1. the city planners, margaret atwood

• 'cruising' these residential sunday streets in dry august sunlight:

  cruising = relaxed, at ease

  • this contradicts the semantic field of insanity evinced later in the poem

  irony

  • you can't cruise through this suburb, the reader will discover: it's frosty and inhospitable
• what offends us is the sanities

  juxtaposition of semantic fields: vexation and logic

  - speaker is not unsettled by mere chaos/disorder; but rather the very qualities associated with order, reason and rationality

  this creates a sense of irony: implying the speaker sees the strict conformity and uniformity of the suburban environment as oppressive/asphyxiating
• the houses in pedantic rows, the planted sanitary trees

  stresses the suburban environment encroaches on speaker's personal freedom: frightened of the bourgeoisie

  no sense of community: town fails to foster individuality/diversity of thought

  pedantic rows/ planted sanitary trees

  plosive ps: reflect plasticisation of nature, which is supposed to be free-flowing
• assert levelness of surface like a rebuke to the

  dent in our car

  door

  assert levelness of surface

  • again, the suburb infringes on freedom of expression with forceful equality
  • too equal; perfection to a fault

  like a rebuke to the dent in our car door

  • even the smallest mistakes require correction; speaker requires correction
  • speaker and her family are at odds with the town's prevailing order

  dent... door...

  • dental d's are inhospitable
• no shouting here, or shatter of glass;

  further emphasises the controlled, subdued atmosphere of the suburban neighbourhood
• nothing more abrupt than the rational whine of a power mower cutting a straight swath

  rational whine

  • personification of mower evinces that it is inimical to the lifestyle it's forced into
  • however, it is fundamentally brought into alignment with its sterile environment

  straight swath:

  • almost eerily equal/symmetrical
• shatter of glass / cutting a straight swath

  semantic field of injury

  • veiled threat: if one doesn't comply, one is punished
  • abuse/violence theme hangs in the air latently
• splash of paint on brick (surprising as a bruise)

  pressing hard consonant sounds together in a cacophonous jingle:

  harsh, vicious sonic texture to describe bruising

  life's messy edges can be sanded away
• display the same slant of avoidance to the hot sky

  slant of avoidance is protest against 'perfect', docile, planted, sanitary nature of suburb

  leisureliness is abjured (renounced)

  town is in opposition to natural will
• on brick surprising as a bruise

  simile: implies imperfection deserves punishment

  blemish on the house spoils its homogeneity
• the driveways neatly sidestep hysteria

  accentuates how mania is flecked within the suburb's uniform design
• a plastic hose poised in a vicious coil

  biblical allusion to serpent in garden of eden:

  planners attempted to manufacture an eden

  snake alludes to the power of the devil

  planners attempted eden, but enforced a hell
• too-fixed stare of the wide windows

  perpetually watching/judging/observing/threatening
• when the houses, capsized, will slide... into the clay seas

  capsized:

  imposing structures are revealed to be fundamentally feeble
• the houses... will slide obliquely into the clay seas

  oblique: off-centre

  reflects the facade fading as weakness of planners' structure is revealed

  slantedness antithetical to previous emphasised straightness
• insane faces of political conspirators... tracing the panic of suburb order

  semantic field of mania

  planners inherently unfit for their jobs

  motivated by insecurity + lust for control, NOT symbols of poise: characterised by hubris and arrogance
• faces of political conspirators are scattered over unsurveyed territories

  ironic humour

  even in this hypothetical future, the planners still seek out development opportunities
• tracing the panic of suburb order in a bland madness of snows

  bland' madness — oxymoron

  • bland semantic field: flat, vanillamadness semantic field: chaos, disorder
  • this stresses the futility of the planners' existence + projects

  snows:

  • plain, empty: the result of the maniacal nature of the planners
• what does the rhythm/ rhyme scheme prove

  no rhythm or rhyme scheme

  this reflects how the planners' attempts to impose order are always superseded by the power of natural disorder

  poetic reflection of nature's characteristic, beautiful disorder + by extension, a reflection of the planners' pitiful failures
• what does the form prove

  poem written in dissonant free verse without regular pattern (enjambment present)

  draws attention to the unpredictability of nature, in contrast with the stiflingly rigid gridded nature of the suburb:
• what does the structure prove

  consists of 7 stanzas of varying lengths: last stanza is the shortest

  this reflects the chaotic, disjointed nature of the suburban environment the author critiques

  • eventually, this will all disintegrate into the 'clay seas' and fizzle out into nothingness
• contextual info

  margaret atwood's father was an entomologist, which gave her a deep appreciation for nature

  poem was in response to the increase in standardised neighbourhoods throughout the 20th century

  atwood critiques these by suggesting that man-made structures are fragile and not planned thoroughly enough to withstand nature's force
• summary of poem

  gridded, orderly blueprints of the town are designed by a sinister cabal of planners

  
  

  the built environment is superficially perfect, but inimical to warmth and community feeling

  
  

  towards the end, a time-skip shifts the reader forward to an apocalyptic future where the ice age returns — yet the planners still pursue their mad quest for control
• example summary quotes

  'panic of suburb order'/ 'houses in pedantic rows' / 'the planted sanitary trees'/ 'slant of avoidance