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Half Hanged Mary Poetry Analysis
Half-Hanged Mary by Margaret Atwood is a lengthy poem about a woman hanged for accusations of witchcraft. The piece gives the reader emotional insight to the life and thoughts of the woman who, by fault of a poorly tied knot, struggles and suffocates all night but lives into the following morning. The poem is structured by the hours, and as time progresses, Mary’s thoughts and perspective on God and mankind change drastically. The writing is rich, full of imagery, assonance, anaphora, simile, and metaphor.
The most interesting aspect of Atwood’s poem is the dynamic quality of the piece and the way she uses words to convey a wide array of feelings. The empathy she is able to invoke with colorful words and similes such as “the aimed word hit and go in like a soft bullet.” She paints a picture of an outsider, a woman who is frightened and confused. The first-person viewpoint of the poem makes it very intimate, and relatable despite the unusual circumstances. As the night goes on, the mood of the poem changes drastically as Mary begins to develop a new understanding of humanity and question her faith in God.
At 9pm the poem shifts to comments about the people who come to gander at the scene. The ones who hung her are described as “excited by their show of hate” and the ones who stare are at a “safe stance pointing a finger.” Her resentment for the people of the village grows as we learn that the society was unstable and being associated with an outsider could cost one’s reputation. She reflects on the kindness she has done each of the spectators, and how they dare not reciprocate for fear. It says a lot about the effect of fear and societal pressure on people.
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At 10pm and midnight she is suffering immensely. She describes the urge to give in and let death take her. The author uses anaphora in the last stanza of the midnight verse by repeating the phrase “to give up.” She personifies death as a crow, a dark angel, and a judge, urging her to let go of life. She is in so much pain that she turns on God and accuses the divine of being a “blank sky.” Her feelings of betrayal, exhaustion and her struggle to hold on to her sanity and her life are powerful in these verses. She interprets prayer as desperation rather than thanksgiving or the voicing of petty desires. After knowing such immense pain, nothing will be the same.
Mary gains a strength during the 3am and 6am verses where she decides that she will not give in to death because she is being hung for a crime she did not commit. She feels her survival is true justice. She feels she has aged overnight because the experience has been so intense that her heart has been “bleached out like meat in water.” By comparing her heart to a piece of meat she is devaluing herself, which is what she has come to do after the long night. She no longer feels human. Later, at 8am when the townsfolk cut her down she fully reveals her transformation by baring her teeth in a “filthy grin.” She can no longer relate to anyone except a God she does not believe in. Her heart has hardened and she has no trust for anyone but herself. She is alone in the world and Atwood’s words convey this feeling very clearly.
At the end of the poem, as she walks home, there is also a sense of freedom. Mary is free from societal constrictions and danger. She is safe from the rope and therefore safe to say what she wants, eat what she wants, dress how she wants, and she revels in this newfound freedom. She refers to the experience as her “first death” and has changed immeasurably since the beginning of the poem. Her change is illustrated creatively and realistically, and it is so well-written it evokes empathy. This thought-provoking poem uses many literary devices and is structured in a way that is similar to life, which makes it very effective in conveying emotions and reaching readers on an intimate level.
