #7: The Victims

     In Sharon Olds's "The Victims," there seems to be a historical reference. The author uses the terms "Mother" and "Father" to exemplify a country, and the "divorce" is the country splitting up. The speaker of the poem is a group of people, presumably the citizens of the country. The conflict between the mother and the father caused the citizens to develop animosity towards the father: "Then you were fired, and we grinned inside, the way people grinned when Nixon's helicopter lifted off of South Lawn for the last time" (Olds). The reference to president Nixon shows that there is a historical theme to the poem. Nixon was going to be impeached and in the poem the speaker says, "We were tickled to think of your office taken away..." (Olds). The majority of the public wanted Nixon to leave office, so this aspect of the poem also has historical relevance.