Commentary: Margaret Atwood’s They Eat Out Essay Example

The poem They Eat Out by Margaret Atwood transforms the somewhat mundane experience of dining out at a restaurant into a powerful and somewhat caustic message regarding gender roles. Atwood employs potent literary techniques such as enjambment, symbolism, and metaphorical references to highlight her vision of female strength and the illusion of male progressivism. Writing the poem from a first person perspective, Atwood effectively infuses her own voice as the work progresses from a simple literal description to a symbolic transfiguration.On a literal level, the poem presents a couple who often go out to eat and argue over potentially petty things. Yet, Atwood explicitly states that there is one prime issue: the issue over “whether or not I will make you immortal”. Atwood, embodying the overarching concept of the female, is dining with a man when t