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English 100

24 January 2020

What Has The World Love Become

The poem variations of love by Margaret Atwood released in the 1970s explores to find

the true meaning of the word love. The speaker in the poem attempts to find how the word love

has transitioned, how it is now being overused and starting to lose meaning. The word love being

portrayed in materialistic ways and overused within social context has decreased the strength of

the word and shows the versatility of it. The poem ends leaving thoughts of what is love, how do

we know what love feels like or what does loving something means. Atwood uses symbolism

and imagery to present the variations of love as she perceives them. Even though it is good to

love many things and many people, how has the strength of the word love decreased, and how

has the meaning of love changed.

Symbolism is such a large portion of Atwood's poem, allowing to replace the word love

with symbols the modern world portrays as love. Atwood uses symbolism in the first sentence,

describing love as a “word we use to plug holes with” (Atwood, lines 1-2). Atwood does not

mean literally plug holes, like stopping a tire from leaking but rather filling a void in a sentence

“where it is the right size for those warm blanks in speech” (Atwood, lines 2-3). Meaning when

we are talking to someone about something or someone we often use the word love because it is

the perfect size and warmth to fulfill these voids. This word is used in filling these voids to

express their emotions repetitively in all contexts has begun to decrease the strength of the word

love. Instead of it being special and only used to express true feelings, it is used in all contexts

losing the true meaning.

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Atwood uses many different ways to portray the variations of love and how it is utilized in

modern society. Atwood uses imagery to create a mental representation for the reader, using real-

life examples like “How do we know it isn't what goes on at the cool debaucheries of slugs under

damp pieces of cardboard” (Atwood, lines 13-16). Using imagery to paint the picture of what

‘love’ could be, with the slug being able to have emotions of ‘love’. Atwood then uses imagery

to compare ‘love’ being “a finger grip on a cliffside. You can hold on or let go” (Atwood, lines

36-37). Atwood uses this comparison to give the effect that love can make someone feel one of

two ways, letting go as to move on from your ‘love’ or to hold onto your ‘love’. This imagery

delivers a powerful message with the modern usage of ‘love’ being overused, relating to more

and more people letting go and restarting instead of fighting and holding on.

Atwood expresses what has happened to the word ‘love’, and how “this word is far too

short for us” (Atwood, lines 22-23). That the word ‘loves’ meaning and strength has begun to

deteriorate in time by humanity using it to “plug holes” and fulfill people's emptiness with this 4

lettered word. Atwood used different literary devices such as symbolism and imagery to connect

the reader with the poem. Using these connections to bring the reader to the attention that the

word ‘love’ has changed, and stating the confusion that comes with this change. This is why

Atwood thought it was important to discuss the word ‘love’ because it used to be such a strong,

meaningful word and now it is used to fill voids or empty spaces in speech. The poem variations

of love relates deeply to the modern world because we often use ‘love’ in the context of an item

more than to the people we love.

Works Cited
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Atwood, Margaret. “Variatons On The Word Love.” 1981.