‘You Fit Into Me’ is a short, four-line poem that was published in Atwood’s collection Power Politics in 1971. The poem discusses themes of love, pain, and danger of relationships.
Summary
The first lines of ‘You Fit Into Me’ speak on a connection between two lovers. The next, twist that connection so that it becomes painful.
Read the full poem here.
Structure and Poetic Techniques
‘You Fit Into Me’ by Margaret Atwood is a four-line poem that’s separated into two sets of two lines. These lines do not have a rhyme scheme, but they are unified by their lack of punctuation and capitalization. There are a few poetic techniques a close reader might notice. These include repetition, simile and juxtaposition.
Juxtaposition occurs when two contrasting things are placed near one another in order to emphasize that contrast. A poet usually does this in order to emphasize a larger theme of their text or make an important point about the differences between these two things. It is responsible for much of the poem’s impact. Within the piece, Atwood discusses love and its pains and complications. These things are represented in the imagery she utilizes. The theme of love is juxtaposed with the image of a hook in one’s eye and the pain of that experience.
Atwood also makes use of repetition in ‘You Fit Into Me’. It is the use and reuse of a specific technique, word, tone or phrase within a poem. The word “eye” appears at the end of lines two and three, a technique known as epistrophe. Additionally, there are multiple occurrences of words like “into” and “hook” Normally this would not be noteworthy, but when a poem is this short, these moments stick out.
Analysis of You Fit Into Me
Stanza One
In the first two lines of ‘You Fit Into Me,’ the speaker makes a simple statement. She repeats the title in the first line and then uses a simile to speak on “your” ability to fit into “her”. The two people in this poem, the speaker and her lover, connect in an intimate way as if they were manufactured to be together. The “hook” and “eye,” in these lines at least, references a hook-and-eye closure.
Stanza Two
The next two lines of ‘You Fit Into Me’ contain a twist. Rather than a hook-and-eye closure, in these lines, the speaker is considering a sharp fish hook and “an open eye”. This connection is painful and detrimental. It shows the two sides of a relationship, or how a relationship might seem at first, and what it is like at the end.
