In My Ex-Husband the wife is speaking to a new lover. In the poem she tells
how her ex husband was too good to be true. She seems tos still have feelings toward him.
The tone in the poem switches from almost admiration to complete disgust "He had an attitude-how should i put it-smooth self satisfied, too good for the rest of the word."
Something you catch from reading this poem is that he was unfaithful "and he flirted fine, but flirted somehow a little too ardently"
She insults him throughout but also herself when she says "Who wold lower herself to put up with that shit". It appears through the poem that she is almost trying to talk herself into keeping the feelings she has for him.
Toward the end of the poem the tone switches again. After telling us she "made some calls and filed some claims. All kisses stopped together" she becomes more care free exclaiming "Shall we go? I'm in mood for Chez Pierre's, perhaps tonight." But in the last few lines of the poem she again brings up her ex husband.
I really liked how you addressed the tone of the poem. While the majority of the piece is sarcastic and bitter, various lines suggest the speaker's sort of longing and admiration for her ex-husband. Nearing the end of her bitter rant, the woman says, "Oh, no doubt, it always made my limbs go woozy when he kissed me...", hinting to the speaker's inability to move-on from her former relationship. Through these conflicts of tone, we are able to pinpoint the chief paradox of the poem; that the speaker is both in disgust and infatuation with the man who cheated on her.
ReplyDelete