"The Victims" by Sharon Olds

Sharon Olds was born on November 19, 1942 in San Francisco. She has won many prizes, including the Pulitzer Prize in 2013.

When Mother divorced you, we were glad. She took it and
took it in silence, all those years and then
kicked you out, suddenly, and her
kids loved it. Then you were fired, and we
grinned inside, the way people grinned when
Nixon's helicopter lifted off the South
Lawn for the last time. We were tickled
to think of your office taken away,
your secretaries taken away,
your lunches with three double bourbons,
your pencils, your reams of paper. Would they take your
suits back, too, those dark
carcasses hung in your closet, and the black
noses of your shoes with their large pores?
She had taught us to take it, to hate you and take it
until we pricked with her for your
annihilation, Father. Now I
pass the bums in doorways, the white
slugs of their bodies gleaming through slits in their
suits of compressed silt, the stained
flippers of their hands, the underwater
fire of their eyes, ships gone down with the
lanterns lit, and I wonder who took it and
took it from them in silence until they had
given it all away and had nothing
left but this.

"The Victims" by Sharon Olds is talking about a bad divorce (where the dad was a bad person) from the child's point of view a few years later. While looking back, the speaker reflects on the moment the mother kicked out her father and how all the kids were happy about it. They found happiness in the father's misery, which makes the audience believe that he was not a good person. She gets a little carried away with listing all the things the father lost, but she is finally coming to the conclusion that he got what he deserved. More than half way down, the speaker refers to her dad by calling him "Father" instead of "you". She starts thinking of all the "bums" she sees and how they were probably in the same situation as her dad. She can relate to how they got to where they are now, unlike most of us who just look at the people on the street and judge them. The audience and speaker's thoughts change from thinking the mother and children were the victims to maybe the father being the victim. This is especially relevant when the speaker reveals that her mother had "taught" her children to hate him and resent him.

There is alliteration, sibilance, and enjambment in "The Victims". All these tools add to the reader's understanding of the poem. It puts emphasis on certain parts of the poem, and it adds more rhythm to the poem as a whole. Especially in the part where she starts talking about the bums, all the "s's" catch our attention. We are able to realize her change of opinion.