[lap] Cell 6x686h

Literary Analysis Paper: Tone This poem “Cell” by Margaret Atwood is a very intriguing and striking poem as it describes the naturalness of the cancer cell—how the cell lives the way it is ‘programmed’ to be—and compares it to us. This poem triggered many questions in my mind. The comparison between cancer cells and humans questions the ‘goodness’ of humans as what we are doing is similar to the cancer cell which we deem ‘evil.’ Furthermore, it also questions whether good or evil actually exists or is just a social construct to differentiate what we find favorable or unfavorable. The poem starts with the sentence ‘Now look objectively’ which indicates that from the beginning of this poem we should look at the cancer cell without the knowledge that these cells kill people to interfere with how you view it. . It allows us to see these monstrous cells through the eye of a scientist. These cells are not as something ‘evil’ but rather a creature that coexists with us. This sentence actually sets the mood and tone of the poem as it somehow removes the monster-quality of the cell, and breaks it down to something natural. The following lines of the poem described the cancer cell by comparing it to flowers, to tentacles, spines, gills—to nature in general. This kind of description seems to emphasize that the cancer cell is just another natural occurrence with its own beauty, just like every other part of nature. However, just because it is beautiful does not imply that it is not dangerous. Beauty, after all, can be deceptive. Although, the cell is something natural it is unnatural to us because the cancer cell being a creature that coexists with us is inside our body just like an alien. In the third stanza, however, there seems to be a turning point. From describing what a cancer cell looks and is like it jumps to describing how a cancer cell behaves like. The third stanza is especially insightful, from describing the cancer cell as a flower in the first stanza, a Martian in the second, it is now being described as money: ‘its spores scatter elsewhere, take root, like money.’ This comparison of the cancer cell to money seems to imply that money is something that take root in us. It becomes the priority of some people and somehow acts like a ‘cancer’ because instead of prioritizing the things that are important like family, friends, love, people become much more interested in their survival and money. In the fourth stanza,

it further describes the cancer cell as a creature with a voracious appetite: ‘To take more. To eat more. To replicate itself…forever.’ Aside from describing the cancer cell as such it also compares it to us. This seems to imply that the cell is not the enemy here it just does what it is programmed to do. It is just like us, something that wants to live and grow. Aside, from that the last stanza especially the last like also implies that we are also mindless, comionless organism oblivious to the harm we inflict to a larger body, whether the society or the planet. It also implies that humans are similar to cancer cells in a sense that we are very greedy and selfish creatures who put ourselves and our survival first. We are as presented as creatures mindlessly moving through life, consuming whatever we encounter, spreading and seeking everywhere material enrichment that we need to sustain our physical existence.